Can Emotion Regulation Affect Aggressive Responses? A Study on the Ukrainian–Russian Conflict in a Non-Directly Exposed Sample

Abstract

On 24 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the order to invade neighbouring Ukraine; a typical trend during the war is considering events in a one-sided way, emphasising the exclusive contribution of one opponent over the other for the outbreak of war. War may trigger the experience of emotions, such as anger, shame, and disgust. The present study reproduces previous studies on the influence of emotional regulation in support of aggressive reactions (AR) in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. A questionnaire referring to the Russian–Ukrainian conflict has been implemented and spread in the Italian territory. A multiple moderated mediation model was proposed to evaluate the effect of emotional cognitive reappraisal on the propensity for AR, including conflict-related emotions (anger, shame, disgust) as mediators and political alignment and the appraisal of one’s own emotions subscale of the brief emotional intelligence scale as moderators. The results show that cognitive reappraisal of emotions has a negative effect on AR; moreover, recognising and regulating emotions decreases anger, while taking sides with Ukraine or not siding seems to have an effect on AR depending on the emotion felt (anger or shame). The results are discussed according to the current literature on the topic, highlighting the practical implications and limits of the research.

Current War in Ukraine: Lessons from the Impact of War on Combatants’ Mental Health during the Last Decade

“…Active hostility exerts a severe impact not just on the population of sides of the conflict. A wave of mental health consequences of the current Russian war in Ukraine in non-directly exposed populations has also been reported in other countries [ 10 , 11 ].…”

“…Therefore, the relationship between addictions and the regulation/dysregulation of emotions shown to play an important role both in war and peace times in other conflicts [ 21 ] should be considered for tailored interventions since adaptive emotional regulation strategies decrease the experience of negative emotions [ 11 ]. In particular, the Italian study on the role of emotion regulation on aggressive responses related to the current Russian–Ukrainian conflict has shown the negative effect of cognitive reappraisal of emotions [ 11 ].…”

The emotional fallout of armed conflict in Colombia: Emotions, empathy, and aggression in victims, indirect victims, and members of the military.

“…For instance, our data suggest that vulnerable populations, including victims of the armed conflict, present high levels of arousal and aggression, which research has shown are predictors of personal injuries or homicides (Meloy, 2000). Accordingly, the development of psychosocial programs with a strong emotion regulation training component seems needed (e.g., Bruneau et al, 2022; Cricenti et al, 2022; Hurtado-Parrado et al, 2019). Additionally, our results suggest that perspective taking (i.e., cognitive empathy) correlates with reductions in aggression, at least when arousal is low.…”

Longitudinal association of mindfulness with aggression and non‐suicidal self‐injury in adolescence: The mediating role of shame‐proneness

“…Therefore, individuals with high level of shame‐proneness may be more involved in the behavior of aggression and NSSI. Researchers indicated that aggression in response to shame may be viewed as emotion regulation (Cricenti et al, 2022; Elison et al, 2014; Wang & Sang, 2020). Similarly, as mindfulness has been shown to be associated with emotion regulation, shame‐proneness may play a mediating role in the association between mindfulness and aggression and NSSI.…”