The Measurement of Aggressiveness

Abstract

The term aggressiveness is used synonymously with personal force, initiative, assurance. The tests used to obtain "an aggressiveness profile." may be divided into three groups—(1) Eye control in personal interview, (2) Distractions—by staring, by electric shock, by snake, (3) Word association tests. In the first, eye control, the S was required to perform a difficult series of mental additions while constantly returning the fixed gaze of the instructor who faced him. The distraction tests determined how far the ability to resist a type of distraction involving a certain element of fear was related to the possession or lack of agressiveness. The word associations were given to see whether the study of responses to selected words would be reliable data for the differentiation of persons as agressive or non-aggressive. The Faculty of Dartmouth College rated a class of 89 men on various traits including aggressiveness. The highest and lowest 15 per cent. in the trait of aggressiveness made two groups of 13 men each who were given the above tests.The method of scoring aggressiveness on the basis of these tests was based on making deductions from 100 points for each failure of a S to meet satisfactorily the requirements. Differing points and maximum deduction were alloted for different tests. The total score in aggressiveness was obtained by totaling deductions and subtracting from 100, for all the three groups of tests. The thirteen men rated most aggressive by the Faculty had scores varying from 100 to 83, average 93. The thirteen men rated least aggressive had scores 88 to 35, average 58.8. These tests approximate a true measurement of aggressiveness more nearly than does the Army Alpha examination approximate the measurement of intelligence. From Psych Bulletin 18:12:00712. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)