Background Aggressive behaviour is a prevalent and harmful phenomenon in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, no short-term, low-cost programme exists that specifically focuses on aggression. Aims Attuning therapy modules to pathogenetic mechanisms that underlie reactive aggression in BPD, we composed a 6 week mechanism-based anti-aggression psychotherapy (MAAP) approach for the group setting, which we tested against a non-specific supportive psychotherapy (NSSP). Method A cluster-randomised two-arm parallel-group phase II trial of N = 59 patients with BPD and overt aggressive behaviour was performed (German Registry for Clinical Trials, DRKS00009445). The primary outcome was the externally directed overt aggression score of the Modified Overt Aggression Scale (M-OAS) post-treatment (adjusted for pre-treatment overt aggression). Secondary outcomes were M-OAS irritability, M-OAS response rate and ecological momentary assessment of anger post-treatment and at 6 month follow-up, as well as M-OAS overt aggression score at follow-up. Results Although no significant difference in M-OAS overt aggression between treatments was found post-treatment (adjusted difference in mean 3.49 (95% CI −5.32 to 12.31, P = 0.22), the MAAP group showed a clinically relevant decrease in aggressive behaviour of 65% on average (versus 33% in the NSSP group), with particularly strong improvement among those with the highest baseline aggression. Most notably, significant differences in reduction in overt aggression between MAAP and NSSP were found at follow-up. Conclusions Patients with BPD and aggressive behaviour benefited from a short group psychotherapy, with improvements particularly visible at 6 month follow-up. Further studies are required to show whether these effects are specific to MAAP.

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Researchers' careers depend on publishing papers. There are explicit expectations (e.g., paper structure) that affect editors' and reviewers' perceptions of manuscripts and therefore chances of publishing papers that can be easily conveyed in written feedback. However, previous research uncovered that some expectations could be rather implicit, thus reviewers and editors might not be aware that those may affect their perceptions of manuscripts. Specifically, the use of hedges (i.e., words that create vagueness; e.g., "the results show" vs. "the results might show") seems to be expected by editors and reviewers of high impact management and applied psychology journals. However, previous work did not investigate causality of hedges on publishing recommendations. The current experiment introduced reviewers (N = 96) from top-tier journals from psychology and management with one of two versions of an introduction differing in the use of hedges. Results provide first evidence that authors' use of hedges impacts reviewers' recommendation for publication and suggest that this expectation is rather implicit. Moreover, the findings call for research on implicit expectations in the publishing process, may have important consequences for reviewers' and editors' awareness of this topic, and raise attention in novice and international researchers to subtle aspects of language that might influence chances of publishing.