title: Looking for trouble: revenge-planning and preattentive vigilance for angry facial expressions.
abstract: Revenge-planning refers to individual differences in the tendency to actively seek out hostile confrontations with others. Building on past theory, we hypothesized that revenge-planning would be related to preattentive vigilance for angry facial expressions. By being vigilant for such expressions, individuals could more readily notice and prepare to confront social challenges. We conducted 2 studies to test this prediction. Across studies, results indicated that participants high in revenge-planning had significantly longer color-naming latencies for masked angry expressions presented in a subliminal Stroop task, regardless of whether the expression was presented inside or outside participants' attentional focus. This phenomenon was specific to revenge-planning and did not extend to the related construct of angry rumination. Such results suggest that preattentive vigilance for angry expressions supports a confrontational social style in which a person actively seeks out hostile social encounters.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA. scrowe@uwyo.edu
authors.forename: Sarah E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Crowe
authors.forename: Benjamin M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Wilkowski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception; D057190:Stroop Test; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult