Self-Reported Aggression and Impulsivity in Forensic and Non-Forensic Populations: The Role of Gender and Experience

Gender differences in aggressive behavior are traditionally seen as extremely robust. Yet, on closer inspection, the reasons for these differences appear to be incredibly complex as a wide range of moderating variables appears to influence the behaviour. Further, the effect of these variables is often gender specific. We examined aggressive beliefs and self-rated aggressive behaviour and impulsivity in forensic (115 males, 133 females at three closed prisons in the North of England) and non-forensic populations (114 males, and 122 females at the University of Leeds). Participants completed the Revised EXPAGG Questionnaire, the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, the Aggressive Acts Questionnaire and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale. Violent men and women, while more aggressive than both undergraduates and non-violent offenders, were equally likely to report their involvement in physical acts of aggression and showed similar levels of aggression and impulsivity. Previous experience of aggression, together with elevated levels of anger and impulsivity were better predictors of aggressive behavior than gender in all participants. These results suggest that gender differences in self-report measures (on cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions) in forensic populations may be less clear-cut than many have previously believed, particularly in the most aggressive individuals.     

The nature of human aggression

Human aggression is viewed from four explanatory perspectives, derived from the ethological tradition. The first consists of its adaptive value, which can be seen throughout the animal kingdom, involving resource competition and protection of the self and offspring, which has been viewed from a cost–benefit perspective. The second concerns the phylogenetic origin of aggression, which in humans involves brain mechanisms that are associated with anger and inhibition, the emotional expression of anger, and how aggressive actions are manifest. The third concerns the origin of aggression in development and its subsequent modification through experience. An evolutionary approach to development yields conclusions that are contrary to the influential social learning perspective, notably that physical aggression occurs early in life, and its subsequent development is characterized by learned inhibition. The fourth explanation concerns the motivational mechanisms controlling aggression: approached from an evolutionary background, these mechanisms range from the inflexible reflex-like responses to those incorporating rational decision-making.     

Social support as a moderator for alcohol-related partner aggression during the transition to parenthood

Alcohol-related partner aggression is a pervasive social problem throughout various life stages, including the transition to parenthood. Previous research shows that alcohol use is associated with partner aggression perpetration for both men and women; however, not all individuals who consume alcohol act aggressively. In this study, the moderating effects of general social support and partner-specific support on the association between prepregnancy alcohol use and recent partner physical aggression are investigated using a community sample of 98 pregnant couples. For men, high levels of general appraisal social support (i.e., someone to talk to about one's problems) increases the strength of the association between alcohol use and aggression perpetration, whereas partner-specific emotional support serves as a buffer. For women, general social support is not a significant moderator, but high levels of partner-specific instrumental support strengthens the association between alcohol use and aggression. These results can be applied to prevention and treatment programs for alcohol-related partner aggression.     

Psychopathy and instrumental aggression: Evolutionary, neurobiological, and legal perspectives

In the study of aggression, psychopathy represents a disorder that is of particular interest because it often involves aggression which is premeditated, emotionless, and instrumental in nature; this is especially true for more serious types of offenses. Such instrumental aggression is aimed at achieving a goal (e.g., to obtain resources such as money, or to gain status). Unlike the primarily reactive aggression observed in other disorders, psychopaths appear to engage in aggressive acts for the purpose of benefiting themselves. This is especially interesting in light of arguments that psychopathy may represent an alternative life-history strategy that is evolutionarily adaptive; behaviors such as aggression, risk-taking, manipulation, and promiscuous sexual behavior observed in psychopathy may be means by which psychopaths gain advantage over others. Recent neurobiological research supports the idea that abnormalities in brain regions key to emotion and morality may allow psychopaths to pursue such a strategy—psychopaths may not experience the social emotions such as empathy, guilt, and remorse that typically discourage instrumentally aggressive acts, and may even experience pleasure when committing these acts. Findings from brain imaging studies of psychopaths may have important implications for the law.     

Aggressive reactions to social injustice by individuals and groups as a function of social norms,gender, and anonymity

Two conflicting approaches to the study of group aggression are compared: the deindividuation theory of Zimbardo (1970) and the emergent norm theory of Turner and Killian (1972). To test these two conflicting hypotheses, the frustration-aggression theory of Brown (1986) is used which assumes that individuals and groups, male or female, will react with angry aggression when important social justice norms are violated. It was hypothesized (i) that groups will be more aggressive than single individuals; (ii) males will be more aggressive than females; and (iii) that more aggression will occur when people can be easily identified than when they remain anonymous to each other. These hypotheses received some support. Unexpected interactions between these variables are discussed in some detail. Generally, more support is found for the emergent norm theory than for deindividuation theory.     

Validity of self-reports of marital violence

The most commonly used and practiced method for assessing spouse abuse is the individual's self-report of engaging in or being a victim of physical aggression. However, the socially undesirable nature of relationship violence raises questions regarding the likelihood that it is accurately reported. The current investigation found that a socially desirable response set is related to willingness to report one's own aggression. However, it is not related to willingness to report a spouse's aggressive behavior. Social desirability was not related to reports of frequency or severity of one's own aggression for individuals admitting the use of any form of aggressive behavior.     

Racial differences in violence and self-esteem among prison inmates

Recent scholarship in social psychology suggests that individuals with an elevated sense of self-esteem may respond aggressively or violently when this heightened egoism is threatened. The present study explores differences in self-esteem, aggression, and violent behavior among a sample of 644 male state prison inmates. The results indicated that Black inmates expressed higher levels of self-esteem than White inmates. Although Blacks and Whites did not differ on a psychological measure of aggressive personality, Black prisoners reported more violent behavior than Whites. Moreover, high self-esteem predicted violent behavior inside prison, but only for Whites. This finding suggests that the relationship between high self-esteem and violence may be race-specific.     

The 2D:4D Ratio as a Predictor of the Risk of Recidivism after Court‐mandated Intervention Program for Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators

Differences in aggressive behavior could be partially explained by differential prenatal exposure to testosterone (T). A peripheral marker of prenatal T exposure is the 2D:4D ratio, which has shown a negative correlation with self‐reported aggression in violent men. This study tested the direct association of the 2D:4D ratio with anger expression and the risk of recidivism in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators after psychotherapeutic intervention program. The sample consisted of IPV perpetrators, whose 2D:4D ratio was measured before the intervention. Moreover, after the intervention, anger expression and risk of recidivism in IPV were assessed. Smaller 2D:4D ratio, especially of the right hand, was related to higher anger expression and risk of recidivism in IPV perpetrators. The contribution of this prenatal marker together with other psychobiological variables could play a key role in the propensity to react aggressively when coping with environmental demands.     

The sexual objectification of girls and aggression towards them in gang and non-gang affiliated youth

Sexual objectification is related to various negative attitudes and outcomes, including rape proclivity and reduced moral concern for the objectified, which suggests that objectification has implications for aggression. Our study examined the relationship between objectification and general aggressive behaviour in adolescents, including gang-affiliated youth. We hypothesized that (1) objectification would correlate with aggression towards girls, (2) gang affiliation would correlate with objectification and aggression towards girls, and (3) objectification and gang affiliation would interact such that strongly affiliated participants who objectified girls would be most aggressive towards them. We also hypothesized that sexual objectification would be a significant predictor of aggression above and beyond other factors, such as trait aggression. As predicted, objectification correlated with aggression towards girls and with gang affiliation, which also correlated with aggression. In addition, objectification predicted aggression towards girls, after controlling for other relevant factors. Further, we found an objectification?×?gang affiliation interaction, which differed from our original predictions. Among participants low in gang affiliation, objectification of girls predicted levels of aggression towards them. Among those high in gang affiliation, however, objectification did not predict aggression. We discussed the implications of our findings for general aggression.     

Risk factors for violence and relational aggression in adolescence

Analyses examined risk factors for seventh-and ninth-grade youth categorized as nonoffenders, physically violent, relationally aggressive, and both violent and relationally aggressive. Bivariate and multivariate results showed that relationally aggressive youth were elevated on most risks above levels for nonoffenders but lower than those for youth who were violent alone or violent in combination with relational aggression. Youth who were both relationally aggressive and violent did not differ from those who were violent alone on most risk factors examined. Peer, individual, and family risks were among the strongest predictors.     

Experiences with Parental Aggression During Childhood and Self-Concept in Adulthood: The Importance of Subjective Perceptions

That individuals' realities are subjectively constructed is a basic, fundamental concept in psychology. However, past research examining child maltreatment in relation to psychological functioning has only investigated the frequency with which parental aggression occurs. Here, adults' perceptions of the abusiveness of their parents' aggressive behaviors during childhood were investigated as a predictor of current self-concept. Participants (N = 119) completed questionnaires assessing the extent to which they experienced parental aggression during childhood, their subjective perceptions of their parents' behaviors, and their current self-concept. Results indicated that how participants perceived their parents' aggressive behaviors was a more important predictor of self-concept than was the frequency with which those aggressive parental behaviors occurred. How individuals characterize their experiences with parental aggression should be taken into account when examining the psychological effects of aggressive parental behaviors.     

Violence and Aggression in the Lives of Homeless Children

The present research examined the role of violence and aggression in the lives of children in homeless families, focusing on possible connections among family violence, children's aggression, and children's problems with social isolation and rejection. Measures were obtained from structured interviews with 93 sets of mothers and children. Consistent with past research, average estimates of specific violent incidents experienced by mothers (as adults) were quite high. Measures of this family violence were reliably correlated with children's behavior problems as well as with measures of aggression in peer relationships (victimization, ease of resolving fights with friends).Finally, results of regression analyses were most consistent with a model in which family violenceand economic distress contributed to problematic aggressive behaviors among children; that aggression, in turn, appeared to lead to social isolation and avoidance. The overall results emphasized the need to address violence and aggression in any intervention programs for homeless children and families.     

Who's flying the plane: serotonin levels, aggression and free will

The present paper addresses the philosophical problem raised by current causal neurochemical models of impulsive violence and aggression: to what extent can we hold violent criminal offenders responsible for their conduct if that conduct is the result of deterministic biochemical processes in the brain. This question is currently receiving a great deal of attention among neuroscientists, legal scholars and philosophers. We examine our current knowledge of neuroscience to assess the possible roles of deterministic factors which induce impulsive aggression, and the extent to which this behavior can be controlled by neural conditioning mechanisms. Neural conditioning mechanisms, we suggest, may underlie what we consider the basis of responsible (though not necessarily moral) behavior: the capacity to give and take reasons. The models we first examine are based in part upon the role played by the neurotransmitter, serotonin, in the regulation of violence and aggression. Collectively, these results would appear to argue in favor of the view that low brain serotonin levels induce impulsive aggression which overrides mechanisms related to rational decision making processes. We next present an account of responsibility as based on the capacity to exercise a certain kind of reason-responsive control over one's conduct. The problem with such accounts of responsibility, however, is that they fail to specify a neurobiological realization of such mechanisms of control. We present a neurobiological, and weakly determinist, framework for understanding how persons can exercise guidance control over their conduct. This framework is based upon classical conditioning of neurons in the prefrontal cortex that allow for a decision making mechanism that provides for prefrontal cortical control of the sites in the brain which express aggressive behavior that include the hypothalamus and midbrain periaqueductal gray. The authors support the view that, in many circumstances, neural conditioning mechanisms provide the basis for the control of human aggression in spite of the presence of brain serotonin levels that might otherwise favor the expression of impulsive aggressive behavior. Indeed if those neural conditioning mechanisms underlie the human capacity to exercise control, they may be the neural realization of reason-responsiveness generally.     

Social anxiety as a predictor of dating aggression

By far, most research on the behavior of socially anxious individuals has focused on the "flight" rather than the "fight" response described in the traditional conceptualization of anxiety. More recently, however, there has been some speculation and emerging evidence suggesting that social anxiety and aggression may be related. The present study examined social anxiety as a predictor of dating aggression within a late adolescent sample. Two forms of dating aggression were assessed: physical aggression, such as slapping, use of a weapon, or forced sexual activity, and psychological aggression, such as slamming doors, insulting, or refusing to talk to one's partner. One aspect of social anxiety, Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE), emerged as a significant predictor of male dating aggression, even after controlling for relationship quality. Notably, FNE was most predictive of increased aggression of both types when men also perceived their romantic relationship to be more antagonistic. Despite its demonstrated importance as a contextual variable, however, relationship quality did not mediate the association between FNE and psychological or physical aggression. Implications for prevailing conceptualizations of social anxiety and dating aggression are discussed.     

Testosterone reactivity and identification with a perpetrator or a victim in a story are associated with attraction to violence-related cues

Background

Recent field research has demonstrated that an attraction to aggressive behavior and cruelty is common among combatants and perpetrators involved in organized violence. The biological basis of this appetitive perception of aggression in humans has to date not been studied.

Aims

We examined testosterone as a potential hormonal moderator during induction of specifically appetitive aggressive behavior in the laboratory.

Method

To activate physiological responding related to appetitive aggression, 145 university students (72 women) listened to tape recordings of variants of a violent story. The perspective of the listener in the story was randomized between subjects. Participants were required to either identify as perpetrator, neutral observer, or victim. We assessed changes in saliva testosterone in response to the story. Subsequently, a series of pictorial stimuli (IAPS) with different valence ratings was presented and participants determined the length of viewing time with a button click. This viewing time for negative IAPS was assessed as a dependent variable indicating level of interest in violent scenes.

Results

Men identified themselves with the perpetrator more than women irrespective of the particular perspective presented by the story. Men who responded with an increase in saliva testosterone when adopting the perpetrator perspective chose to view the negative IAPS pictures for longer intervals than participants in other conditions or those who did not exhibit a release in testosterone.

Conclusions

Testosterone moderates attraction to cruel and violent cues in men, as indicated by extended deliberate viewing of violence cues.     

“Kind of Natural,Kind of Wrong”: Young People's Beliefs about the Morality,Legality, and Normalcy of Sexual Aggression in Public Drinking Settings

Unwelcome touching, groping, and kissing are illegal, but widely tolerated in public drinking settings. This contingency in the law's response means that patrons routinely negotiate the moral boundaries of nonconsensual sexual contact. We use 197 interviews with college‐age individuals to examine the discursive strategies young people employ when negotiating those boundaries. We find that most interviewees have experiences with sexual aggression, do not categorize it as aggression, but advocate for stronger legal punishments against offenders. In accounting for this paradox, they draw on contradictory legal and cultural narratives that both normalize and condemn men's sexual aggression. We build on legal consciousness theories and gender theories by highlighting the complex ways that gender stereotypes enshrined in law are implicated in the construction of a social problem. We also contribute to the sociology of culture by explicating the often unconscious link between culture and action revealed in young people's narratives about sexual aggression.     

Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Information Processing: Multiple Risk-Factor Models for Understanding Aggressive Behavior in Antisocial Youth

This study examined multiple risk factor models of links among callous-unemotional traits, aggression beliefs, social information processing, impulsivity, and aggressive behavior in a sample of 150 antisocial adolescents. Consistent with past research, results indicated that beliefs legitimizing aggression predicted social information processing biases and that social information processing biases mediated the effect of beliefs on aggressive behavior. Callous-unemotional traits accounted for unique variance in aggression above and beyond effects of more established risk factors of early onset of antisocial behavior, social information processing, and impulsivity. These findings add to recent research showing that callous-unemotional traits are a unique risk factor associated with aggression and criminal offending and suggest that targeting both affective and cognitive vulnerabilities may enhance clinical intervention with antisocial youth.     

A multivariate investigation of dating aggression

This study investigated the following variables for their unique and combined contributions to dating aggression: exposure to aggression in the family of origin (witnessing interparental aggression or being the victim of aggressive parenting); attitudes justifying dating aggression (when humiliated or in selfdefense); child-to-parent aggression; child sexual abuse; violent sexual victimization; alcohol use; and socioeconomic status. One hundred and eleven male and 179 female undergraduates reported on their own aggressive behaviors directed toward dating partners. Together, the predictor variables accounted for 41% of the variance in male-to-female aggression but only 16% of the female-to-male aggression. Humiliation, as a justification for dating aggression, contributes to the prediction of both males' and females' dating aggression, while self-defense, although a highly endorsed condition for justifying dating aggression, does not predict actual aggressive behavior. Exposure to interparental aggression plus the product between exposure and humiliation contribute to the prediction of males' dating aggression but exposure does not play a role in females' dating aggression. Violent sexual victimization contributes unique variance to both males' and females' dating aggression. The present data highlight the importance of examining specific circumstances under which males and females justify dating aggression and how such attitudes condoning aggression affect actual behaviors.     

Is Partner Aggression Related to Appraisals of Coercive Control by a Partner?

Research and clinical reports on men who are aggressive towards their intimate partners find that these men tend to behave in highly controlling ways towards such partners (e.g., restricting their social interactions, monitoring of activities, and reducing decision-making power). This study tests the hypothesis that men and women in violent dating relationships appraise such behaviors differently than individuals in nonviolent relationships. Based on clinical and empirical partner abuse literature, 119 college students rated the extent to which they perceived hypothetical behaviors towards a partner as controlling. Results suggest that individuals who had either engaged in or received partner aggression appraised restrictive, domineering, and coercive behaviors from a male to a female partner, and from a female to a male partner as less controlling than individuals who had neither perpetrated nor received partner aggression. Men also viewed those behaviors as less controlling than did women. Generalizability, clinical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Understanding motives for aggression in forensic psychiatric patients: a preliminary study

The primary aim of this study was to explore motivations underpinning aggression among men detained within conditions of high security. Thirty men residing at a high secure psychiatric hospital completed self-report measures, including the Aggression Motivation Questionnaire, Revised EXPAGG and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-IIr. The Historical items of the Historical, Clinical and Risk-Management (HCR-20) and the Psychopathy Checklist-Screening Version were rated. A subsample of participants agreed to complete a functional assessment on an aggressive incident that had occurred during their placement (n = 9). Increased psychopathy and impulsivity, and the presence of historical risk items were predicted to associate with higher levels of both aggression motivation and beliefs supportive of aggression. Young age at first violent incident and personality disorder related positively to aggression motivation. Thematic analysis conducted on the functional assessments identified social recognition, emotion regulation, communication and protection as functions underpinning aggression. Results are discussed with regards to their implication for violence treatment and assessment, with a focus on motivation recommended.