A study of the relationships between rumination, anger rumination, aggressive script rehearsal, and aggressive behavior in a sample of incarcerated adult males.

OBJECTIVE: This study explored relationships between aggressive script rehearsal, rumination, and anger rumination with aggressive behavior. METHOD: One hundred and twenty-nine incarcerated males (M = 33.54, SD = 8.67) completed the Schedule of Imagined Violence, Preservative Thinking Questionnaire, Anger Rumination Scale, and the Life History of Aggression-Aggression subscale. Correlations were run to examine associations between the variables and a four-step sequential multiple regression was performed to assess for the unique contribution of rumination, anger rumination, and aggressive script rehearsal to aggressive behavior. RESULTS: Results revealed moderate-strong positive associations between aggressive script rehearsal, rumination, and anger rumination. Moderate-weak associations were found between these three constructs and aggressive behavior. Regression analyses revealed aggressive script rehearsal was uniquely related with aggressive behavior and path analysis demonstrated aggressive script rehearsal mediated the relationship between rumination/anger rumination and aggression. CONCLUSION: These results clarify the nature of the relationships between these conceptually connected constructs and suggest that the frequency with which someone rehearses aggressive scripts impacts on the likelihood of aggression more than anger rumination and general ruminative processes. The frequency with which a person rehearses aggressive scripts should be a critical consideration in violence risk assessment and treatment programs for people deemed to be at risk for violent behavior.

Aggressive Script Rehearsal in Adult Offenders: Characteristics and Association With Self-Reported Aggression.

This study explored the frequency, recency, content, severity, and targets of aggressive scripts reported by 94 incarcerated Australian males. The scripts of participants who reported a history of repeated and severe aggression were compared with the scripts of participants who reported a history of less severe and less frequent aggression. As hypothesized, participants with a history of more frequent and severe aggressive behavior reported more severe aggressive script content and more frequent script rehearsal. Furthermore, participants with a history of more frequent and severe aggressive behavior reported feelings of anticipation and excitement when they rehearsed aggressive scripts as well as an increase in the severity of aggressive scripts rehearsed over time. These results have important implications for risk assessment and treatment of violent offenders.

Aggressive script rehearsal in adult offenders: Relationships with emotion regulation difficulties and aggressive behavior.

This study explored relationships between self-reported emotion regulation difficulties, frequency of aggressive script rehearsal and aggressive behavior in 129 adult male inmates. Significant moderate positive correlations were found between the frequency of aggressive script rehearsal and (1) emotion regulation difficulties overall, as well as the following dimensions, (2) difficulties controlling impulses when experiencing negative emotions, and (3) confidence in the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies. Significant weak positive correlations were found between the frequency of aggressive script rehearsal and two emotion regulation difficulty dimensions, (1) a lack of understanding of emotional responses, and (2) difficulties in dealing with goal directed behavior when experiencing uncomfortable emotions. No significant correlations were found between aggressive behavior and emotion regulation difficulties, except for a weak positive correlation between aggressive behavior and difficulties controlling impulses when experiencing negative emotions. Multivariate analyses were used to assess whether the frequency of aggressive script rehearsal moderated the effect of emotion regulation difficulties on aggressive behaviour. Significant improvement in the prediction of aggression resulted from consideration of the interaction between (1) aggressive script rehearsal and difficulties in emotional clarity, and (2) aggressive script rehearsal and awareness of emotional experience, even after accounting for the influence of age and attitudes toward violence. In conclusion, the results suggest that the rehearsal of aggressive scripts may function to regulate emotion, particularly amongst people who are inattentive to their emotions or who have difficulty understanding their emotional experiences.

An examination of the relationship between personality and aggression using the general aggression and five factor models.

This study examined the relationships between personality and aggression using the general aggression (GAM, Anderson and Bushman [2002] Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51) and five factor models (FFMs) (Costa and McCrae [1992] Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources). Specifically, it examined Ferguson and Dyck's (Ferguson and Dyck [2012] Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17, 220-228) criticisms that the GAM has questionable validity in clinical populations and disproportionately focuses on aggression-related knowledge structures to the detriment of other inputs, specifically personality variables. Fifty-five male offenders attending a community forensic mental health service for pre-sentence psychiatric and/or psychological evaluation were assessed for aggressive script rehearsal, aggression-supportive normative beliefs, FFM personality traits, trait anger and past aggressive behavior. With regard to relationships between five factor variables and aggression, results suggested that only agreeableness and conscientiousness were related to aggression. However, these relationships were: (1) weak in comparison with those between script rehearsal, normative beliefs and trait anger with aggression and (2) were not significant predictors in hierarchical regression analysis when all of the significant univariate predictors, including GAM-specified variables were regressed onto life history of aggression; normative beliefs supporting aggression, aggressive script rehearsal, and trait anger were significantly related to aggression in this regression analysis. These results provide further support for the application of the GAM to aggressive populations.