How similar are physical and social aggression? An examination of the correlates among young adult women

Although, there has been a surge in research examining indirect forms of aggression, many of the theoretical frameworks and models associated with aggression have predominantly focused on physical aggression. As a result, many of the conclusions drawn about aggressive behavior have been drawn from data conducted with males. This study examined the degree of similarity between physical and social aggression among young adult female perpetrators. Specifically, it determined how similar the correlational profiles between social and physical aggression were on underlying traits and processes that have historically been thought to underlie physical aggression. The secondary goal was to examine the degree of similarity between proactive and reactive forms of social aggression and physical aggression on the same underlying traits. One-hundred nineteen college women living in cooperative housing completed self-reports of behavior and personality (using the NEO-PI to assess the Five Factor Model), peer nominations of social aggression, and laboratory tasks (e.g., social information processing vignettes and a facial emotional expression recognition task). Inter-class correlations between the correlational profiles for social aggression and physical aggression revealed only a moderate degree of similarity for both self- and peer-reports. Test of dependent correlations showed that physical aggression had a stronger positive relationship to the tendency to believe that the person will act similarly in the future, has a stronger negative relationship to number of sad morphs, has a stronger positive relationship to anger errors, and a stronger positive relationship to both (lack of) premeditation and perseverance. Social aggression had a stronger positive association with sad errors and extraversion. It should be noted that the analyses exploring subtypes of social aggression and physical aggression were conducted with self-report data. Additionally, the proactive subscale reliabilities were low, thus the following results should be interpreted with caution. Inter-class correlations highlighted a moderate difference between proactive social and physical aggression and reactive social and physical aggression. Proactive physical aggression demonstrated a strong positive link to the belief that the person acted with negative intentions, the belief that the behavior was the result of negative personality characteristics, and sensation seeking behavior. Reactive physical aggression demonstrated a strong positive link to the tendency to believe that the person will act similarly in the future, a negative link to conscientiousness, and strong positive link to both (lack of) premeditation and perseverance. In addition to the above-noted problem with the reliabilities of the proactive aggression scales, inconsistent findings on the EEMT and the failure to replicate previous findings using the SIP tasks also limited the conclusions that could be drawn. Future research directions aimed at differentiating physical aggression and social aggression that overcome current limitations are discussed