| Although models of emotion and motivation have focused on the relationship between anger and approach motivation associated with aggression (anger-out), anger is also related to withdrawal motivation (anger-in). Both anger styles are associated with psychopathology but could involve different mechanisms of cognition and emotion processing that could serve to maintain symptoms of depression and anxiety. The present study examined whether anger expression style predicted activation in brain regions involved in the implementation of cognitive control in two Stroop (color-word and emotion-word) tasks in participants with varying levels of comorbid depression and anxiety. Neural mechanisms involved in cognitive control were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as well as event-related potentials (ERPs). fMRI results indicated that anger-out was associated with greater left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity than anger-in, evidence in support of the motivational model of emotion. Contrary to hypotheses, anger-out was not linked to cognitive control impairment. However, consistent with hypotheses, anger-in was associated with heightened activation in frontal and cingulate regions involved in conflict monitoring and behavioral inhibition. This exaggerated response was similar for neutral high-conflict stimuli and negatively valenced stimuli. Results suggest that anger is not a unitary construct and that anger suppression in particular appears to be linked to cognitive and emotional dysfunction. |
