Stylistic aggression patterns for large/small delinquents.

Abstract

Examined the aggressive response style of 64 first offense, incarcerated, white, male delinquents who varied in physical size and aggressiveness on two behavioral simulation tasks. The delinquent's expectations, verbal anger, and effectiveness in verbally convincing his peers to accept an individual decision as the group's choice during an analogue discussion task were assessed. In addition, the delinquent's skill in controlling his arousal, verbal and physical aggressiveness, and performance on a digit symbol test while he was being attacked verbally was evaluated on a frustration task. Based on the interaction of perceptual, behavioral, and physiological factors, distinct aggression styles emerged for each of the four groups: Physically powerful/aggressive, powerful/nonaggressive, physically weak/aggressive, weak/nonaggressive. Positive aggression coping patterns were identified for each simulation task.