J. Martin Ramirez

Justification of interpersonal aggression in Japanese, American, and Spanish students

Six hundred and thirty-two university students of both sexes—242 Japanese (137 males and 105 females), 190 Spanish (71 males and 119 females), and 200 American (100 males and 100 females)—completed a questionnaire that examined their attitudes toward various kinds of aggression directed at other people in different situations that ranged from self-defense to a method of overcoming communication problems. Factor analysis revealed three factors: physical aggression (killing, torture, and hitting), direct verbal aggression (shouting and rage), and indirect verbal aggression (being ironic and hindering). The basic factor structure of the Japanese, the Spanish, and the USA samples was similar. In all samples, men showed a higher justification of physical aggressive acts in any situation and of indirect verbal aggression in nondefensive circumstances. Cultural differences were found in the degree of justification of the three factors: in all kinds of situations, Japanese students showed a lower justification of indirect verbal aggression but a higher justification of direct verbal aggression than USA and Spain samples. Physical aggression in defensive situations is justified more by Americans than by Japanese and Spanish students. These findings suggest the existence of a common basic moral code about physical aggressive acts, but there seems to be a cultural influence on moral codes concerning verbal aggressive acts. Oriental cultures, with an interdependent construal of self, seem to be more permissive of direct verbal aggression compared with Western cultures, but they have less tolerance for indirect verbal aggression. There were practically no significant differences between American and Spanish scores. Aggr. Behav. 25:185–195, 1999.

Acceptability of aggression in four Spanish regions and a comparison with other European countries

The degree of acceptance of various forms of aggression in different situations was investigated by applying questionnaires to students from four Spanish regions: Castile, Catalonia, Andalusia, and the Basque Country. These data are also compared with similar studies in Finland and Poland. Although some minor differences were found between the different groups as well as some gender preferences, very similar acceptances were observed in all the populations studied, suggesting a certain universality of norms and beliefs about aggression in society.

Can aggression provide pleasure

Abstract. We investigated the pleasurability of aggressive behavioral decisions. Four questionnaires (on hedonicity, decision making, justification of aggression, and impulsiveness) were given to 50 participants of both sexes, ranging from 16 to 80 years old. Most participants avoided unpleasant behaviors as part of a trend to maximize pleasure and to minimize displeasure. Mean hedonicity ratings followed a bell curve with increasing levels of aggressiveness (p < .0001). Thus, the participants chose neither passive nor highly aggressive responses to social conflicts, with both extremes receiving the most unpleasant ratings. The results offer empirical support for an interesting point: People may derive pleasure from aggression as long as it is exhibited on a low to medium level. More precisely, people associate pleasure with aggression up to a certain point: Aggressive responses of medium intensity were rated significantly less unpleasant than the most passive and most aggressive ones, which were associat...

ANGER AND ASSOCIATED EXPERIENCES OF SADNESS, FEAR, VALENCE, AROUSAL, AND DOMINANCE EVOKED BY VISUAL SCENES

Anger is a basic emotion experienced in several aversive situations. In this study, the relation between Anger, Fear, and Sadness, as well as the dimensions of Valence, Arousal, and Dominance, were examined. It was hypothesized that pictures showing an Intention to Harm would evoke not only Anger, but also Fear and Sadness, and that this would be correlated with low Valence, high Arousal, and high Dominance. To this end, 45 healthy volunteers (25 women and 20 men; M age = 27.2 yr., SD = 9.5) recorded appraisals for each of these emotional experience while viewing 120 pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System. Data were analyzed with a linear mixed model and a hierarchical classes approach to identify differences and correlations between emotional categories. Results indicate that those pictures showing Intention to Harm generate higher Anger and Fear, while pictures representing Frustration of Goals leads to higher Sadness. In addition, high Anger, Fear, and Sadness are associated with low Valence, moderate Arousal, and high Dominance. Same sex differences in emotional responses were also found. These findings suggest that the experience of Anger requires the inference of the others mental and physical state and need the regulation of cognitive and affective systems acting together. The study of this emotion should consider both categorical and dimensional approaches in order to define its coherent features.

Pleasure, the Common Currency of Emotions

Pleasure/displeasure is the common currency for accessing behavior in response to the various emotions; no emotion is hedonically indifferent. The hedonic dimension is what pathognomonically defines emotion. Pleasure thus makes emotion a motivating experience.

Animal models in the research of human aggression

At present, one of the major fields of interest in psychobiological research is the study of human aggression. Besides its contribution to our basic scientific knowledge and its potential value in the development of different applied sciences, research on human aggression will also, hopefully, aid in control of violence and social conflicts, and thereby improve the living condition of man, an ideal that we all should embrace. In addition, further knowledge in this area will permit a more adequate treatment of some mental diseases. The purpose of the present review is to offer a schematic approach designed to illustrate how animal models have a heuristic, hypothesis-generating function, providing important parallels with human aggression and suggesting new directions for future research.

The Pleasure of Being Aggressive in Male Incarcerated Criminals

Maximization of pleasure (hedonicity) is a major mechanism in human decision-making by optimizing behavior, as previous research has shown on both sensory pleasure and purely mental pleasure (such as playing video- games or solving mathematical problems). Our group also documented that pleasure is a major factor in decision-making in social situations related to interpersonal aggression: people tend to make aggressive behavioral decisions as a function of the resulting pleasure. The present study tried to verify whether this trend was also found in inmates. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation on the relationship between pleasure and aggression performed in a prison. Fifty three male inmates in a Spanish prison condemned for severe legal transgressions and serving long detention were compared with seventy five male university students who served as controls. They responded to self-reported questionnaires devised to examine how hedonicity influences decision-making in the case of aggressiveness. Socially conflictive situations were described, with four alternative options ranging from passive to highly aggressive response. A similar bell-shaped trend was present in both populations -aggressive behaviors of medium intensity were rated as significantly less unpleasant than the most passive and most aggressive behaviors-, even though the degree of hedonicity was significantly higher in the inmates, who rated mild and moderate aggressive responses as pleasurable. Inmates also voted for an unexpected lower of aggressiveness than controls, which may be explained by social desirability. Conclusion: the sametrend is found in both populations: mild aggressive behavior may be pleasurable to the aggressor, but only up to a certain level. But this seems to be stronger in inmates: they showed hedonicity when experiencing higher level of aggression. Such a result is consistent with a fundamental role of hedonicity in decision making.

Play in kittens (Felis domesticus) and its association with cohesion and aggression

The behavior of 7 cats was observed from birth to the age of 25 weeks. This longitudinal study indicates that the onset of two types of play coincides with the onset of different types of social interactions. For social play the peak of occurrence was during Weeks 9–14, whereas for nonsocial play it was during Weeks 18–21. In addition, a predominance of cohesive behaviors was observed during the earlier period (Weeks 9–14) and of aggressive behaviors during the later period (Weeks 18–21). These results highlight the fact that the timing of stages in cats’ development and suggest that there is a reorganization of play activity of kittens around the 4th week of their lives.

Gender differences in social interactions of children: A naturalistic approach

Differences in the social behavior of 6- and 7-year-old children of both sexes were analyzed by ethological methods. Observations were made while children attended class in a regular first-grade school. The incidence of general activity, social interaction, and open hostile activity was higher in boys. No significant differences between sexes were observed in cohesive, ambivalent, and flight components of behavior. Children of both sexes interacted more with girls. These results seem to indicate that gender differences in the way children interact with their peers are more evident during aggressive encounters and that they depend not only upon the sex of the actor, but also upon the sex of the receiver.

Justification of emotional and instrumental aggression in Hong Kong and Spanish university students

This study reports the degrees of approval for different aggressive acts in a number of instrumental and emotional situations. A nationally-adapted version of the Lagerspetz and Westman questionnaire (1) was administered to 332 university students of both sexes in Spain and Hong Kong. Respondents had to indicate levels of justification of several aggressive acts of different quality and intensity in the context of different social justifications. Our results replicated the general findings of previous research in other cultures: in both samples, more drastic forms of aggression (e.g., killing, torture) were less accepted than non-dangerous forms of such behavior (e.g., hindering, being ironic); aggressive acts more socially justified (in terms of protection of self or other) were clearly more accepted than others with no such justification (problems of communication); and instrumental-motivated aggression was higher justified than emotional-motivated aggression. Some differences in the level of acceptance according to the sex of the participants were found: women were more prone to a higher acceptance of acts and situations more related to emotion. Although both sexes justified aggression in a higher degree for instrumentally motivated situations than for emotional ones, males showed a higher acceptance than females for instrumental situations and a lower one than females for emotional ones. There were also some minor culturally bound differences in these attitudes: Spaniards accepted less than HK students aggression in emotional situations, specially for the cases of punishment and lack of communication, but more emotional acts, such as rage and shouting. Thus, patterns of moral approval of various kinds of aggressive acts are in a large part common to both cultures. Findings also confirmed a two-factor solution and the respective predictive power of justifications for aggression in instrumental vs. emotional motivated situations. The reliability and validity of this brief self-report have been further established by the present study, paving the way for future studies to measure instrumental and emotional aggression.