Aggression and Malevolent Creativity: A Moderated Mediation Model

Wu Jiaqi; Ren Xiao; Gong Zhe

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240214

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (2) : 367-374. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240214

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

Aggression and Malevolent Creativity: A Moderated Mediation Model

Wu Jiaqi, Ren Xiao, Gong Zhe

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Abstract

Creativity, involving individual ability improvement, social development, and national core competitiveness, has drawn a lot of attention in the social sciences. Creativity could have a dark side in its nature, which is termed as malevolent creativity. Malevolent creativity is the application of creativity to intentionally generate products that do harm to others and society. Prior studies have investigated a significant positive correlation between aggression and malevolent creativity. The present study has taken two theoretical perspectives by adopting the General Aggression Model (GAM) and four stages of creative thought. According to the GAM, aggression may increase the risk of malevolent by increasing anger rumination. Anger rumination may play a role of reappraisal in GAM. That is, aggression can lead to anger rumination, which in turn will predict malevolent creativity. From the perspective of four stages of creative thought, anger rumination is similar to the preparation period, analyzing and reflecting on the object of attack or the angry event, in an attempt to solve the problem by means of malevolent creativity. Furthermore, individual differences in effortful control (EC) may moderate this mediation process, in which high EC individuals may be more vulnerable to anger rumination than low EC individuals. In sum, we proposed a moderated mediation model to account for malevolent creativity. Specifically, we test the relationship between aggression and malevolent creativity, the mediating effect of anger rumination, and the moderating effect of EC, in a sample of college students.
Participants of this study were 428 college students (M_age = 19.44 years, SD = 1.39 year; 100 males, 328 females). They completed a battery of questionnaires, including the Buss & Perry aggression questionnaire, the Anger Rumination Scale, the Effortful Control Scale, and the Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale. The proposed moderated mediation model was tested using regression analysis and the PROCESS macro. Previous studies have suggested that malevolent creativity may differ by gender. Hence, the effect of gender was controlled in all analyses. Results showed that: (1) Aggression positively predicted malevolent creativity in college students. (2) Anger rumination partially mediated this association. (3) This mediating effect was moderated by EC, such that it was stronger for students with high EC than those with low EC.
The present study is the first to demonstrate the detrimental impact of aggression and the moderated mediation effect of anger rumination and EC on malevolent creativity based on the GAM and four stages of creative thought. Our study provides evidence for the emergence of malevolent creativity through anger rumination. They also indirectly support the dual pathway to creativity model (DPCM), in which anger rumination promotes malevolent creativity through the persistence pathway. Furthermore, different from previous studies, effortful control plays a positive moderating role between angry rumination and malevolent creativity. We infer that effortful control may help the angry rumination individuals to continue processing the task at the unconscious level.
These findings have significant theoretical and practical values and can contribute to reducing individual's malevolent creativity. Firstly, the mediating effect of anger rumination suggests that we can intervene in anger rumination from the perspective of negative emotions or cognition by some methods (such as mindfulness meditation), to further prevent malevolent creativity. Secondly, the moderating effect of effortful control indicates that effortful control, as a means of self-regulation, cannot effectively inhibit malevolent creativity, but will make it worse instead. With that in mind, we may consider adopting ways such as catharsis, theorized to be a safety valve, to defuse malevolent creativity.

Key words

aggression / anger rumination / effortful control / malevolent creativity

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Wu Jiaqi, Ren Xiao, Gong Zhe. Aggression and Malevolent Creativity: A Moderated Mediation Model[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(2): 367-374 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240214

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