Exploring the effect of ADHD traits on the moment‐to‐moment interplay between provocation and aggression: Evidence from dynamic structural equation modeling

Abstract

The relation between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and aggression is well documented; however, the processes that account for higher levels of aggression associated with ADHD in the course of daily life are little understood. The current study used ecological momentary assessment to explore how ADHD traits relate to individual differences in perceiving provocation from others and the resultant aggressive behaviors; and the strengths of the links between provocation and aggression in the flow of daily life. A dynamic structural equation model was fit using data from a subpopulation of young adults involved in the longitudinal z-proso study (n = 259, median-age 20). Data on provocation and aggression was collected at four quasi-random time periods per day over a 14-day period. Individuals with higher ADHD trait levels reported higher instances of provocation and aggression, with ADHD traits significantly moderating aggression inertia such that those with higher levels of ADHD traits showed greater persistence of aggressive behavior over time. However, ADHD trait levels did not significantly moderate any of the observed cross-lagged effects. Our findings suggest that individuals with higher levels of ADHD traits are at greater risk of exposure to interpersonal interactions involving interpersonal provocation, show higher levels of aggressive behavior in daily life, and find it more difficult to reduce their aggression once triggered. These findings support the importance of targeting factors such as social skills and emotion regulation that may underpin the increased difficulties in interpersonal interactions often experienced by individuals with high levels of ADHD symptoms.

Daily Aggression Domains Differentially Relate to Daily Affect and Self-Esteem

“…Researchers have examined daily variability in aggression as a predictor and an outcome. For example, a recent dairy study used cross-lagged analyses to show a positive relationship between momentary (within-person) aggression at time t and momentary provocation at time t+1, whereas the reverse relationship was nonsignificant (Brown et al, 2023). In contrast, few if any studies have examined how a domain-specific measure of aggression covaries with various psychological outcomes on a daily basis.…”

Investigating moderation effects at the within-person level using intensive longitudinal data: A two-level dynamic structural equation modelling approach in Mplus

“…Cross-lagged effects allow for insights lagged associations between different repeatedly measure variables (Hamaker et al, 2018). This for instance allows for investigate whether experiencing increases in provocation at time 1 are associated with increases in aggressive behaviors at time 2 at the within-person level (Brown et al, 2022). Of note, cross-lagged effects (and autoregressive effects if cross-lagged effects are present) represent partial coefficients.…”

“…This person specific parametrization allows us not only to estimate whether people differ in the strength of such a coupling effect but also whether other variables predict or explain these differences. For example, we may want to examine whether ADHD symptom severity moderate the associations between within-person changes in aggressive behaviors in response to perceived provocations (Brown et al, 2022). Such random effects across people are usually treated as fixed across time.…”

“…To date, DSEM has been primarily used within clinical psychology or adjacent research areas, however, as intensive longitudinal data collection is becoming more prominent, so is the use of DSEM in other research areas, for instance in cognitive neuroscience (McCormick & Kievit, 2023). DSEM has been used to investigate research questions focusing on directional associations between within-person components (Blanke et al, 2021;Metcalf et al, 2021), to gain insights into whether between-person factors (such as ADHD traits) moderate within-person effects (Aristodemou et al, 2022;Brown et al, 2022), to evaluate whether within-person effects (such as stress reactivity) mediate the associations between two between-person factors (Speyer et al, 2022) and to investigate mediation effects on the within-person level (McNeish & Mackinnon, 2022). For example, Blanke et al (2021) used a DSEM to investigate the within-person dynamics between rumination and negative affect.…”

Daily aggression domains differentially relate to daily affect and self‐esteem

“…Researchers have examined daily variability in aggression as a predictor and an outcome. For example, a recent dairy study used cross‐lagged analyses to show a positive relationship between momentary (within‐person) aggression at time t and momentary provocation at time t + 1, whereas the reverse relationship was nonsignificant (Brown et al, 2023). In contrast, few if any studies have examined how a domain‐specific measure of aggression covaries with various psychological outcomes on a daily basis.…”