Data from: Perceiving the evil eye: investigating hostile interpretation of ambiguous facial emotional expression in violent and non-violent offenders

Research into the causal and perpetuating factors influencing aggression has partly focused on the general tendency of aggression-prone individuals to infer hostile intent in others, even in ambiguous circumstances. This is referred to as the 'hostile interpretation bias'. Whether this hostile interpretation bias also exists in basal information processing, such as perception of facial emotion, is not yet known, especially with respect to the perception of ambiguous expressions. In addition, little is known about how this potential bias in facial emotion perception is related to specific characteristics of aggression. In the present study, conducted in a penitentiary setting with detained male adults, we investigated if violent offenders (n = 71) show a stronger tendency to interpret ambiguous facial expressions on a computer task as angry rather than happy, compared to non-violent offenders (n = 14) and to a control group of healthy volunteers (n = 32). We also investigated if hostile perception of facial expressions is related to specific characteristics of aggression, such as proactive and reactive aggression. No clear statistical evidence was found that violent offenders perceived facial emotional expressions as more angry than non-violent offenders or healthy volunteers. A regression analysis in the violent offender group showed that only age and a self-report measure of hostility predicted outcome on the emotion perception task. Other traits, such as psychopathic traits, intelligence, attention and a tendency to jump to conclusions were not associated with interpretation of anger in facial emotional expressions. We discuss the possible impact of the study design and population studied on our results, as well as implications for future studies.关于影响攻击行为的因果及持续作用因素的研究中，已有部分工作聚焦于具有攻击倾向的个体在模糊情境下仍会对他人做出敌意性意图推断的普遍倾向，该现象被称为‘敌意解释偏差（hostile interpretation bias）’。目前尚不明确此种敌意解释偏差是否也存在于基础信息加工过程中（例如面部情绪感知），尤其是针对模糊表情的感知层面。此外，目前学界对这种面部情绪感知中的潜在偏差与攻击行为的具体特征之间的关联机制仍知之甚少。本研究于监狱环境中针对在押成年男性开展，旨在对比暴力犯（n=71）、非暴力犯（n=14）与健康志愿者对照组（n=32）在计算机任务中对模糊面部表情的解读倾向，即暴力犯是否更倾向于将模糊表情解读为愤怒而非快乐。本研究同时探究了面部表情的敌意性感知与攻击行为的具体特征（如主动性攻击与反应性攻击）之间的关联。研究未发现明确的统计学证据表明，暴力犯相较于非暴力犯或健康志愿者，会将面部情绪表情感知为更具愤怒倾向。针对暴力犯群体的回归分析结果显示，仅有年龄与敌意性自评量表得分能够预测情绪感知任务的表现。其余特质（如精神病态特质、智力水平、注意力水平及妄下结论倾向）均与面部情绪表情的愤怒解读无显著关联。本研究最后讨论了研究设计与受试群体对研究结果可能造成的影响，以及本研究对未来相关研究的启示。