Ruminating about a provocation increases the likelihood of displaced aggression following a minor annoyance (trigger). In Study 1, provoked participants who ruminated for 25 min were more aggressive toward a fumbling confederate than were distracted participants. Provocation-induced negative affect was positively related to aggression but only among those who ruminated. Study 2 conceptually replicated Study 1 and also found that the more negatively people reacted to the trigger, the more likely the trigger was to increase displaced aggression. Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 by using an 8-hr rumination period. All 3 studies suggest that ruminating about a provocation increases the likelihood that a minor triggering annoyance will increase displaced aggression.

Sexual objectification changes the way people view women by reducing them to sexual objects—denied humanity and an internal mental life, as well as deemed unworthy of moral concern. However, the subsequent consequences of sexually objectifying others remain underresearched. In the current study, we examined the impact of objectification in the domain of sexual assault. Sixty British undergraduate students were recruited to complete an impression formation task. We manipulated objectification by presenting participants with either a sexualized or nonsexualized woman. Participants rated the woman’s mind and the extent to which they felt moral concern for her. They then learned that she was the victim of an acquaintance rape and reported victim blame and both blatant and subtle perceptions of her suffering. Consistent with prior research, sexualized women were objectified through a denial of mental states and moral concern. Further, compared with nonobjectified women, the objectified were perceived to be more responsible for being raped. Interestingly, although no difference emerged for blatant measures of suffering, participants tacitly denied the victims’ suffering by exhibiting changes in moral concern for the victim. We conclude that objectification has important consequences for how people view victims of sexual assault. Our findings reveal that sexual objectification can have serious consequences and we discuss how these might influence how victims cope and recover from sexual assault.

Although rumination following a provocation can increase aggression, no research has examined the processes responsible for this phenomenon. With predictions derived from the General Aggression Model, three experiments explored the impact of two types of post-provocation rumination on the processes whereby rumination augments aggression. In Experiment 1, relative to distraction, self-focused rumination uniquely increased the accessibility of arousal cognition, whereas provocation-focused rumination uniquely amplified the accessibility of aggressive action cognition. In Experiment 2, provocation-focused rumination uniquely increased systolic blood pressure. In Experiment 3, both types of rumination increased aggressive behaviour relative to a distraction condition. Angry affect partially mediated the effects of both provocation- and self-focused rumination on aggression. Self-critical negative affect partially mediated the effect of self-focused rumination but not provocation-focused rumination. These findings suggest that provocation-focused rumination influences angry affect, aggressive action cognition, and cardiovascular arousal, whereas self-focused rumination increases self-critical negative affect, angry affect, and arousal cognition. These studies enhance our understanding of why two types of post-provocation rumination increase aggressive behaviour.

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