The Utility of Forms and Functions of Aggression in Emerging Adulthood: Association with Personality Disorder Symptomatology

Assessing the forms and functions of aggression using self-report: Factor structure and invariance of the Peer Conflict Scale in youths.

“…These different functions have proven to be important for etiological theories of aggression, and they have important implications for intervention (Marsee & Frick, 2010). Recently, researchers have begun to integrate the forms (relational and overt) and the functions (reactive and proactive) into single measures in an attempt to assess them simultaneously (e.g., Little et al, 2003;Marsee & Frick, 2007;Ostrov & Houston, 2008). The purpose of the current study was to expand on this literature by examining the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Peer Conflict Scale (PCS), a self-report measure of the four form and function aggression domains (reactive overt, reactive relational, proactive overt, proactive relational).…”

“…This finding is consistent with past research showing associations between proactive aggression (both relational and overt forms) and CU or psychopathic traits in both youth and adult samples (Crapanzano et al, 2010;Kruh, Frick, & Clements., 2005;Marsee & Frick, 2007;Ostrov & Houston, 2008) This is an important finding because CU traits have been associated with a more severe and stable pattern of antisocial behavior (see Frick & Dickens, 2006 for a review), and they tend to be associated with distinct temperament and emotional correlates, such as a lack of responsiveness to distress cues in others (see Frick & White, 2008 for a review). Thus, the unique association found between CU traits and proactive aggression supports research suggesting that the two functions of aggression could have unique affective risk factors (Marsee & Frick, 2010).…”

Relational aggression in adolescents: A review of theoretical and empirical research

“…Relational aggression is not currently captured in the recent editions of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) as a form of psychopathology. A majority of studies has shown maladaptive effects of relational aggression for both victims (Crick et al, 2001;Prinstein et al, 2001) and perpetrators (Card et al, 2008;Crick, 1996;Crick et al, 2001;Ostrov & Houston, 2008). In addition, multiple studies have shown that relationally aggressive behaviors covary highly with other forms of externalizing behaviors and especially physical aggression (Card et al, 2008;Loeber et al, 2009;Zalecki & Hinshaw, 2004).…”

A Review and Reconceptualization of Social Aggression: Adaptive and Maladaptive Correlates

“…Furthermore, socially aggressive men demonstrated lower empathetic concern (Loudin et al 2003) and prosocial behavior (Lento-Zwolinski 2007). In terms of contrasting proactive and reactive functions, Ostrov and Houston (2008) recently reported that selfreports of proactive and reactive social aggressive were associated with borderline personality disorder features, and proactive social aggression was associated with antisocial personality disorder features. Bailey and Ostrov (2008) also demonstrated links between reactive social aggression and hostile attribution biases for instrumental provocation situations, and proactive social aggression and normative beliefs about the acceptability of aggressive behavioral responses.…”