Aggression questionnaire scores in extremely violent male prisoners, male bodybuilders, and healthy non-violent men

Abstract

Two aggression questionnaires, the Revised Swedish Version (AQ-RSV) of the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (AQ) and the shortened and refined version by Bryant and Smith (BS-AQ) were compared. Both questionnaires identified subscore levels of aggression and there were significant differences between the groups. On the AQ-RSV subscales, the violent inmates showed statistically significantly more aggression for Hostility (p = 0.000), Anger (p = 0.000), Physical Aggression (p = 0.000) and Verbal Aggression (p = 0.01) than the healthy (non-violent) men. The bodybuilders, all “on” performance-enhancing substances, scored significantly higher on the Physical Aggression subscale than the healthy men (p = 0.000). Compared to the bodybuilders, the violent inmates scored significantly higher on the Anger (p = 0.02) and Hostility (p = 0.002) subscales. For the BS-AQ, where general variance was higher than for the original AQ, some of the above mentioned relationships were different. The violent inmates still scored significantly higher than the healthy men for Hostility (p = 0.000), Anger (p = 0.006) and Physical Aggression (p = 0.000), but not for Verbal Aggression. The inmates scored significantly higher than the bodybuilders for Anger (p = 0.006) and Verbal Aggression (p = 0.006), and the bodybuilders scored higher than the healthy men on the Physical Aggression (p = 0.002) subscale only. These and other more complex relationships are discussed in the light of previous findings. Thus the BS-AQ resulted in more sharply defined relationships and, at the same time, showed some important differences between the groups studied. Verbal Aggression does not seem to distinguish violent inmates from healthy men. Angry bodybuilders tend to express their aggression through Physical Aggression.