Laboratory and questionnaire measures of aggression among female parolees with violent or nonviolent histories

Female parolees were recruited into a laboratory study to determine the rel ationship between their previous aggression history, questionnaire measures of aggression, and behavioral measures of aggressive responding using a la boratory methodology: the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm (PSAP). Sub jects were assigned to a violent or nonviolent group based on their crimina l history. Subjects participated in sessions in which they were given three response options: (1) nonaggressive responding that earned money, (2) aggr essive responding that ostensibly subtracted money from another fictitious person and was defined as aggressive since it resulted in the ostensible de livery of an aversive stimulus (subtraction of money) to another person, an d (3) escape responding that protected the subject's earnings from periodic subtractions initiated by the fictitious other person. Results indicated t hat the violent female parolees emitted significantly more aggressive respo nses than subjects in the nonviolent group. This study provides additional external validity as well as evidence for convergent and discriminant valid ity for PSAP laboratory measurement of human aggressive responding and exte nds these findings to female parolees. Comparisons to previously published data with male parolees showed that gender differences were found among vio lent but not nonviolent parolees. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.