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Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress

Former members of armed groups in eastern DR Congo had typically witnessed, experienced, and perpetrated extreme forms of violence. Enhanced trauma-related symptoms had been shown in prior research. But also lashing out in self-defense is a familiar response to threat defined as reactive aggression....

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Autores principales: Köbach, Anke, Schaal, Susanne, Elbert, Thomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4285743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25709586
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01518
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author Köbach, Anke
Schaal, Susanne
Elbert, Thomas
author_facet Köbach, Anke
Schaal, Susanne
Elbert, Thomas
author_sort Köbach, Anke
collection PubMed
description Former members of armed groups in eastern DR Congo had typically witnessed, experienced, and perpetrated extreme forms of violence. Enhanced trauma-related symptoms had been shown in prior research. But also lashing out in self-defense is a familiar response to threat defined as reactive aggression. Another potential response is appetitive aggression, in which the perpetration of excessive violence is perceived as pleasurable (combat high). What roles do these forms of aggressive behavior play in modern warfare and how are they related to posttraumatic stress symptoms? To answer the question, we sought to determine predictors for appetitive aggressive and trauma-related mental illness, and investigated the frequency of psychopathological symptoms for high- and low-intensity conflict demobilization settings. To this end, we interviewed 213 former members of (para)military groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in regard to their combat exposure, posttraumatic stress, appetitive aggression, depression, suicidality, and drug dependence. Random forest regression embedded in a conditional inference framework revealed that perpetrated violent acts are not necessarily stressful. In fact, the experience of violent acts that typically implicated salient cues of hunting (e.g., blood, suffering of the victim, etc.) had the strongest association with an appetite for aggression. Furthermore, the number of lifetime perpetrated violent acts was the most important predictor of appetitive aggression. However, the number of perpetrated violent acts did not significantly affect the posttraumatic stress. Greater intensity of conflict was associated with more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression. Psychotherapeutic interventions that address appetitive aggression in addition to trauma-related mental illness, including drug dependence, therefore seem indispensible for a successful reintegration of those who fought in the current civil wars.
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spelling pubmed-42857432015-02-23 Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress Köbach, Anke Schaal, Susanne Elbert, Thomas Front Psychol Psychology Former members of armed groups in eastern DR Congo had typically witnessed, experienced, and perpetrated extreme forms of violence. Enhanced trauma-related symptoms had been shown in prior research. But also lashing out in self-defense is a familiar response to threat defined as reactive aggression. Another potential response is appetitive aggression, in which the perpetration of excessive violence is perceived as pleasurable (combat high). What roles do these forms of aggressive behavior play in modern warfare and how are they related to posttraumatic stress symptoms? To answer the question, we sought to determine predictors for appetitive aggressive and trauma-related mental illness, and investigated the frequency of psychopathological symptoms for high- and low-intensity conflict demobilization settings. To this end, we interviewed 213 former members of (para)military groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in regard to their combat exposure, posttraumatic stress, appetitive aggression, depression, suicidality, and drug dependence. Random forest regression embedded in a conditional inference framework revealed that perpetrated violent acts are not necessarily stressful. In fact, the experience of violent acts that typically implicated salient cues of hunting (e.g., blood, suffering of the victim, etc.) had the strongest association with an appetite for aggression. Furthermore, the number of lifetime perpetrated violent acts was the most important predictor of appetitive aggression. However, the number of perpetrated violent acts did not significantly affect the posttraumatic stress. Greater intensity of conflict was associated with more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms and depression. Psychotherapeutic interventions that address appetitive aggression in addition to trauma-related mental illness, including drug dependence, therefore seem indispensible for a successful reintegration of those who fought in the current civil wars. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-01-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4285743/ /pubmed/25709586 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01518 Text en Copyright © 2015 Köbach, Schaal and Elbert. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Köbach, Anke
Schaal, Susanne
Elbert, Thomas
Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
title Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
title_full Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
title_fullStr Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
title_full_unstemmed Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
title_short Combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
title_sort combat high or traumatic stress: violent offending is associated with appetitive aggression but not with symptoms of traumatic stress
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4285743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25709586
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01518
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