Social threat attentional bias in childhood: Relations to aggression and hostile intent attributions

The goal of this study was to examine the ways attentional bias to social threat-measured across multiple attentional processes-is related to both child aggression and a well-established cognitive correlate of aggression (namely, hostile intent attributions). A community sample of 211 children (51% male; 9-12 years; 55% Caucasian) participated in our cross-sectional correlational design. Social threat attentional bias was measured through task performance on dot-probe, attentional shifting, and temporal order judgment tasks; each task measured different attentional processes. Aggression was measured by parent- and child-report. Hostile intent attributions were measured through child responses to vignettes involving peer conflict or rejection. Attentional bias to social threat within early phases of attentional processing (i.e., attentional prioritization; stimuli presented for <200 ms in temporal order judgment task) was significantly and positively related to both aggression and hostile intent attributions. Attentional bias to social threat within attentional orienting (stimuli presented for 500 ms in dot-probe task) was positively and significantly related to hostile intent attributions. Attentional bias to social threat within attentional shifting (stimuli presented for multiple seconds) was not significantly related to aggression or hostile intent attributions. Higher levels of aggression and of hostile intent attributions were associated with an attentional bias to social threat within early, but not later, phases of attentional processing. These results suggest specificity in identifying dysfunctional attentional processes that may underlie aggression and aggression-related cognitive biases.