Abstract

In this study, a two-way interaction hypothesis was proposed, suggesting that ego threat would influence aggressive behavior depending on perceived control. This hypothesis was verified through experiments involving a completely randomized design of 2 (ego threat: high ego threat/low ego threat) × 2 (perceived control: high perceived control/low perceived control) with 83 undergraduate student participants. The high ego threat group received negative feedback (both objective and subjective) after a writing task, while the low ego threat group received positive feedback. Subsequently, a listening task was conducted to manipulate perceived control. The high perceived control group had options regarding sound type, sound pause, and volume control, whereas the low perceived control group had no options in these areas. Afterward, participants were asked to taste and evaluate beverages to measure dependent variables and were instructed to complete a questionnaire. The results indicated a significant two-way interaction between ego threat and perceived control on aggressive behavior, thus supporting the hypothesis. In the simple main effect analysis, for the low perceived control group, the high ego threat group allocated more low-preferred beverages than the low ego threat group. However, for the high perceived control group, there was no significant difference in aggressive behavior between the two groups. These findings suggest that even in the presence of ego threat, increasing perceived control can mitigate aggressive behavior. Finally, the limitations of this study and directions for future research were discussed.