Sex differences in aggression: Social representation and social roles

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Abstract
Previous research suggests that men hold an instrumental social representation of aggression in which aggression is viewed as a functional interpersonal act aimed at imposing control over other people while women view aggression in expressive terms as a breakdown of self‐control over anger. The present study examines the relative contribution of gendered personality differences (communality—agency) and occupational role in accounting for these differences. Men and women in the armed forces and nursing profession completed the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ: Spence & Helmreich, 1976) together with a psychometric measure of their tendency to view aggression as expressive rather than instrumental (Expagg: Campbell, Muncer & Coyle, 1992). The results indicate that occupational role and sex are both important correlates of individuals' representations of aggression. Though agency showed a significant negative zero‐order correlation with expressive aggression, the impact of gendered personality traits was diminished when occupation and sex were taken into account. The data strongly support social role theory's emphasis upon contemporaneous occupational factors in explaining sex differences in the understanding of aggression but are less supportive of the role of masculine and feminine personality traits.

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