The psychological structure of aggression across cultures

• Author: Laura Severance,Anat Rafaeli,Dorit Efrat Treister,Naureen Soomro,Lan Bui‐Wrzosinska,Michele J. Gelfand,Susumu Yamaguchi,Nazar Soomro,Andrzej Nowak,Sarah Lyons,Chun‐Chi Lin,Wojciech Borkowski
• Published date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1873
• Date: 01 August 2013

The psychological structure of aggression across

cultures

†

LAURA SEVERANCE

1,2

*, LAN BUI-WRZOSINSKA

3

, MICHELE J. GELFAND

1

,

SARAH LYONS

1

, ANDRZEJ NOWAK

4,5

, WOJCIECH BORKOWSKI

3

,

NAZAR SOOMRO

6

, NAUREEN SOOMRO

6

, ANAT RAFAELI

7

,

DORIT EFRAT TREISTER

7

, CHUN-CHI LIN

8

AND SUSUMU YAMAGUCHI

8

1

University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, U.S.A.

2

Fors Marsh Group, LLC, Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A.

3

Warsaw School of Social Science and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland

4

Department of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

5

Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A.

6

University of York, York, U.K.

7

Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

8

University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Summary To date, the vast majority of the research on aggression has been conducted on Western samples. This

research expands the culture-bound understanding of aggression by examining universal and culture-specific

dimensions that underlie the psychological structure of aggression. Drawing on cultural logics of honor,

dignity, and face, we examine the construal of aggression across Pakistan, Israel, Japan, and the United

States. Multidimensional scaling analyses revealed potentially universal dimensions of aggression. In all

four nations, dimensions of damage to self-worth and direct versus indirect aggression emerged, and a

physical versus verbal aggression emerged in Pakistan, Israel, and Japan. In addition, an infringement to

personalresources dimension emergedin the United States and Israel,and a degree of t hreat dimensionemerged

in Pakistan.Further, results demonstratedcultural specificity in termsof (i) where aggressive behaviorsfell along

each dimensionand (ii) meanings that defined each dimensionacross cultures. These findingshave implications

for the prevention and attenuation of intercultural conflicts as well as the advancement of the cross-cultural

psychology and theaggression literatures. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: aggression; cross-cultural psychology; conflict resolution; negotiation

Examples of cross-cultural misunderstandings abound as global interdependence plays an increasingly crucial role in

modern organizations (Gelfand, Erez, & Aycan, 2007). Cross-cultural discrepancies in individuals’construal of events

can produce wide-ranging consequences, ranging from minor (and even humorous, such as former U.S. President

Kennedy’s“Ich bin ein Berliner”comment in which he unwittingly referred to himself as a jelly doughnut) to cata-

strophic. For example, in 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of 12 cartoons depicting sa-

tirical caricatures of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Soon thereafter, the same cartoons were reprinted in other

European news outlets.The aftermath of the publication unleashed numerous attempts atrevenge on behalf of offended

Muslims aroundthe world. For example, a knife-wieldingPakistani student burst into the office of theGerman Die Welt

newspaper with the intent to kill the editor for reprinting the cartoon. Further, in 2008, more than 2years after the

original publication, the Danish embassy in Pakistan was bombed as a consequence of a reprinting of the cartoon.

The journalism community defended their publication of the cartoon byasserting their right to free speech, noting that

figureheads of other world religions were also subject to satire. Islamic critics, however, heeded the publication as a

“deliberate provocation and insult to their religion”(Anderson, 2006).

*Correspondence to: Laura Severance, Fors Marsh Group, LLC, Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A. E-mail: leseverance@gmail.com

†

This paper is dedicated to our dear friend and co-author, Nazar Soomro.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 14 April 2012

Revised 13 March 2013, Accepted 24 April 2013

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 34, 835–865 (2013)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1873

Special Issue Article

This incident highlights how the same event can be construed in highly disparate ways by individuals from

different cultures, as well as the potential for such misunderstandings to escalate into a potentially catastrophic

situation. In this case, the publication of the cartoon depicting Mohammed in unflattering ways was perceived as

humiliating and, moreover, as a violation of Muslims’honor. This begs the question, what underlies these cultural

differences in the perception of aggressive acts?

Aggression exhibits significant cross-cultural variability in both meaning and enactment (e.g., Bergeron &

Schneider, 2005; Bond, 2004; Forbes, Zhang, Doroszewicz, & Haas, 2009), yet to date, the vast majority of research

on aggression has been conducted in the West. This culture-blind approach limits our understanding of the universal

and culture-specific construals of aggressive acts. Failing to account for the possibility of cultural differences in the

construal of aggression sets the stage for intercultural misunderstandings. The current work sheds light on how

individuals from different cultures interpret aggressive behavior by examining universal, yet culturally nuanced,

dimensions of aggression.

The general proposition we advance in this research is that although there may be potentially universal (i.e., etic)

dimensions upon which aggression is perceived, there are important culture-specific (i.e., emic) construals of

aggression that render identical acts to be perceived quite differently across cultures. Cultural psychologists have

noted that cultural meanings are a product of intrapersonal structures that develop through experience (Strauss &

Quinn, 1997). Other work has examined how the social construction of reality influences individuals’perception

of types of aggression such as workplace deviance (Bowles & Gelfand, 2010), arguing that it is inherently

subjective. Marrying these lines of work, we suggest that perceptions of aggressive acts are not objective per se,

but are socially constructed along cultural lines. As such, individuals’understanding of the same potentially

universal dimension may still reflect some culture-specific differences.

This research makes a number of theoretical and practical contributions. We advance the aggression literature

by illustrating empirically the dimensions on which individuals perceive aggressive acts across cultures, thereby

documenting the subjective nature of aggression and the metrics on which individuals perceive them. We also

advance the culture literature by illustrating that culture affects not only the way that aggressive acts are

interpreted but also how expanding our study beyond Western borders illuminates new dimensions of the

construal of aggression. From a practical point of view, a more complete conception of aggression is the first

step toward understanding how and why cultural misunderstandings centered around aggressive acts arise. This

knowledge can shed light on the origin of past and existing conflicts as well as methods for the prevention (or

attenuation) of future conflicts.

In what follows, we provide an overview of potentially universal dimensions of aggression before turning to more

specific study goals. We then discuss how cultural logics of honor, dignity, and face may affect individuals’social

construction of aggression. Finally, we present a multidimensional scaling (MDS) study of aggression conducted in

the United States, Israel, Japan, and Pakistan and discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the results.

Typologies of Aggression

Aggression encompasses any form of behavior directed by one or more persons toward the goal of harming one or

more others in ways that the intended targets are motivated to avoid (Neuman & Baron, 1998, 2005). Numerous

typologies of aggression have been proposed by scholars across disciplines including psychology, criminology,

and sociology. These vary along the lines of severity (e.g., minor vs. serious; Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Robinson

& Bennett, 1995), form (e.g., direct vs. indirect and verbal vs. physical; Buss, 1961), motivation (e.g., hostile

vs. instrumental; Feshbach, 1964), temporal orientation (chronic vs. acute; Birkelbach & Pool, 2008), proactivity

(e.g., proactive vs. reactive; Farmer & Aman, 2009), and target (e.g., acquainted vs. unacquainted; Campbell,

Gorman, & Muncer, 1999; organizational vs. interpersonal; Robinson & Bennett, 1995), among others.

One primary goal of this research was to explore whether there are some potentially universal dimensions of

aggression that exist. From an evolutionary perspective, universal dimensions of aggression might arise given that

836 L. SEVERANCE ET AL.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 34, 835–865 (2013)

DOI: 10.1002/job