WAS IT A GAME; WAS IT THE FAMILY?

- NO, IT WAS PERSONALITY: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF PERSONALITY TRAITS, VIDEO GAMES, MEDIA AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON AGGRESIVENESS
Boris & Goran Milas Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar Zagreb, Croatia
SUMMARY
As a response to fairly inconsistent results regarding the role of personality traits, violent video-games and media in predicting violent behaviour, the goal of our study was to examine those relations in a broad multivariate context. Using gender, Five-Factor personality model, the exposure to domestic violence and finally the exposure to television and video game violence as predictors of both trait aggressiveness and aggressive delinquent behaviour, we were able to assess the contribution of each of those theoretically relevant variables. The analyses showed, in slight contrast to previous findings, that Agreeableness was the strongest predictor of aggressiveness across both measures, while Neuroticism and some forms of family violence had less predictive power. The belief that video game or media violence is involved in the etiology of violent crime is one more brought to question

METHODOLOGY
The study included a large sample of undergraduate college students from Croatia (N=458). Of these participants, 205 (44.8%) were male and 253 (55.2%) were female. The mean age for this sample was 20.61 (SD = 1.82). Personality factors Neuroticism .88), Conscientiousness .84), Extraversion .82), Agreeableness .78) and Openness .73) were assessed by a 50-item IPIP measure of Costa and McCrae's (1992) Five Factor model. The exposure to domestic violence was assessed by 49-item Family Conflict Scale (Ferguson et al., 2008)a, designed to look at specific components of family violence exposure, including direct physical and sexual abuse .70), witnessing domestic violence .86), neglect and failure to provide for basic needs .65), the exposure to drug abuse .70), the use of spanking .69), verbal abuse and insulting language .78), the degree to which education was valued in the family .65) and the degree to which the respondent felt loved .75) . The exposure to violent content trough media and video games was assessed with a slightly modified version of Anderson and Dill (2000) media violence questionnaire. As measures of aggressiveness we used both the 29 item Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (AQ; Buss & Perry, 1992) and a subscale of modified Elliott, Huizinga, & Ageton (1985) Delinquency scale. First includes four subscales: physical aggression .79), verbal aggression .58), anger .79) and hostility .75) and is also used as a general measure of trait aggressiveness .87), while the latter is an index of total past commission of violent crime .58)

Table 1. Hierarchical regression analyses of general trait aggression, its subcomponents and violent crime propensity on demographic , interpersonal, family and media violence exposure variables
Trait aggression VARIABLES Gender Level 1 Extraversion Neuroticism Conscientiousness Agreeableness Openness Level 2 Physical abuse Domestic violence Spanking Verbal abuse Neglect Drug abuse Education Love Level 3 Video game violence TV violence Level 4 R2 * p < .05; ** p < .01 Anger Hostility Physical aggression Verbal aggression Violent crime

-.06 .11* .45** .11 -.51** .07 -.04 .06 .04 -.20** -.05 .01 -.03 .12 -.01 .06 .750**

.06 .17** .46** .06 -.45** -.02 -.06 .01 .04 -.11 -.08 .05 -.05 -.11 .01 .00 .484**

-.04 -.12* .59** .13* -.21** .10 -.05 .04 .07 -.19* .04 .01 -.01 -.05 .01 .05 .480**

-.19** .13* .17** .03 -.45** .11* .03 .05 -.02 -.23** -.03 -.03 -.02 -.13* -.05 .06 .444**

.01 .25** .12* .18** -.53** -.11* -.04 .09 -.00 -.03 -.12 .02 .02 -.05 .00 .08 .371**

-.05 .04 -.08 .00 -.28** .09 -.06 .06 -.01 .01 -.21* .03 .02 -.02 .01 .09 .160*

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
According to the catalyst model of aggression (Ferguson et.al, 2008a), propensity towards aggressive behaviour occurs through a largely biological pathway. Environmental factors only moderate the causal influence of biology, particularly through the influence of family violence which acts as a form of environmental strain and violent media exposure that is presumed to serve only stylistic purpose in violent behaviour. This model combines the wide body of literature supporting the exposure to family violence effect on aggressive behaviour (e.g., Stanley & Goddard, 2004), recent research from twin studies (e.g., Larsson, Andershed, & Lichtenstein, 2006) suggesting that genetic and personality factors may be as powerful as environmental factors in explaining antisocial and violent behaviours, and studies showing how genetic and environmental risk factors may interact in significant ways (Caspi et al., 2002). Due to inconsistent results and many studies examining predictive value of either environmental or genetic factors, aim of current study is to examine most studied correlates of aggressiveness relevant to the above model, namely biological sex, personality characteristics, exposure to family violence and physical abuse and television and video game violence, from a multivariate perspective in order to determine their predictive value when presented in combination, and examine possible interactions in accordance with the catalyst model.

Graph 1. Trait aggressiveness in relation to the Agreeableness and verbal abuse

Graph 2. Violent crime in relation to the Agreeableness and family neglect

DISCUSSION
A positive predictive relationship of our variables was found on all criterions. In accordance with previous findings (Heaven, 1996) Agreeableness was the most consistent predictor trough all criterions, and the only significant predictor to commitment of violent delinquent acts (Table 1.). Neuroticism, however, did not prove to be a significant predictor in all aggressiveness subscales, as implicated by previous research (Gallo & Smith, 1997), nor was it the best predictor of aggressive personality as in study done by Ferguson et.al (2008b) using similar measures. Furthermore, in contrast with previous findings (Ferguson et.al., 2008a, 2008b), of all the domestic violence indicators, only exposure to verbal abuse remained a significant predictor of trait aggression. Also, not expected (Ferguson 2008b, Buss & Perry, 1992, Condon et.al., 2006) was the finding that gender was only predictive for the anger component of aggressiveness. Exposure to video games and media violence did not hold any predictive power regarding aggression or the commission of violent crimes. Finally, no significant interaction between the Agreeableness and exposure to verbal abuse(F (5, 436) = 2.13, p .005) or neglect (F (5, 454) = 1.89, p .005) on both criterion variables, that could confirm the environmental strain hypothesis of the catalyst model (Graph 1., Graph 2.).. The study confirms the robust effect of endogenous factors such as Big Five personality traits on both trait aggression and tendency toward violent delinquent acts, even in a broad multifactorial context. All criterion variables were best predicted trough dimensions of Agreeableness, and to a lesser amount Neuroticism, with other factors relevant only for specific subcomponents of aggression. Furthermore, the exposure to domestic violence, as an exogenous variable, was weaker and only predictive for trait aggression in form of verbal abuse. Results also indicate that an aggressive response style appears to be uninfluenced by media violence exposure. However, the deviation from previous findings calls for more detailed exploration into the investigated dynamic. Future research would do good to consider limitations of self report form of delinquency measures and limitations of student sample in research on this subject.

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