New paper on provocation, social status, and aggression published in Social Science Research
In everyday situations, violations of social norms can be perceived as provocations that trigger aggression, with negative consequences for the individuals involved and for social coexistence. In this paper, we draw on the General Aggression Model to examine how a physical provocation affects the internal state (cognition, arousal, and affect) of the provoked person and how this, in turn, shapes their reactions. We also examine whether the provocateur’s social status matters in this process. In a scenario-based experiment with a representative sample of the working population in Germany (N = 1,595), we varied the level of provocation and the social status of the provocateur. An intentional provocation made it less likely that the provocation would be ignored and more likely that people would react verbally or physically aggressively, and these effects were mediated by the provoked person’s internal state. A provocateur of higher social status led to a more aggression-prone internal state, but at the same time weakened the link between this internal state and verbal reactions. Taken together, these countervailing effects of social status offset each other. Our study offers insights into how everyday provocations translate into reactions and into the role social status plays in this process.
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