AGGRESSION QUESTIONNAIRE

Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992)

Instructions:

Using the 5 point scale shown below, indicate how uncharacteristic or characteristic each of the
following statements is in describing you. Place your rating in the box to the right of the
statement.

1 = extremely uncharacteristic of me
2 = somewhat uncharacteristic of me
3 = neither uncharacteristic nor characteristic of me
4 = somewhat characteristic of me
5 = extremely characteristic of me

1. Some of my friends think I am a hothead. A

2. If I have to resort to violence to protect my rights, I will. PA
3. When people are especially nice to me, I wonder what they want. H
4. I tell my friends openly when I disagree with them. VA
5. I have become so mad that I have broken things. PA
6. I can’t help getting into arguments when people disagree with me. VA
7. I wonder why sometimes I feel so bitter about things. H
8. Once in a while, I can’t control the urge to strike another person. PA
9.* I am an even-tempered person. A
10. I am suspicious of overly friendly strangers. H
11. I have threatened people I know. PA
12. I flare up quickly but get over it quickly. A
13. Given enough provocation, I may hit another person. PA
14. When people annoy me, I may tell them what I think of them. VA
15. I am sometimes eaten up with jealousy. H
16.* I can think of no good reason for ever hitting a person. PA
17. At times I feel I have gotten a raw deal out of life. H
18. I have trouble controlling my temper. A
19. When frustrated, I let my irritation show. A
20. I sometimes feel that people are laughing at me behind my back. H
21. I often find myself disagreeing with people. VA
22. If somebody hits me, I hit back. PA
23. I sometimes feel like a powder keg ready to explode. A
24. Other people always seem to get the breaks. H
25. There are people who pushed me so far that we came to blows. PA
26. I know that “friends” talk about me behind my back. H
27. My friends say that I’m somewhat argumentative. VA
28. Sometimes I fly off the handle for no good reason. A
29. I get into fights a little more than the average person. PA
Manual

1. Aggression: Aggression Questionnaire developed by Buss and Perry (1992) was taken as

a measure of aggression. The questionnaire consists of 29 questions. It consists of 4

factors: - i) Physical Aggression (PA), ii) Verbal Aggression (VA), iii), Anger (A) iv)

Hostile (H). The first two factors represent the instrumental component. Anger implies

physiological activation and represents the emotional component, while hostility involves

feelings of opposition and injustice thus representing the cognitive component.

Apparently, anger acts as a psychological bridge connecting instrumental and cognitive

components.

Reliability

With regard to reliability, internal consistency was evaluated by means of Cronbach’s alpha (α).

Indices between .70 and .80 are considered good reliability estimates (Kaplan & Sacuzzo, 2006),

whereas it is acceptable a lower value (around .60) on scales that meet certain criteria.

Table 4.2 Internal consistency, means, standard deviations, and effect size estimates for different

models of the Aggression Questionnaire.

Table 4.2

Model α Men Women d

(n=134) (n=237)
M SD M SD
Physical 0.779 24.07 7.38 21.59 7.99 0.32*
Aggression
Verbal 0.68 12.39 3.98 12.91 4.55 -0.12
Aggression
Anger 0.671 18.80 5.49 20.59 5.86 -0.32*
Hostility 0.713 21.65 6.60 22.46 6.54 -0.12
 Total 0.875 76.90 18.62 77.55 19.76 -0.03
Note. α: Cronbach’s alpha. *t-values p < 0.05.

Validity

This questionnaire has been validated in different countries and translated into several languages,

including Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, German, French, Slovak and Greek. Not all those

studies have supported the 4-factor structure originally proposed.

Table 4.3 Goodness-of-fit indices for different models of the Aggression Questionnaire

Table 4.3
Note:
Model x2 df GFI AGFI SRMR CFI NNFI RMSEA PNFI PGFI AIC GFI:
Aggression 680.81** 366 0.90 0.88 0.051 0.97 0.96 0.042 0.83 0.76 739.6 goodness
of fit
index; AGFI: adjusted GFI; SRMR: standardized root-mean-square residual; CFI: comparative fit index; NNFI: non-normed fit
index; RMSEA: mean square error of approximation; PNFI: parsimony normed fit index; PGFI: parsimony goodness of fit
index; AIC: Akaike information criteria. * p < .06. **p < .00.

Scoring

The total score for aggression is the sum of the factor scores. It is a five point scale which

indicates the uncharacteristic or characteristic which is describing you. The subject has to place

the rating of each statement between1-5. (1= extremely uncharacteristic of me, 2= somewhat

uncharacteristic of me, 3= neither uncharacteristic nor characteristic of me, 4= somewhat

characteristic of me, 5= extremely characteristic of me). The two questions no. 9 & 16 are with

the asterisk are reverse-scored. i) Physical Aggression (PA) items no. are 2, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16, 22,

25, & 29. ii) Verbal Aggression (VA) items no. are 4, 6, 14, 21 & 27. iii) Anger (A) item no. are

1, 9, 12, 18, 19, 23, & 28. iv) Hostile (H) item no. are 3, 7, 10, 15, 17, 20, 24 & 26.