Can one’s temper be cooled? A role for Agreeableness in moderating Neuroticism’s influence on anger and aggression

The study followed from the idea that Neuroticism captures hot or facilitative vulnerabilities related to anger and aggression, whereas Agreeableness captures cool or inhibitory processes in relation to these same outcomes. As such, it was predicted that Neuroticism and Agreeableness should interact to predict anger and aggression according to hot/cool models of self-regulation. This hypothesis was systematically examined among three independent samples of participants (total N = 176). As predicted, Neuroticism and Agreeableness interacted to predict anger and aggression among all samples, and did so in a manner consistent with the hypothesis that Neuroticism–anger relations would be lower at high levels of Agreeableness. The results therefore highlight the distinct roles of Neuroticism and Agreeableness in predicting anger and aggression, while placing these traits in a common interactive self-regulatory framework.