Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire

The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ; Buss & Perry, 1992) represents a
revision of the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (BDHI), including revisions of the
response format and item content to improve clarity. Although, as with the Buss-Durkee
scale, items for 6 a priori subscales were initially included in this measure, item-level
factor analyses across three samples confirmed the presence of only 4 factors, involving
Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger, and Hostility. Items which were
included in a planned Resentment subscale appeared to load with Hostility (confirming
the relationship between Suspicion and Resentment seen in the original Buss-Durkee),
and the items from a planned Indirect Aggression subscale appeared to be distributed
across the other factors.

• 29-items, 5-point scale from 1 (extremely uncharacteristic of me) to 5 (extremely

characteristic of me)

• Primary Reference:
Buss AH, Perry M: The aggression questionnaire. J Pers Soc Psychol 63:452-
459, 1992.

• Strengths:

Reasonable psychometric properties;

Unique apparent ability to capture all three dimensions of the hostility
construct (cognitive, affective, and behavioral).

• Weaknesses:

Relatively recent development, thus relatively small literature that has
examined its association with health outcomes, to date;

No published data, to our knowledge, examining the comparability of the
BPAQ and the Buss-Durkee from which it was derived;

No published data examining the relative merits of the BPAQ when compared
with other measures for predicting cardiovascular health.

To learn more about the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, click below:

• Internal and Test-Retest Reliability
• Subscales and Factor Analysis
• Construct Validity
• Relationship with Health Outcomes
• References

Internal and Test-Retest Reliability

Internal consistency for the four subscales and total score range from .72 (Verbal
Aggression) to .89 (Total BPAQ score). Retest reliability for the BPAQ over nine weeks
is also satisfactory (correlations ranged from .72 for Anger to .80 for Physical Aggression
and for the total score; Buss & Perry, 1992).
Subscales and Factor Analysis

Confirmatory factor analyses show good fit for a four-factor model (Buss & Perry, 1992;
Harris, 1985) and also suggested that the four factors may reasonably be combined into
a higher order measure of aggression (subscale correlations ranged from .25 to .48;
(Buss & Perry, 1992). To our knowledge, no one has examined the relative utility of an
alternative three-factor model (i.e., combining the Verbal and Physical Aggression
scales) in explaining the data derived from this measure, but it is notable that the highest
subscale correlations involved the Anger subscale (r = .48 with Physical and .48 with
Verbal Aggression) rather than the Aggression subscales per se (.45 between Physical
and Verbal Aggression).

Construct Validity

Construct validity for the Buss-Perry subscales is supported, to some extent, by their
relative associations with other self-report measures of personality traits. For example,
the Buss and Plomin measure of Emotionality was related to Anger and Hostility
subscales, but not to Physical or Verbal Aggression (Buss & Perry, 1992). In an
additional study reported by Buss and Perry (1992), there were significant correlations
reported between BPAQ scores and peer nominations relevant to each subscale, with
the strongest correlations reported for the Physical Aggression scale (presumably the
dimension most salient and observable by peers).

Gallo and Smith (1998) reported evidence for the discriminant validity of the Buss-
Durkee subscales using the Five Factor model and the Interpersonal Circumplex,
showing that Anger and Hostility were associated somewhat more strongly with
Neuroticism than the Physical Aggression and Verbal Aggression subscales, that
Physical Aggression and Anger were more strongly associated with Conscientiousness
(negatively) than the other two subscales, and that Verbal Aggression was associated
with a more dominant interpersonal style, whereas Hostility was associated with a more
submissive manner of responding.

Also relevant to the construct validity of the Buss-Perry, in the three college samples
studied as part of the original report (total n = 1253), there were significant gender
differences for all of the scales except for Anger, with men scoring consistently higher
than women, especially on the Physical Aggression scale (Buss & Perry, 1992). In
replication samples by other investigators, men have been shown to score higher on
Physical Aggression and sometimes on the Verbal Aggression subscale as well (Harris,
1996; Harris & Knight-Bohnhoff, 1996). Because associations of this sort are consistent
with expectation, they support the construct validity of these scales.

Relationship to Health Outcomes

There is a relatively small but growing literature linking Buss-Perry measures with
outcomes of interest to health psychologists. One published study (Smith & Gallo, 1999)
has shown that, like the Cook-Medley and Buss-Durkee, the Buss-Perry scale is
associated with greater SBP response to interpersonal threat, at least among men.
Interestingly, the effects appear to be accounted for by the Hostility subscale, whereas
the other subscales show no significant effects (illustrating the value of using a
multidimensional measure for these purposes).

Other studies show that Buss-Perry scores appear to mark a lowered threshold for anger
following provocation, and a lowered threshold for aggression following tryptophan
depletion (Dougherty, Bjork, Marsh, & Moeller, 1999) or the administration of ethyl
alcohol (Giancola, 2002). Two published studies link Buss-Perry scores with
inflammatory processes, such as LPS-stimulation TNF-alpha expression (Suarez, Lewis
& Kuhn, 2002) and C-reactive protein (Suarez, 2004).

Only one report, to our knowledge, has examined the association between Buss-Perry
scores and coronary artery disease: using a shortened version of the scale, Gidron et al.
(2001) reported significant correlations between Buss-Perry scores and coronary
disease severity in a small sample referred for angiography; significant associations
were shown for men below age 60 only (n of approximately 30); no significant
associations were shown for women or for older men. To our knowledge, there are no
existing prospective reports linking Buss-Perry scales with CHD or other health
outcomes.

Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire References

Buss AH, Perry M: The aggression questionnaire. J Pers Soc Psychol 63: 452-459,
1992.
Dougherty DM, Bjork JM, Marsh DM, Moeller FG: Influence of trait hostility on tryptophan
depletion-induced laboratory aggression. Psychiatry Res 88: 227-232, 1999.
Gallo LC, Smith TW: Construct validation of health-relevant personality traits:
Interpersonal circumplex and five-factor model analyses of the Aggression
Questionnaire. Int J Behav Med 5: 129-147, 1998.
Giancola PR: Alcohol-related aggression in men and women: The influence of
dispositional aggressivity. J Stud Alcohol 63: 696-708, 2002.
Gidron Y, Davidson K, Ilia R: Development and cross-cultural and clinical validation of a
brief comprehensive scale for assessing hostility in medical settings. J Behav Med
24: 1-15, 2001.
Harris JA: Confirmatory factor analysis of the aggression questionnaire. Behav Res Ther
33: 991-993, 1995.
Harris MB: Aggressive experiences and aggressiveness: Relationship to ethnicity,
gender, and age. J Appl Soc Psychol 26: 843-870, 1996.
Harris MB, Knight-Bohnhoff K: Gender and aggression: II. Personal aggressiveness. Sex
Roles 35: 27-42, 1996.
Smith TW, Gallo LC: Hostility and cardiovascular reactivity during marital interaction.
Psychosom Med 61: 436-445, 1999.
Suarez EC: C-reactive protein is associated with psychological risk factors of
cardiovascular disease in apparently healthy adults. Psychosom Med 66: 684-691,
2004.
Suarez EC, Lewis JG, Kuhn C: The relation of aggression, hostility, and anger to
lipopolysaccharide-stimulated tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha by blood monocytes
from normal men. Brain Behav Immunity 16: 675-684, 2002.