This published study was conducted by a team that included Lotte Bant (IDA alumna) and Stefan Bogaerts (IDA staff) and was featured in the Journal of Psychology of Violence. We congratulate the authors on their publication and wish you an enjoyable read!
Objective: Bimodal operationalizations of aggression as either reactive/impulsive (“affective”) or proactive/premeditated (“instrumental”) insufficiently capture the heterogeneity of aggressive behavior. A more nuanced perspective was proposed in the quadripartite violence typology (QVT) which differentiates between four types of aggression based on associated emotional experiences and underlying motivations: impulsive/appetitive (Imp/Ap), impulsive/aversive (Imp/Av), controlled/appetitive (Con/Ap), and controlled/aversive (Con/Av). This study aimed to provide novel evidence for the internal structure and construct validity of the Dutch version of the Angry Aggression Scale (AAS) as a method of operationalizing the QVT.
Method: A combined sample of Dutch community-dwelling participants was recruited through Prolific and a local university (N = 606, Mage = 27.3, SDage = 10.3, range = 18–73). The Dutch translation of the AAS was administered alongside self-report measures of aggression, anger, emotion regulation, impulsivity, maladaptive personality, and psychopathy.
Results: Confirmatory factor analyses indicated good model fit and strict measurement invariance across sex for the AAS four-factor structure, capturing Imp/Ap, Imp/Av, Con/Ap, and Con/Av forms of aggression. The AAS had good internal consistency. Adequate construct and discriminant validity were evidenced by a pattern of concurrent, convergent, and divergent associations with external correlates, largely in line with preregistered expectations. Notably, the AAS showed incremental validity over other aggression measures for most correlates.
Conclusions: Overall, these findings provide additional evidence for the QVT model and have important implications for theory refinement, clinical practice, and policy-making. This study advanced our understanding of aggression by moving beyond a reductionistic dichotomy between reactive and proactive aggression. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Impact Statement
The present study supports the utility of using the Angry Aggression Scale to assess self-reported aggressive behavior according to the quadripartite violence typology. Specifically, it conceptualizes four main types of aggression depending on two intersecting dimensions: appetitive versus aversive motivation and impulsive versus planned behavior. The Angry Aggression Scale has adequate psychometric properties, as well as a factor structure and construct validity aligned to its underlying theoretical framework, suggesting that each type of aggression is associated with a distinct profile of individual characteristics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
CITATION: Bant, L., Bogaerts, S., Howard, R., Mazzeschi, C., & Garofalo, C. (2025). The quadripartite violence typology: Further validation of the Angry Aggression Scale in a Dutch community sample. Psychology of Violence. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/vio0000594
You can reach the full article via this link: https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000594
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