The Relationship Between Anger and Aggressive Script Rehearsal in an Offender Population

Abstract

The General Aggression Model (GAM) integrates factors influencing aggressive behaviour, positing relationships between inputs including aggressive script rehearsal, schemas and aggression-supporting beliefs. Research has focused on relationships between anger, beliefs and aggression. There has been little examination of the relationship between aggressive script rehearsal and anger experience and expression, which the current study sought to clarify. It was predicted that Trait-Anger, State-Anger and Anger-Expression-In (anger suppression) would be significantly associated with frequent aggressive script rehearsal. Participants were 71 male offenders referred to a forensic mental health service for pre-sentence evaluation. Results showed that Trait-Anger was related to aggressive script rehearsal, whereas State-Anger and Anger-Expression-In were not. The finding that anger suppression is unrelated to more frequent aggressive script rehearsal is contrary to assertions that over-controlled violent offending is the result of anger suppression and subsequent aggressive script rehearsal, but consistent with suggestions that some over-controlled violent offenders inhibit both aggressive thoughts and the expression of anger.