A Study of the Relationship Between Aggression in the Verbally Reported Content of Dreams and Some Conceptually Related Measures of Personality

This study involved two major research objectives: (1) to compare males and females on the basis of aggression scores computed from verbally reported dreams; and (2) to test the general hypothesis that there are predictable relationships between measures of aggression in reported dreams and conceptually related measures of personality.

A total of 529 current night dreams collected from 24 male and 15 female college students were scored for aggression content by means of the Hall-Van de Castle Aggression Scale. From the raw dream scores, six specific measures of aggression were computed: average number of aggressive incidents per dream, percent of dreamer, involved aggressions, percent of aggressions directed from the dreamer, percent of aggressions directed toward the dreamer, percent of physical aggressions, and percent of nonphysical aggressions. t-Tests were used to compare males and females on the six measures of aggression. Pearson Product-Moment correlations were then used to compare measures of aggression for the combined group of Sa with scores on-the Welsh Anxiety and Repression Scales and the Internal-External Control Scale.

It was found that males and females in the sample did not differ significantly on any of the six measures of aggression computed from their dreams. On the basis of correlations comparing measures of aggression from dreams with personality test scores, it was concluded: (1) that the results of the study do not support the hypothesis that there is a predictable relationship between measures representing incidence (average aggressions per dream and percent of dreamer involved aggression) and type (physical and nonphysical) of aggression in reported dreams and scores on the Welsh Anxiety and Repression Scales; (2) that results of the study do support the hypothesis that there is a predictable relationship between measures representing direction of aggression (aggression from or toward the dreamer) in reported dreams and scores on the Internal-External Control Scale.

A post hoc analysis of the data revealed considerable variation both within and between the sexes regarding the relationship between aggression in reported dreams and personality measures. The most significant findings were that anxiety correlates positively (r = .60; p = .02) with percent of dreamer involved aggression for females, while anxiety correlates negatively (r = -.50; p = . 02) with percent of physical aggression and positively (r = .50; p = .02) with percent of nonphysical aggression for males. These results were explained in terms of dreams reflecting culturally accepted modes of handling aggressive impulses.