ABSTRACT
Why do people tend to display more noninstrumental aggression when experiencing negative affective states? Or to use a more prosaic and accessible metaphor, why are we more likely to kick our cat after we had a particularly bad day at the office? Surprisingly, psychologists appear to be still some way from being able to provide a convincing account of the chain of events that link noxious stimuli to negative affective states, and eventually, aggressive responses. Perhaps the difficulty of suitably dealing with this problem has something to do with the fact that it touches on some of the most fundamental issues in all of psychology: the relationship between affect, cognition, and behavior (Hilgard, 1980).
