COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE, MONETARY INCENTIVE, AND AGGRESSION

Individuals with impaired cognitive abilities associated with frontal lobe function have recently been shown to manifest increased aggressio n. This study investigated the effect of contingent money to inhibit a ggression in these individuals. One hundred and forty males, aged 18-4 0, were ranked according to their performance on the Spatial Condition al Associative-Learning task. Forty-eight males (24 with scores in eac h of the upper and lower performance quartiles) participated in the fu ll study. Half of the subjects competed in a Taylor aggression task wh ere they received a monetary incentive for choosing lower shocks; the remainder competed without any monetary contingency. Aggression was de fined as shock intensity delivered to a sham opponent. Shock intensity significantly increased as a main effect of lower cognitive performan ce, absence of monetary incentive, and provocation. In addition, provo cation interacted significantly with test performance. Finally, indivi duals in the upper cognitive performance quartile showed significantly greater reductions of unprovoked aggression in response to monetary i ncentive. The results are discussed in terms of impairments in the abi lity to associate inhibitory influences in the formulation of behavior al strategies under aggressive conditions. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.