Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire Research Articles

Psychopathic Traits and Reactive-Proactive Aggression in a Large Community Sample of Polish Adolescents

This paper presents results of the only large-scale study carried-out in Poland to date on the prevalence of psychopathic traits and their relationship with aggressive behaviour in mainstream adolescents. The sample consists of 9,415 students (4,808 boys, 4,607 girls) in the first to third grades at 142 public secondary schools. Psychopathic traits were measured by teacher-report ratings with the antisocial process screening device (APSD), while aggressive behaviours were assessed using the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire. Analysis of results revealed that boys scored much higher than girls in total APSD scale measuring psychopathic traits. Only 2.68 % of assessed adolescents scored above the cut-off of 25 points. Results also showed significant correlations between psychopathic traits and both proactive and reactive aggression. The authors concluded that screening a large sample to identify children and youths with psychopathic traits has some important advantages but, on the other hand, it is a sensitive undertaking because of the label ‘psychopath’ can have negative consequences for the subjects.

Students’ and teachers’ perceptions of aggressive behaviour in adolescents with intellectual disability and typically developing adolescents

This study investigated aggressive behaviour in Serbian adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) compared to typically developing peers. The sample consisted of both male and female adolescents aged 12-18 years. One hundred of the adolescents had ID, and 348 adolescents did not have ID. The adolescents were asked to complete the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ), and their teachers provided ratings of aggression for the adolescents using the Children's Scale of Hostility and Aggression: Reactive-Proactive (C-SHARP). Results indicated that adolescents reported a higher prevalence of aggressive behaviour than their teachers. Reactive aggression was more prevalent than proactive aggression in both subsamples. In the subsample of adolescents with ID, there were no sex or age differences for aggression. However, in the normative subsample, boys and older adolescents scored significantly higher on aggression. According to adolescent self-reports the prevalence of aggression was higher in adolescents without ID, while teachers perceived aggressive behaviour to be more prevalent in adolescents with ID. Scientific and practical implications are discussed.

Validation of the Dutch Reactive Proactive Questionnaire (RPQ): Differential Correlates of Reactive and Proactive Aggression From Childhood to Adulthood

This study reports reliability and validity of the Dutch Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ). In total, 845 participants completed the RPQ along with other measures of aggression. Groups consisted of non-offender participants, criminal offenders, youngsters (age 6-18), and adults (age above 18). Test-retest stability in a subsample of 324 childhood arrestees was good (all ICC's > 0.41). A confirmatory factor analysis supported the same two-factor structure as in the original RPQ. Convergent validity was adequate (all r's > 0.16). Moreover, results demonstrated that the proactive and reactive subscales were differentially related to measurements of callousness and impulsiveness, respectively. Criterion validity was shown in that non-offender subjects demonstrated significantly lower RPQ scores than offender samples. Finally, construct validity was demonstrated in that violent offenders showed higher aggression scores than non-violent offenders. Proactive aggression showed different developmental trajectories within non-offender versus criminal samples, indicating that this form of aggression may be more pathological.

Factor Structure of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire in Turkish Children and Gender, Grade-Level, and Socioeconomic Status Differences in Reactive and Proactive Aggression

The present study aimed to evaluate the factor structure of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) with Turkish children, and to investigate gender, grade-level, and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in reactive and proactive aggression. Participants consisted of 1,081 Turkish children (544 boys and 537 girls) aged 9 to 14 years. Findings from the confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for the two-factor reactive-proactive model. It was also found that the factor structure of the RPQ was the same across gender groups. Reactive and Proactive Aggression scales and Total Aggression scale showed high internal consistency. Boys got higher scores on both Reactive and Proactive Aggression scales. Reactive and proactive aggression increased with age until Grade 7 in both boys and girls. Finally, the findings showed that, for both boys and girls, children with low SES had significantly higher reactive and proactive aggression scores than children with middle and high SES.

The Relationship Between the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory and Psychopathology in a U.S. Community Sample of Male Youth

The Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) is a self-report measure of juvenile psychopathic traits. Validity data for this measure are limited, especially for nonreferred samples. This report investigated the concurrent validity of the YPI by assessing 171 nonreferred male youth (M age = 12.96 years) with a battery of self-, parent-, and peer-report measures including the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ), the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD), and a peer-sociometric measure of aggression. Results confirmed the expected correlations between the YPI and measures of proactive aggression, other externalizing and internalizing behavior, and parent-report psychopathic-like traits. In addition, cluster analyses of YPI scores revealed 2 groups of youth (low vs. high) who scored differently on measures of externalizing behavior. This study supports the utility of the YPI as a research tool for assessing juvenile psychopathic traits.

Personality And Behavioural Factors Associated With TestAnxiety Among Schools Students In Kolkata.

Test-anxiety is actually a type of performance anxiety- a feeling someone might have in a where performance really counts or when the pressure is on to do well. Test-anxiety is defined as the set of phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses that accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure on an exam or similar evaluative situation (Zeidner, 1998). The present paper examined whether personality and behavioural factors were associated with test anxiety among school students. Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire, Test anxiety inventory, Self- Report Emotional Intelligence Scale and Junior Eyesenk Personality Questionnaire was used to assess reactive and proactive aggression, test anxiety, emotional intelligence and personality dimensions. The sample consisted of 143 school students of class 11 and 12 both males and females from different higher secondary schools in Kolkata. Students from all streams (science, humanities and commerce) were considered for the study. Results showed that reactive aggression, neuroticism and psychoticism were significantly positively correlated with test anxiety whereas emotional intelligence was significantly negatively correlated with it. Regression analysis revealed reactive aggression, emotional intelligence and neuroticism as possible predictors of test anxiety. Keywords - Aggression, Emotional intelligence, Personality, Test anxiety.

Cross-Cultural Generalizability of the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ)

In this study, we assessed the cross-cultural generalizability of the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) and tested the hypotheses that boys show higher levels of proactive aggression with increasing age and that a two-factor (reactive–proactive) structure will be observed in an East Asian population. We administered the RPQ to 5,615 male and female 11- to 15-year-old schoolchildren. CFA demonstrated a good fit of the two-factor reactive–proactive model. Proactive aggression increased significantly with age in boys but not girls, whereas reactive aggression showed no gender difference and only a minimal age increase. Results suggest the presence of meaningful differences between these aggression subtypes and the generalizability of the RPQ in an East Asian population.

Cuestionario de agresión reactiva y proactiva : un instrumento de medida de la agresión en adolescentes

The psychometrical characteristics of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ), designed by Raine et al. (2006), was examined in this work. When applied to a sample of 732 adolescents from Madrid (360 males and 372 females), the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the bifactorial structural model fitted the data better than the unifactorial model. On the other hand, statistically significant differences were observed in both types of aggression according to sex and age of participants. Males showed higher levels of proactive aggression than females, whereas in all the analyzed age groups, reactive was significantly higher than proactive aggression in men as well as in women. The results obtained in this study suggest that this instrument measures two functional types of aggression associated to different processes and motivational mechanisms in a reliable and valid way.

A cross-cultural study of the psychometric properties of the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire among Italian nonclinical adolescents.

Five independent studies were used to test the hypothesis that a reliable 2-factor structure underlies the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ) items and that the 2 scales show distinct patterns of association with personality and bullying behavior measures. Study 1 (N = 1,447) gave evidence of a clear 2-factor structure of RPQ items with factor loading matrices closely matching reactive (congruence coefficient = .90) and proactive (congruence coefficient = .91) models of item assignment. The RPQ 2-factor structure was consistently replicated in Study 2 (N = 662), as well as across the remaining 3 studies. In Study 3 (N = 536), Neuroticism differentiated reactive and proactive forms of aggression. In Study 4 (N = 674), self-reports of bullying behaviors were selectively correlated with proactive aggression. Findings confirm and extend the differential correlates of proactive-reactive aggression and also support the psychometric properties of the RPQ in a different cultural context. Finally, in Study 5 (N = 347), the RPQ scales showed adequate 2-month test-retest reliability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for A Cross-Cultural Study of the Psychometric Properties of the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire Among Italian Nonclinical Adolescents

Supplemental Material for A Cross-Cultural Study of the Psychometric Properties of the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire Among Italian Nonclinical Adolescents

Differential genetic and environmental influences on reactive and proactive aggression in children.

While significant heritability for childhood aggression has been claimed, it is not known whether there are differential genetic and environmental contributions to proactive and reactive forms of aggression in children. This study quantifies genetic and environmental contributions to these two forms of aggression in an ethnically diverse urban sample of 9-10 year old twins (N = 1219), and compares results across different informants (child self-report, mother, and teacher ratings) using the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ). Confirmatory factor analysis of RPQ items indicated a significant and strong fit for a two-factor proactive-reactive model which was significantly superior to a one-factor model and which replicated across gender as well as the three informant sources. Males scored significantly higher than females on both self-report reactive and proactive aggression, findings that replicated on mother and teacher versions of the RPQ. Asian-Americans scored lower than most ethnic groups on reactive aggression yet were equivalent to Caucasians on proactive aggression. African-Americans scored higher than other ethnic groups on all measures of aggression except caregiver reports. Heritable influences were found for both forms of aggression across informants, but while boys' self-reports revealed genetic influences on proactive (50%) and reactive (38%) aggression, shared and non-shared environmental influences almost entirely accounted for girls' self-report reactive and proactive aggression. Although genetic correlations between reactive and proactive aggression were significant across informants, there was evidence that the genetic correlation was less than unity in boys self reported aggression, indicating that genetic factors differ for proactive and reactive aggression. These findings provide the first evidence for varying genetic and environmental etiologies for reactive and proactive aggression across gender, and provide additional support for distinction between these two forms of aggression.

The reactive–proactive aggression questionnaire: differential correlates of reactive and proactive aggression in adolescent boys

This study reports the development of the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ), and the differential correlates of these two forms of aggression. Antisocial, psychosocial and personality measures were obtained at ages 7 and 16 years in schoolboys, while the RPQ was administered to 334 of the boys at age 16 years. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a significant fit for a two-factor proactive-reactive model that replicated from one independent subsample to another. Proactive aggression was uniquely characterized at age 7 by initiation of fights, strong-arm tactics, delinquency, poor school motivation, poor peer relationships, single-parent status, psychosocial adversity, substance-abusing parents, and hyperactivity, and at age 16 by a psychopathic personality, blunted affect, delinquency, and serious violent offending. Reactive aggression was uniquely characterized at age 16 by impulsivity, hostility, social anxiety, lack of close friends, unusual perceptual experiences, and ideas of reference. Findings confirm and extend the differential correlates of proactive-reactive aggression, and demonstrate that this brief but reliable and valid self-report instrument can be used to assess proactive and reactive aggression in child and adolescent samples.