Aggressor and victim perspective-related differences in perceived legitimacy of aggression in soccer

The purpose of this role-playing study was to explore the perceived legitimacy of aggression in soccer as a function of perspective-related differences (aggressor vs victim) and type of aggression (instrumental vs hostile). 120 soccer players watched videotaped aggressive interactions in soccer and took the perspective of the actors (aggressor then victim or the reverse). Then they rated the legitimacy of each aggressive behavior depending on its ultimate goal (instrumental then hostile or the reverse). When participants adopted the aggressor perspective, they perceived instrumental aggression as more legitimate than hostile aggression. In contrast, when participants took the perspective of the victim, no significant difference was found regardless of the type of aggression. The discussion focussed on implications and consequences of such divergences in aggressive sport situations.     

Players’ Gender and Male Referees’ Decisions About Aggression in French Soccer: A Preliminary Study

The aim of this study was to examine (a) aggression displayed by players and (b) referees decisions about these behaviors as a function of the gender of the players in French soccer. Twenty-six games (13 for women and 13 for men) were videotaped. Instrumental aggressive acts and referees decisions were then observed. The findings indicated a significant effect of gender on instrumental aggression and referees decisions related to these behaviors. Male players displayed more instrumental aggressive acts than female players did. Nevertheless, relative to the total number of aggressive acts displayed, referees penalized women more than men. Gender stereotypes might be a relevant explanation for these results, as soccer is generally perceived as a masculine-type sport, particularly in France, and aggression as a masculine characteristic.     

PERCEPTIONS OF RELATIONAL AND PHYSICAL AGGRESSION AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: EFFECTS OF GENDER OF PERPETRATOR, TARGET, AND PERCEIVER

This study examined gendered perceptions of relational and physical aggressive behaviors and personal experiences with both types of aggression. Prior research suggested that physical aggression by males and relational aggression by females would be perceived most negatively. College students (186 female, 128 male) rated the acceptability and harmfulness of aggression in scenarios in which type of aggression and perpetrator and target gender were varied. As predicted, relational aggression by female characters and physical aggression by male characters were rated as less acceptable and more aggressive/harmful than the same behavior by the other gender. Thus, expectations regarding the gender-appropriateness of aggression appear to affect perceptions of such acts. Despite popular conceptions that females use and are harmed by relational aggression more than males, there was no gender difference in experience with relational aggression, nor were female targets viewed as more harmed by such aggression than their male counterparts.     

REFEREES' DECISION MAKING ABOUT TRANSGRESSIONS: THE INFLUENCE OF PLAYER GENDER AT THE HIGHEST NATIONAL LEVEL

Prior research has found that referees are harsher toward sporting offenses in regional-level matches between women than in regional-level matches between men. We tested whether this bias also occurs at a higher, national level of competition, despite the greater pressures for objectivity and fairness at this level. Referees' decisions were examined in 15 national-level handball matches between women and 15 national-level handball matches between men after transgressions that varied in severity. The results suggest that referees made harsher decisions in female than in male matches. Although more research is needed, this study supported the hypothesis that referees may use the gender of players as a powerful judgmental heuristic for deciding how to respond to aggression.     

Justifications of Aggressive Behavior in Contact and Semicontact Sports

The present study examines the extent to which athletes in selected contact and semicontact sports report agreement or disagreement with the use of intentional acts of aggression during competition. Eighty-five male athletes responded to the Bredemeier Athietic Aggression Inventory-Short Form and the Mintah Huddleston Aggression Justification Inventory. Overall results revealed no significant differences between subjects' use of hostile and instrumental aggression in sport and between the hostile and instrumental justifications provided for such behavior. Results indicated that contact-sport participants disagree more with the use of instrumental aggression than semicontact-sport participants.     

3～4岁儿童攻击行为发展的追踪研究

对163名幼儿园小班儿童进行追踪观察,考察3-4岁期间儿童攻击行为的特点、发展模式及稳定性。主要获得以下结果：儿童最普遍的攻击形式是身体攻击．言语攻击和间接攻击的发生率较低;大多数攻击行为属于主动性攻击和工具性攻击;男孩的攻击行为总体上多于女孩．但女孩的间接攻击多于男孩;儿童的攻击性在3-4岁之间无显著变化,但敌意性攻击存在随年龄增长而增加的趋势;3-4岁儿童攻击性的个别差异已具有明显的稳定性。     

When winning is everything: On passion, identity, and aggression in sport

ObjectivesTo examine the interplay between harmonious and obsessive passion and aggressive behavior in sports. It was hypothesized that players who are obsessively-passionate about basketball should report higher levels of aggressive behaviors than harmoniously-passionate players in general, and especially under self threat.MethodsUsing the Dualistic Model of Passion (Vallerand et al. (2003), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 756–767) as a guiding framework, basketball players indicated their level of passion and aggression during typical basketball situations using a self-reported questionnaire.ResultsIn Study 1, results demonstrated that athletes with a predominant obsessive passion for basketball reported higher levels of aggression on an aggression scale than athletes with a harmonious passion. In Study 2, harmoniously-passionate and obsessively-passionate athletes were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: self-threat and self-affirmation. We predicted that under self-threat, obsessively-passionate players should report higher levels of aggressive behavior than harmoniously-passionate players. However, no differences were expected between obsessively and harmoniously-passionate players in the self-affirmation condition. These hypotheses were supported.ConclusionsThe present findings reveal that having an obsessive passion is associated with aggressive behavior, especially under identity threat. Thus, the love for one's sport may lead to some maladaptive interpersonal behavior, especially if such love is rooted in a sense of identity that is contingent on doing well in that sport.     

Instrumental and hostile aggression in childhood disruptive behavior disorders

An analogue task of instrumental and hostile aggression during a competitive game was evaluated in a sample of clinically-referred 8-to 12-year-old aggressive boys. Similar to a prior task in a normative sample (Having, Wallace, & La Forme, 1979), both types of aggression increased during provocation as compared to baseline, indicating the success of the provocation manipulation, with moderate correlations between the two aggressive responses. The aggressive group with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the aggressive group without ADHD each had higher rates of instrumental aggression than controls. Only the aggressive/ADHD group had higher rates of hostile aggression than controls. Parent Child Behavior Checklist ratings indicated a modest but significant unique relationship between instrumental aggression and delinquency. The high rate of both types of aggression in the aggressive/ADHD group suggests that comorbid ADHD and aggression may result in qualitative differences in aggressive behavior. The high rate of hostile aggression in the aggressive-ADHD group supports theoretical assumptions regarding the relationship of hostile aggression to poor impulse control.This research was supported in part by grants to the first author from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, the Allegheny-Singer Research Institute, NIMH First Award (MH4682), and support from NICHD Mental Retardation Research Center Core Center Grant (DH26979); and NIMH grants (MH40364 and MH00590) awarded to the second author. The authors are grateful to Marianne Torchinsky and Abby Michaleski for assistance in data collection. Preliminary data were presented at the annual meetings of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, New York, November 1988, and the Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, Costa Mesa, CA, January 1990.     

Distinguishing instrumental and hostile aggression: Does it make a difference?

An analogue task of instrumental and hostile aggression during a competitive game, modified to minimize overlap between aggressive responses, was evaluated in 8- to 14-year-old clinically referred boys (n=33). Postgame interviews indicated that the hostile response, an aversive noise, was perceived by over 80% of subjects as hostile and not instrumental. In contrast, the instrumental response, blocking the opponent's game, was perceived about equally as having instrumental and hostile functions. The hostile aggressive response was uniquely correlated with continuous performance task impulsive commission errors (r=51), which supported the theoretical relation of hostile aggression to poor impulse control. These results suggest that instrumental and hostile aggression can be distinguished and when precisely defined are distinct in theoretically important ways.The authors are grateful to Mary Milnamow, Susan Panichelli, Nancy Benzal, Elissa Batshaw, and Nancy Stone for assistance in data collection. This research was supported in part by an NIMH First Award MH4682 to the first author and support from NICHD Mental Retardation Research Center Core Center Grant DH26979, and by NIMH grants MH40364 and M00590 awarded to the second author. Preliminary data were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Adolescent Psychopathology, Costa Mesa, California, January 1990.     

Anger rumination: an antecedent of athlete aggression?

Objectives. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between anger rumination (the propensity to think almost obsessively over past experiences that have provoked negative affect in the form of anger) and athlete aggression. It was predicted that high levels of anger rumination would be associated with an increased propensity to aggress.Method. A questionnaire comprising the Anger Rumination Scale (Sukhodolsky, Golub, & Cromwell, 2001), aggression and demographic questions was distributed to 305 male and female competitive athletes of varying ability who represented several team and individual sports.Results. Principal component factor analysis revealed a single rumination factor rather than the four-factor solution previously described. No differences in Anger Rumination Scale score were found between males and females, team and individual sport players or competitive level. Provocation and anger rumination were significantly correlated with athletes’ reported aggressive behaviour. Aggression was higher in males compared to females. Type of sport was also related to incidence of aggression; athletes who participated in individual sports reported lower levels of aggression than athletes who played team sports.Conclusions. It was concluded that provocation and anger rumination were significant predictors of subsequent aggression and suggestions for preventing rumination, such as thought stopping and thought switching, were made.     

Effects of the axis of rotation and primordially solicited limb of high level athletes in a mental rotation task

A recent set of studies has investigated the selective effects of particular physical activities that require full-body rotations, such as gymnastics and wrestling (Moreau, Clerc, Mansy-Dannay, & Guerrien, 2012; Steggemann, Engbert, & Weigelt, 2011), and demonstrated that practicing these activities imparts a clear advantage in in-plane body rotation performance. Other athletes, such as handball and soccer players, whose activities do require body rotations may have more experience with in-depth rotations. The present study examined the effect of two components that are differently solicited in sport practices on the mental rotation ability: the rotation axis (in-plane, in-depth) and the predominantly used limb (arms, legs). Handball players, soccer players, and gymnasts were asked to rotate handball and soccer strike images mentally, which were presented in different in-plane and in-depth orientations. The results revealed that handball and soccer players performed the in-depth rotations faster than in-plane rotations; however, the two rotation axes did not differ in gymnasts. In addition, soccer players performed the mental rotations of handball strike images slower. Our findings suggest that the development of mental rotation tasks that involve the major components of a physical activity allows and is necessary for specifying the links between this activity and the mental rotation performance.     

Relational Aggression and Hostile Attribution Biases: Testing Multiple Statistical Methods and Models

The present study used both categorical and dimensional approaches to test the association between relational and physical aggression and hostile intent attributions for both relational and instrumental provocation situations using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development longitudinal Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (M = 8.3 years-old, SD = 0.19, N = 840). A one standard deviation threshold was used to create categorical aggression status groups. In categorical analyses, children who were both relationally and physically aggressive were found to attribute more hostile intent attributions in relationally provocative situations. Results from the dimensional analyses indicated that female gender, physical aggression, and hostile attribution biases for instrumental provocations each predicted increases in relational aggression over time. Further, relational aggression was not predictive of hostile attribution biases for relational provocations, and instead physical aggression was predictive. Implications for the fields of developmental psychology and psychopathology are discussed.     

Anger and perceived legitimacy of aggression in male Hong Kong Chinese athletes: Effects of type of sport and level of competition

ProblemThe vast majority of research examining the interplay between aggressive emotions, beliefs, behaviors, cognitions, and situational contingencies in competitive athletes has focused on Western populations and only select sports (e.g., ice hockey). Research involving Eastern, particularly Chinese, athletes is surprisingly sparse given the sheer size of these populations. Thus, this study examines the aggressive emotions, beliefs, behaviors, and cognitions, of competitive Chinese athletes.MethodSeveral measures related to aggression were distributed to a large sample (N = 471) of male athletes, representing four sports (basketball, rugby union, association football/soccer, and squash).ResultsHigher levels of anger and aggression tended to be associated with higher levels of play for rugby and low levels of play for contact (e.g., football, basketball) and individual sports (e.g., squash).ConclusionsThe results suggest that the experience of angry emotions and aggressive behaviors of Chinese athletes are similar to Western populations, but that sport psychology practitioners should be aware of some potentially important differences, such as the general tendency of Chinese athletes to disapprove of aggressive behavior.     

The more you play,the more aggressive you become: A long-term experimental study of cumulative violent video game effects on hostile expectations and aggressive behavior

It is well established that violent video games increase aggression. There is a stronger evidence of short-term violent video game effects than of long-term effects. The present experiment tests the cumulative long-term effects of violent video games on hostile expectations and aggressive behavior over three consecutive days. Participants (N = 70) played violent or nonviolent video games 20 min a day for three consecutive days. After gameplay, participants could blast a confederate with loud unpleasant noise through headphones (the aggression measure). As a potential causal mechanism, we measured hostile expectations. Participants read ambiguous story stems about potential interpersonal conflicts, and listed what they thought the main characters would do or say, think, and feel as the story continued. As expected, aggressive behavior and hostile expectations increased over days for violent game players, but not for nonviolent video game players, and the increase in aggressive behavior was partially due to hostile expectations.     

状态自恋与攻击行为——知觉到的威胁、愤怒情绪和敌意归因偏差的多重中介作用

采用2(自恋故事vs.中性故事)×2(威胁情境vs.表扬情境)的被试间设计对162名大学生的状态自恋与攻击行为的关系及其机制进行考察。结果发现:(1)与中性故事组相比,自恋故事能够显著激活被试的状态自恋水平;(2)与表扬情境相比,威胁情境中自恋激活组个体的攻击意向显著高于中性故事组,说明状态自恋激活能够显著增加个体的攻击行为;(3)状态自恋通过知觉到的威胁、愤怒情绪和敌意归因偏差间接预测攻击行为;(4)从总体上来说,知觉到的威胁既可显著直接预测攻击行为,也可通过愤怒情绪间接预测攻击行为。对自恋激活组,状态自恋可以通过影响愤怒情绪和敌意归因偏差间接影响攻击行为;对中性控制组来说,这种关系则不存在。本研究结果证实,状态自恋的激活能够显著增加个体面对消极反馈时攻击行为产生的认知情绪机制。     

Compliance and Satisfaction With Physician-Patient Communication An Expectancy Theory Interpretation of Gender Differences

This pair of studies sought to apply the explanatory calculus of expectancy theory to examine patient compliance and satisfaction with physicians’ instructions. Study 1 analyzed the differential expectations of patients based on gender of the physician. Results indicated that female physicians are expected to use instrumentally unaggressive strategies while male physicians are expected to use strategies that fall in the mid-range of a verbal aggression continuum. There were no differences in expectations based on the gender of patients. The second study manipulated physician communication and physician gender to predict an interaction such that when male physicians deviate from moderately aggressive, direction-giving strategies, using either more affiliative tactics or more instrumentally aggressive strategies, compliance increases. It was also predicted that affective satisfaction with male physicians would increase with increased use of affiliative, nonaggressive compliance-gaining messages. Based on expectancy theory, an inverse linear relationship between the use of instrumental verbal aggression and compliance and affective satisfaction was predicted for female physicians. Results supported the posited interaction. Implications for further refinement of expectancy theory are discussed, and practical implications for physician-patient communication in clinical situations are offered.     

Gender and aggression I: Perceptions of aggression

To investigate how gender and ethnicity influence evaluation, perceptions, and stereotyping of aggression, two studies were conducted with 115 college students (56% male; 50% Anglo and 26% Hispanic) and 79 individuals (72% male; 92% Anglo) who worked on a military base. Participants were asked to respond to four scenarios depicting aggressive interactions in which the gender of the protagonists varied, give their perceptions of 25 potentially aggressive incidents, and answer questions concerning stereotypes of gender related to these incidents and personal aggressive behaviors. Consistent with previous research on gender and aggression, both studies found that the aggressor, target, and respondent all affected perceptions of aggression and likelihood of aggressive behaviors. Aggression from a male and aggression directed towards a female were particularly likely to be evaluated negatively. Age and educational level were both negatively related to tolerance for aggression, and Anglo vs. Hispanic ethnicity was also associated with perceptions of aggression.We would like to thank Angela Bennett, Gail Bliss, Kayleigh Carabajal, Julie Depree, Carmen Gonzales, Deborah Good, Scott Griffin, Gladys Herrera, George Selix, Ruth Tangman, and Jon Woodland for their assistance with the development, distribution, and coding of the questionnaire.     

Hostile aggression and type A behavior

Type A and Type B male college students were given the opportunity to display hostile aggression against an insulting confederate on a bogus ESP task, using either aversive noise or a monetary penalty. Preliminary correlational analyses confirmed that Ss' aggressive responding covaried directly with their reported desire to hurt the confederate but was, in contrast, unrelated to their reported desire to help the confederate. Thus, Ss' aggressive behavior was motivated by hostile intentions. Subsequent analyses revealed that Type As were more aggressive and reported a greater desire to hurt the confederate than Type Bs, regardless of the mode of aggression. These data support the results of a recent study which questioned the intuitively appealing assumption that Type As should only display aggressive behavior when motivated by some external achievement goal.     

The effects of violent video games and shyness on individuals’ aggressive behaviors

The general aggression model (GAM) has suggested that the interaction between person factors (e.g., personality variables) and situation factors (e.g., playing violent video games [VVGs]) can increase individuals’ aggressive behaviors through their cognition (e.g., hostile attributions), affect (e.g., negative affect), and/or arousal. The present study employed a modified competitive reaction time task to test the effects of shyness, violent (vs. nonviolent) gameplay, and shyness on individuals’ positive–negative affect, hostile attributions, and aggressive behaviors. In addition, the present study also employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the mediation (by cognition and affect) and moderation (by shyness). Results showed that playing a VVG increased aggressive behaviors, negative affect, and hostile attributions primarily among shy participants. In addition, the results of SEM also revealed that this moderating role was mediated by negative affect and hostile attributions. The present study supported GAM and showed that individuals’ aggressive behaviors are differentially susceptible to VVGs, depending on their level of shyness in a “for bad and for worse” manner.     

Social Role Theory and the Perceived Gender Role Orientation of Athletes

In this research we examined the influence of athletic roles upon the perceived gender role orientations of male and female athletes. Participants were 148 students who read a bogus newspaper article that described either a male or female athlete who had successfully competed in an athletic event. The type of sport (football, basketball, and cheerleading) was manipulated. Female football players and basketball players were perceived as higher in agency than female cheerleaders. Male cheerleaders were perceived as higher in communality than male football players and male basketball players. Participants made external attributions concerning the motivations of athletes who competed in gender traditional sports. They made internal attributions concerning the motivations of athletes who competed in gender nontraditional sports. These findings are examined in relation to social role theory.