Experimental Models for Aggression and Inventories for the Assessment of Aggressive and Autoaggressive Behavior

Abstract

This paper reviews principles realized in questionnaires for the assessment of aggression as well as in experimental models suitable for inducing aggression for the validation of questionnaire scales and for providing experimental models for testing aggression-reducing drug effects. Existing self-rating scales based on factor analysis were shown to measure certain parameters of reactions concerning modes of expression of aggression and its objects. In observer rating scales situations are usually also specified. This paper presents a newly developed questionnaire which combines reactions and situations in order to test specificity. A final scale containing 9 situations and 17 reactions grouped into seven factors is presented. It could be shown to differentiate between certain types of aggression provoking situations. Furthermore, models suitable for eliciting aggression were developed in three different departments of psychology. They are based on frustration by blockade of goals and critique or subtraction of positive reinforcers ("Tower of Hanoi" and "Superball Game" in Würzburg, "Unsolvable Maze Computer Task" in Berlin) and by a competitive condition combined with application of aversive stimuli by a coplayer ("Modified Buss Machine" in Giessen). All experimental conditions were suitable for inducing anger and emotional arousal, negative ratings of confederates or experimenters, and partly also physiological changes. The results seem promising enough to test the relationship between artificially induced aggression and pathologiocal aggression in further research.