A structural model of aggression: Defining the relationship among personality, attitude, and the concepts of interpersonal, sexual, and antisocial aggression

Using data collected from 397 undergraduate students, the relationships among a psychopathic personality style, facilitating attitudes (specifically authoritarianism), the endorsement of aggression, and aggressive behavior were investigated. Using LISREL-VIII (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1996), a series of structural models were analyzed to determine goodness of fit to the data collected. Preliminary analyses suggest that interpersonal aggression is comprised of a more global, second order factor called "Aggression", and three first order constructs, "Unlawful/Antisocial Behavior", "Interpersonal/General Aggression", and "Intimate/Sexual Aggression". The empirical support for the second order factor of "Aggression" suggests that aggressive phenomena share some underlying cause and nosology.;Additional analyses found that the structural model which included more of the causal paths between personality, attitude, and aggression variables provided the better fit to the data: surpassing the fits offered by the more parsimonious indirect and direct effect models. Finally, analyses of social desirability factors (specifically Impression Management) suggest that response bias impacts only the responses of persons exceedingly sensitive to social norms, unlike the psychopathic personality style studied in this research. These findings support a comprehensive and ecological approach to the conceptualization of interpersonal behavior; both its antecedents and consequences.