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 fourfactor 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 BussDurkee 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 TNFalpha 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 crosscultural 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.