Dissociable Behavioral and Neural Correlates for Target-Changing and Conforming Behaviors in Interpersonal Aggression

Actors in interpersonal aggression such as bullies change their targets frequently, but the underlying behavioral and neural mechanisms are unknown. Here, using the catch-ball task we recently developed to examine human interpersonal aggression, we found target-changing and conforming to other participants’ aggression are major driving forces of increased aggression (i.e., throwing strong balls). We also found that target-changing was correlated with a participant’s extraversion, consistent with a bistrategic view, in which both prosocial and coercive motivations drive interpersonal aggression. In contrast, conforming to others was correlated with social anxiety. In addition, questionnaires about participants’ past experiences of bullying suggested that target-changers and conformers were predominantly bullies and victims in the past. An analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed that functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and insula were correlated with target-changing behavior, while functional connectivity between the amygdala and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) was correlated with conformity. These results demonstrate that target-changing and conforming behaviors have dissociable behavioral and neural mechanisms and may contribute to real-world interpersonal aggressions differently.