Aggressive Behavior

This research examines the notion of defensive gun ownership using the Dualistic Model of Passion. We hypothesized that an obsessive (vs. harmonious) passion for guns would be associated with a belief in a dangerous world (BDW). We expected this relationship to intensify in threatening contexts, leading to a more expansive view on defensive gun ownership. We tested this hypothesis across three threat contexts: a gun-control message (Study 1, N = 342), a live shooting simulation (Study 2, N = 398), and the aftermath of the Christchurch mass shootings (Study 3, N = 314)...

Repeatedly capturing national headlines, excessive law enforcement officer (LEO) use of force in critical incident encounters is one of the most divisive human rights issues in the United States. Valid and reliable measures of potential precursors to LEO excessive use of force, such as aggression, are needed. The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire-short form (BPAQ-SF) is a validated measure of aggression across various populations; however, evaluation of this easily administered measure in high-stress, frontline populations such as LEOs is limited...

Experiencing victimization or mistreatment often induces feelings of anger. The catharsis hypothesis suggests that venting anger may aid in alleviating these negative emotions. Although this hypothesis has faced criticism, therapeutic interventions rooted in catharsis are employed to assist victims in managing their anger. One notable application of the catharsis principle in psychotherapeutic practice with victims involves engaging in aggressive fantasies: Victims who harbor aggressive fantasies against their offenders are supported in working with these fantasies to navigate the complex emotions arising from their victimization...

This study aims to examine co-occurrence patterns of depression and anxiety among Chinese adolescents and their associations with various forms of peer victimization. We collected longitudinal data from 1005 middle school students using the Multidimensional Peer Victimization Scale, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Then we conducted latent profile analysis, latent transition analysis, and logistic regression analysis. The results reveal the presence of three depression-anxiety profiles among participants: low depression-anxiety group, moderate depression-anxiety group, and high depression-anxiety group...

This research examined the roles of organization contexts factors and dark personality traits in men's (N = 600) self-reports of sexually harassing behaviors toward women in the workplace. Four organization context factors (a permissive climate, a masculinized job/gender context, male/female contact, and Masculinity Contest Culture [MCC] Norms) and four dark personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism) were examined. While only one organizational context factor, MCC Norms correlated with men's admissions of sexually harassing behaviors at work, all four dark personality traits evidenced significant correlations...

Although aggression occurs across a range of disorders, associations between dimensions of psychopathology and self- and other-directed aggression are not well understood. Investigating associations between psychopathology dimensions and aggression helps further understanding about the etiology of aggression, and ultimately, can inform intervention and prevention strategies. This study adopted a multi-method approach to examine associations between internalizing and externalizing dimensions of psychopathology and self- and other-directed aggression as a function of reporter (participant and informant) and modality of aggression measurement (subjective and objective)...

Children who experience physical and psychological maltreatment within their family are more likely to become victims of abuse outside the family. In Chinese culture, children's victimization may also be a precursor to parenting behaviors. Nevertheless, the reciprocal relationship between child maltreatment and children's bullying victimization remains unclear, particularly in Chinese culture. This study aimed to evaluate the reciprocal association between child maltreatment and children's bullying victimization in China, as well as its gender differences...

Separate literatures indicate that both alcohol use disorder (AUD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are robust risk factors for using intimate partner violence (IPV). Despite the strength of these relative literatures, and the common co-occurrence of AUD and PTSD, their combined effects on IPV have rarely been examined. This study begins to address this gap by exploring the moderating effects of provisional PTSD diagnosis on the relation between heavy alcohol consumption and physical IPV using a multilevel modeling approach...

Peer victimization typically peaks in early adolescence, leading researchers to hypothesize that pubertal timing is a meaningful predictor of peer victimization. However, previous methodological approaches have limited our ability to parse out which puberty cues are associated with peer victimization because gonadal and adrenal puberty, two independent processes, have either been conflated or adrenal puberty timing has been ignored. In addition, previous research has overlooked the possibility of reverse causality-that peer victimization might drive pubertal timing, as it has been shown to do in non-human primates...

People more readily harm members of outgroups than ingroups, often enjoying the inflicted agony. Yet it remains unclear how these malevolent tendencies towards outgroups relate to sadism. Sadists often harm others, driven by a desire to feel pleasure from their suffering. In attempt to bridge these two lines of research, this work examined relationships between sadism and aggression against ingroup and outgroup members in three studies (total N = 755) that focused on two groups with a history of conflict (i...

The coevolution of bullying and friendship networks and the moderating effects of classroom bullying popularity norms were examined in a sample of 965 students (52.1% boys) in 22 fourth- and fifth-grade classes. Longitudinal social network analysis showed that children were more likely to bully their friends' victims (bully influence effect) and to be bullied by their friends' bullies (victim influence effect); two children bullying the same child were likely to be friends (bully selection effect), and two victims bullied by the same child were likely to be friends (victim selection effect)...

The Dula Dangerous Driving Index (DDDI) is a widely used questionnaire that measures the tendency to drive dangerously on the road through three different types of behaviors: aggressive driving, risky driving, and experiencing negative emotions while driving. This study aimed to develop a Spanish version of the DDDI and verify the reliability and validity of this questionnaire in the Spanish population. A community sample of 2174 Spanish participants (51.1% male; age range: 18-79 years) completed the 28-item Spanish version of the DDDI...

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning has been proposed as a relevant method to characterize the therapeutic needs of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. Nevertheless, research has neglected the influence of the ANS on socio-affective functions in this population. The aim of the present study was to analyze the psychophysiological activity of IPV perpetrators (n = 52) compared to controls (n = 46) following an empathic induction task, performed through negative emotion-eliciting videos...

In this study, using the self/other adjective judgment task, we aimed to explore how people perceive themselves in comparison to various other people, including friends, strangers, and those they dislike. Next, using representational similarity analysis, we sought to elucidate how these perceptual similarities and differences are represented in brain activity and how aggressiveness is related to these representations. Behavioral ratings show that, on average, people tend to consider themselves more like their friends than neutral strangers, and least like people they dislike...

Youth violence continues to be widespread. Despite numerous evidence-based programs that reduce youth violence, objective ways to identify youth in need of services is lacking. Few screening tools are available that enables practitioners or community organizations to predict who may perpetrate serious violence. The Violence Injury Protection and Risk Screen (VIPRS) is a previously validated screening tool providing a framework to address youth violence. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the VIPRS in a community sample for use in multiple settings...

The purpose of this study was to test whether the psychological inertia process believed to give rise to crime continuity is limited to aggressive delinquency or evolves from both aggressive and nonaggressive delinquency. Self-report data provided by 845 early adolescent youth (406 boys, 439 girls) were analyzed in an effort to test the hypothesis that aggressive rather than nonaggressive delinquency precipitates a rise in delinquency through the intervening influence of cognitive impulsivity but not moral neutralization...

This study examined whether two personality traits, attachment anxiety, and the Dark Triad, longitudinally promote stalking behaviors after romantic breakups through psychological maltreatment of partners during relationships and maladjusted reactions to breakups. We conducted a prospective longitudinal study across four waves of assessment for 1 year of individuals in romantic relationships in Japan. They completed measures of attachment anxiety, the Dark Triad, need for control, and psychological intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration at Wave 1, and measures of maladjusted reactions to breakups (i...

This paper re-examined the factor structure of a recently developed parent report of aggression, the Provoked and Unprovoked Aggression Questionnaire, and evaluated measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender, age, and time. Participants were 333 mothers of toddlers (younger age group: n = 167, 53.9% boys, Mage Time 1  = 18.30 months, SD = 0.45; older age group: n = 166, 48.8% boys, Mage Time 1  = 24.29 months, SD = 0...

Researchers of aggression have classically focused on what has been previously called active aggression-the deliberate infliction of harm through the direct application of deleterious consequences. However, the counterpart to this, what was originally called passive aggression, has gone understudied, and its definition has mutated beyond its original conceptualization. The present two studies (N's 196 and 220, respectively) attempted to examine passive aggression as originally defined-the deliberate withholding of behavior to ensure that a target is harmed-and renaming it aggression by omission (ABO), in contrast to aggression by commission (ABC)...

Radicalization is a process by which individuals are introduced to an ideological belief system that encourages political, religious, or social change through the use of violence. Here we formulate an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) model of radicalization that links obsessive passion (OP; one of the best predictors of radical intentions) to a larger body of clinical research. The model's central tenet is that individual differences in OCD symptom severity could shape radical intentions via their influence on OP...