Reactive Aggression (reactive + aggression)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Relations of proactive and reactive dimensions of aggression to overt and covert narcissism in nonclinical adolescents

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2010
Andrea Fossati
Abstract In recent years, there has been increasing acknowledgment of the multidimensionality of narcissism and that different types of narcissism may relate differently to other domains of functioning. Similarly, aggression,a frequently discussed correlate of narcissism,is a heterogeneous construct. In this study, the relations of proactive and reactive aggression with overt and covert manifestations of narcissism were examined in a sample of 674 Italian high school students (mean age=15.5 years, SD=2.1 years). Overt narcissism was positively related to both proactive and reactive subtypes of aggression, whereas covert narcissism related only to reactive aggression. Vanity, Authority, Exhibitionism, and Exploitativeness were the components of overt narcissism related to Proactive Aggression (all remained unique correlates when controlling for Reactive Aggression), whereas Reactive Aggression was associated with the Exhibitionism, Superiority, and Entitlement subscales (only the latter was uniquely related when controlling for Proactive Aggression). Aggr. Behav. 36:21,27, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


The Anatomy of Anger: An Integrative Cognitive Model of Trait Anger and Reactive Aggression

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 1 2010
Benjamin M. Wilkowski
ABSTRACT This paper presents an integrative cognitive model, according to which individual differences in 3 cognitive processes jointly contribute to a person's level of trait anger and reactive aggression. An automatic tendency to attribute hostile traits to others is the first of these cognitive processes, and this process is proposed to be responsible for the more frequent elicitation of anger, particularly when hostile intent is ambiguous. Rumination on hostile thoughts is the second cognitive process proposed, which is likely to be responsible for prolonging and intensifying angry emotional states. The authors finally propose that low trait anger individuals use effortful control resources to self-regulate the influence of their hostile thoughts, whereas those high in trait anger do not. A particular emphasis of this review is implicit cognitive sources of evidence for the proposed mechanisms. The authors conclude with a discussion of important future directions, including how the proposed model can be further verified, broadened to take into account motivational factors, and applied to help understand anger-related social problems. [source]


Social Information Processing, Moral Reasoning, and Emotion Attributions: Relations With Adolescents' Reactive and Proactive Aggression

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2009
William F. Arsenio
Connections between adolescents' social information processing (SIP), moral reasoning, and emotion attributions and their reactive and proactive aggressive tendencies were assessed. One hundred mostly African American and Latino 13- to 18-year-olds from a low-socioeconomic-status (SES) urban community and their high school teachers participated. Reactive aggression was uniquely related to expected ease in enacting aggression, lower verbal abilities, and hostile attributional biases, and most of these connections were mediated by adolescents' attention problems. In contrast, proactive aggression was uniquely related to higher verbal abilities and expectations of more positive emotional and material outcomes resulting from aggression. Discussion focused on the utility of assessing both moral and SIP-related cognitions, and on the potential influence of low-SES, high-risk environments on these findings. [source]


Testing the developmental distinctiveness of male proactive and reactive aggression with a nested longitudinal experimental intervention

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 2 2010
Edward D. Barker
Abstract An experimental preventive intervention nested into a longitudinal study was used to test the developmental distinctiveness of proactive and reactive aggression. The randomized multimodal preventive intervention targeted a subsample of boys rated disruptive by their teachers. These boys were initially part of a sample of 895 boys, followed from kindergarten to 17 years of age. Semiparametric analyses of developmental trajectories for self-reported proactive and reactive aggression (between 13 and 17 years of age) indicated three trajectories for each type of aggression that varied in size and shape (Low, Moderate, and High Peaking). Intent-to-treat comparisons between the boys in the prevention group and the control group confirmed that the preventive intervention between 7 and 9 years of age, which included parenting skills and social skills training, could impact the development of reactive more than proactive aggression. The intervention effect identified in reactive aggression was related to a reduction in self-reported coercive parenting. The importance of these results for the distinction between subtypes of aggressive behaviors and the value of longitudinal-experimental studies from early childhood onward is discussed. Aggr. Behav. 36:127,140, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Relations of proactive and reactive dimensions of aggression to overt and covert narcissism in nonclinical adolescents

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2010
Andrea Fossati
Abstract In recent years, there has been increasing acknowledgment of the multidimensionality of narcissism and that different types of narcissism may relate differently to other domains of functioning. Similarly, aggression,a frequently discussed correlate of narcissism,is a heterogeneous construct. In this study, the relations of proactive and reactive aggression with overt and covert manifestations of narcissism were examined in a sample of 674 Italian high school students (mean age=15.5 years, SD=2.1 years). Overt narcissism was positively related to both proactive and reactive subtypes of aggression, whereas covert narcissism related only to reactive aggression. Vanity, Authority, Exhibitionism, and Exploitativeness were the components of overt narcissism related to Proactive Aggression (all remained unique correlates when controlling for Reactive Aggression), whereas Reactive Aggression was associated with the Exhibitionism, Superiority, and Entitlement subscales (only the latter was uniquely related when controlling for Proactive Aggression). Aggr. Behav. 36:21,27, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Genetic and environmental stability differs in reactive and proactive aggression

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 6 2009
Catherine Tuvblad
Abstract The aim of this study was to examine stability and change in genetic and environmental influences on reactive (impulsive and affective) and proactive (planned and instrumental) aggression from childhood to early adolescence. The sample was drawn from an ongoing longitudinal twin study of risk factors for antisocial behavior at the University of Southern California (USC). The twins were measured on two occasions: ages 9,10 years (N=1,241) and 11,14 years (N=874). Reactive and proactive aggressive behaviors were rated by parents. The stability in reactive aggression was due to genetic and nonshared environmental influences, whereas the continuity in proactive aggression was primarily genetically mediated. Change in both reactive and proactive aggression between the two occasions was mainly explained by nonshared environmental influences, although some evidence for new genetic variance at the second occasion was found for both forms of aggression. These results suggest that proactive and reactive aggression differ in their genetic and environmental stability, and provide further evidence for some distinction between reactive and proactive forms of aggression. Aggr. Behav. 35:437,452, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Proactive and reactive aggression among school bullies, victims, and bully-victims

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 1 2002
Christina Salmivalli
Abstract Bullies, victims, bully-victims, and control children were identified from a sample of 1062 children (530 girls and 532 boys), aged 10 to 12 years, participating in the study. Their reactive and proactive aggression was measured by means of peer and teacher reports. Peer and teacher reports were more concordant with respect to reactive than proactive aggression. Comparing the children in different bullying roles in terms of their reactive and proactive aggression, bully-victims were found to be the most aggressive group of all. For this group, it was typical to be highly aggressive both reactively and proactively. Although bullies were significantly less aggressive than bully-victims, they scored higher than victims and controls on both reactive and proactive aggression. However, observations at the person level, i.e., cross-tabulational analyses, indicated that bullies were not only overrepresented among children who were both reactively and procatively aggressive but also among the only reactively aggressive as well as the only proactively aggressive groups. Victims scored higher than control children on reactive aggression, but they were not proactively aggressive. Furthermore, even their reactive aggression was at a significantly lower level than that of bullies and bully-victims. Aggr. Behav. 28:30,44, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


An aggression machine v. determinants in reactive aggression revisited

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 6 2001
Petri Juujärvi
Abstract The relations between reactive aggression, situational cues, and emotion regulation were examined by means of the Pulkkinen Aggression Machine (PAM) task. In the PAM, provocation and response were systematically varied under two conditions: the impulsive aggression condition and the controlled aggression condition. In the impulsive condition, no information about the attacker was provided, while in the controlled condition the attackers were specified in terms of sex, age, and physical strength. The task was administered to 109 children aged 8 to 13 years. Boys (n = 61) and girls (n = 48), as well as subgroups of Adjusted (n = 67) and Maladjusted (n = 26) children were compared. The results confirmed earlier findings showing that there is a strong relationship between attack and response intensity. However, this relationship was consistently modified by the effects of situation and personality-related variables. This meant that, while for the impulsive condition response intensity was closely tied to stimulus intensity, in the controlled condition this effect was modulated by the characteristics of the opponent: the more equal the opponent the stronger the retaliations displayed. The Maladjusted children reacted more intensively in the impulsive condition and to minor provocation in the controlled condition than the Adjusted children. This suggests that the intensity of the elicited aggression in the Maladjusted group was particularly dependent on contextual rather than internal control. Aggr. Behav. 27:430,445, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


The Anatomy of Anger: An Integrative Cognitive Model of Trait Anger and Reactive Aggression

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 1 2010
Benjamin M. Wilkowski
ABSTRACT This paper presents an integrative cognitive model, according to which individual differences in 3 cognitive processes jointly contribute to a person's level of trait anger and reactive aggression. An automatic tendency to attribute hostile traits to others is the first of these cognitive processes, and this process is proposed to be responsible for the more frequent elicitation of anger, particularly when hostile intent is ambiguous. Rumination on hostile thoughts is the second cognitive process proposed, which is likely to be responsible for prolonging and intensifying angry emotional states. The authors finally propose that low trait anger individuals use effortful control resources to self-regulate the influence of their hostile thoughts, whereas those high in trait anger do not. A particular emphasis of this review is implicit cognitive sources of evidence for the proposed mechanisms. The authors conclude with a discussion of important future directions, including how the proposed model can be further verified, broadened to take into account motivational factors, and applied to help understand anger-related social problems. [source]


Exploring the Intention to React to Aggressive Action Among Israeli Adolescents

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, Issue 3 2007
Zeev Winstok
The aim of the current study was to explore male and female adolescents' intentions to react to verbal and physical aggression issued by other males and females of the same age. The study is based on a sample of 292 male and female adolescents from 12 classes in four schools in northern Israel, two junior-high and two high-schools, 46.7% were males and 53.3% females. Sixteen short scenarios were presented to the interviewees, consisting of eight verbal provocations (four by males and four by females) and eight physical provocations. The results indicated that girls and boys perceived provocation differently. Males are more "gender oriented," whereas girls are more "content oriented," Males attend more to details of physical aggression, whereas females to details of verbal aggression. Yet, males are most concerned with the gender of the provocateur, whereas females are more attentive to the severity of the provocation, thus differentiating between verbal and physical forms of provocation, as representing different levels of attack, and within each form, differentiating along a continuum of severity of the attack. The results are discussed within the theoretical framework of reactive aggression. [source]


Affect-Congruent Social-Cognitive Evaluations and Behaviors

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2008
Kätlin Peets
This study examined whether the affect children feel toward peers would influence children's social-cognitive evaluations and behaviors. The sample consisted of 209 fifth-grade children (11- to 12-year-olds; 119 boys and 90 girls). For each child, 3 target peers (liked, disliked, and neutral) were identified via a sociometric nomination procedure. The names of the targets were then inserted into hypothetical vignettes in which the target peer's behavior had a negative consequence for the child. After each vignette, questions about intent, outcome expectations, and self-efficacy beliefs were asked. In addition, self-reports regarding relationship-specific proactive and reactive aggression and regarding victimization were collected. The results demonstrate that children social-cognitively differentiate between the relationship types and that relationship-specific evaluations are associated with relationship-specific behaviors. [source]