Gender Differences in Relational and Physical Aggression

By L. Burton, Jessica S. Hafetz, Debra E. Henninger. 2007

153 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A sample of 134 (93 female, 41 male) university students were evaluated with measures of relational and physical aggression, as well as measures of the five personality factors (NEO Five-Factor Inventory; Costa and McCrae, 1992), depression and anxiety (Beck Depression Inventory; Beck, 1987 and Anxiety Inventory; Beck, 1990), and general emotional understanding and functioning (Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory; Bar-On, 1997). Gender differences were found such that the men reported more physical aggression and less Extraversion, with trends for less Neuroticism and less Agreeableness, than the women (NEO-FFI). Additionally, the women had higher Bar-On Interpersonal overall factor scores, including higher scores for the component Empathy, Social Responsibility, and Interpersonal Relationship subscales, than the men. Relational and physical aggression showed different patterns of association with other personality and emotional measures for men and women. In men, higher physical aggression was associated with lower Agreeableness and lower Extraversion. In women, higher physical aggression was associated with higher Conscientiousness, more depression, lower Bar-On EQI Stress Management and higher adaptability. Relational aggression was associated with lower Agreeableness and a lower Bar-On EQI overall score for both men and women. In men, higher relational aggression was additionally associated with more Neuroticism. In women, higher relational aggression was also associated with lower Conscientiousness, and lower Bar-On EQI Interpersonal factor scores.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a36ee90973a62d46e8a7f2abfacb5a2b6ab9d234

How researchers see this paper

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In Clinical Psychology

1. Sherman A. Lee
2. D. Buhrmester
3. Gayle T. Dow
4. Marcantonio M. Spada
5. Ana V. Nikcevic

In Social Psychology

1. Sherman A. Lee
2. Gayle T. Dow
3. Marcantonio M. Spada
4. Ana V. Nikcevic

Citations in the corpus

• Competitiveness, Gender, and Adjustment Among Adolescents (2010, background): “Indeed, previous research has found that overtly aggressive girls experience more intolerance, rejection, and negativity from others than do aggressive males (e.g., Crick 1997), and that aggressive girls experience more depressive symptoms than non-aggressive girls ( Burton et al. 2007; Crick, 1997”
• Malevolent Creativity: Does Personality Influence Malicious Divergent Thinking? (2011, result): “For instance, consistent with the personality literature, women tend to report higher levels of sympathy (Andreoni & Vesterlund, 2001 ) and exhibit less physical aggression and anger (Burton, Hafetz, & Henninger, 2007 ; Hyde, 1984 ) than men.”