Aggressive behavioral characteristics,hormones, and sexual orientation in men and women

Aggressive behavioral characteristics were assessed in groups of men and women by a self-report instrument, the Aggression Inventory, in which adult males reported more physical and verbal aggression than did females. Furthermore, males had higher scores on measures of impulsiveness and lack of frustration tolerance than did females, while women were more likely to avoid confrontation. In a second study, groups of male and female homosexuals and heterosexuals completed this Aggression Inventory after having blood samples taken to assay resting levels of testosterone (T) and estradiol (E). Groups of subjects within each gender were closely matched in terms of age, education, and vocational interests. Women were matched for the same time in their menstrual cycle (early follicular phase). Among men, homosexuals were indistinguishable from heterosexuals on all measures of aggression. Lesbians did not differ from heterosexual women on any aggression subscale except physical aggression, in which the homosexual women had lower scores. T and E were positively correlated with several indices of aggressive behavioral characteristics in men but were negatively correlated with those same measures in women.     

A comparison of skill-building and desensitization strategies for intervention with aggressive children

Social skills training and desensitization interventions were conducted with 41 institutionalized aggressive children aged 7–13. Subjects were randomly assigned after blocking by aggression and cooperative play to either of the treatments. Dependent measures were direct observations of playground play and teacher ratings. Subjects in the social skills program mastered the basic cognitive skills presented to them. Observational data indicated that both groups experienced marked reduction in aggressive behavior and increases in cooperative play. The social skills training intervention engendered incremental improvement in aggression in comparison to the desensitization condition. However, none of the behavioral changes evident in the observations were reflected in teacher ratings.     

Showing-off behaviour of nursery children

Assertive behaviours like showing-off have an important role for a child in getting attention from other children in a class without being aggressive. This study presented the showing-off behaviour in an English nursery school, and later it was discussed in comparison with that in the German kindergartens reported by Hold-Cavell. As a result, the English children performed showing-off behaviours at only one-half the frequency of German children. No sex difference was seen in either showing-off or physical aggression in the nursery class. The frequency of showing-off did not correlate with that of physical aggression; this result is discussed in terms of Hinde's motivational postulate. Showing-off behaviour is deserving of the further studies cross-culturally and onto-genetically.     

Person perception when aggressive or nonaggressive sports are primed

Previous research investigating the factors contributing to sports spectator violence has focused primarily on conscious processes such as the disinhibiting effects of aggressive models and physiological arousal. The current research borrows a methodology from social cognition work to examine the role of passive, category accessibility effects on fan hostility. Prior research has indicated that as a schema becomes more accessible in memory, the use of it to encode subsequent information is increased. It was therefore hypothesized that individuals for whom the category of hostility had been unobtrusively primed with aggressive-sports names (e.g., boxing) would rate an ambiguous target person as more hostile and as more likely to prefer hostile activities relative to persons who were primed with sports names which were not associated with violence (e.g., golf). The results supported the hypotheses, with subjects who were primed with aggressive-sports rating an unrelated target person's behavior as significantly more hostile and as more likely to prefer aggressive activities relative to subjects exposed to sentences containing references to nonaggressive-sports. Discussion includes the potential ramifications for spectator aggression at sporting events.     

Attributional style of the mother as a predictor of aggressive behavior of the child

The association between the life orientation and attributional styles of a mother and the aggressiveness of her child were studied in 61 mothers and their children, 23 boys and 38 girls, mean age 6.6 years (range 4–13 years). The mother's life orientation and attributional styles were established during interviews using the life-style questionnaire, and a child's aggressiveness was evaluated by the mother using the Health Examination Survey. The factors assessing life orientation were lack of personal control, causal unstability, internal locus of causality, personal responsibility, and democratic educational attitudes. The mother's personal responsibility and internal causal attributions were related to nonaggressiveness in the child, whereas mothers with a lack of personal control were likely to have aggressive children. Educational attitudes were of no importance. The results showed no sex- or age-related variance.     

Sex differences in behavioral consequences of defeat in the rat are not organized by testosterone during early development

Male and female rats react differently to losing an aggressive encounter, the presence of testosterone (at the time of confrontation) being a critical factor in the manifestation of this sex difference. Female rats were androgenized by 250 μg testosterone propionate sc on days 1 and 5 after birth. When adult they received a sc testosterone proprionate (TP) implant and were subjected to repeated defeats by being placed in the cage of an aggressive resident female. In contrast to males, which freeze and become permanently submissive, androgenized females showed no freezing or other signs of submission. The sex difference in response to defeat is therefore not dependent on the presence of testosterone during the period of post-natal sexual differentiation.     

Fighting experiences and natural killer cell activity in male laboratory mice

There is currently much interest in the potential impact of psychological factors on immune responses. An attempt was made to assess the effects of dominant/subordinate polarity in male mice on the cytotoxic activities of their natural-killer (NK) cells. On the basis of repeated agonistic encounters, categories of subordinate and dominat animals were selected. These animals were compared with manipulated controls (introduced to a novel test cage without an opponent on each occasion) and undisturbed controls (who remained in isolation without manipulation). In terms of NK activity, immunosuppression was observed in both dominant and subordinate categories when compared to undisturbed controls. There were, however, no differences between the fighting exposed subjects and the manipulated controls, suggesting that stress accounts for any changes. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Testosterone intake and aggressiveness: Real effect or anticipation?

In a double-blind experiment, human males (n = 27) were given either testosterone (40 mg/day), placebo, or no treatment, over a one week period. Subjective and observer assessed mood estimations were conducted before and after treatment. Testosterone levels in saliva were measured with radioimmunoassay. The results revealed a significant placebo effect [c. f. Medicine and Science in Sports 4: 124–126]: After treatment, the placebo group scored higher than both the testosterone and the control group on self-estimated anger, irritation, impulsivity, and frustration. Observer-estimated mood yielded similar results. The lack of a placebo effect in the testosterone group is intriguing, and may be due to secondary effects caused by suppression of the body's own testosterone production, since recorded non-protein bound testosterone did not significantly rise due to treatment. The resultss suggest that androgen usage causes expectations, rather than an actual increase of aggressiveness. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Anger and aggression in women: Influence of sports choice and testosterone administration

We report on two studies of anger and aggression in women. One study concerns an experimental study of anger induction in aggressive and non-aggressive sportswomen. It was found that sports choice in itself, contrary to expectation, does not predict anger arousal and aggressive behavior in the laboratory. However, at an individual level the anger proneness of the subject, as measured by a questionnaire we developed, was related to the intensity of aggressive behavior and subjectively reported anger. The second study concerns the activating effects of androgens on aggression and anger proneness. In a group of 22 female-to-male transsexuals, a battery of anger proneness and aggression questionnaires was administered twice: shortly before and 3 months after the start of androgen treatment. Administration of androgens was clearly associated with an increaese in anger proneness, although there were no changes in several aspects of overt aggressive behavior. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Evidence for a motor mechanism of pain-induced aggression instigation in humans

The automatic skeletal motor responses of 20 male and 20 female student subjects (aged 20–36) receiving a painful stimulation (electric shock) were studied by examining voluntary concomitant extensions and flexions of the arm. These movements were either of long duration, allowing for an on-line control of their execution or, of short duration, requiring extensive pre-programming. Subjects were instructed either to push or to pull a lever upon receipt of an acoustic signal, which was paired or unpaired with an electric shock. Latencies for long duration movements (regardless of direction) were reduced by reception of painful stimulation. Latencies of short duration extensions and flexions were respectively reduced and increased by painful stimulation. Latencies of short duration movements were larger for females than males, regardless of movement direction. These data suggest that painful stimulation elicits automatic movements which affect programming of the termination of simultaneous voluntary movements. Implications of these findings for the study of aggressive behavior are discussed. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.