Implicit and Explicit Personality: An Integrative Approach to Predicting Aggressive Behavior in a Field Setting

Previous studies of aggressive personality and counterproductive behavior have typically employed only one type of personality measurement, the traditional self-report method, and have rarely attempted to predict naturally occurring behavioral indicators of aggression. This study intended to address both of those issues. Researchers, using multiple measures of other personality domains, have recently shown that explicit and implicit elements of personality interact to predict different forms of theoretically related criteria. This field study explored one of those interactive approaches, an integrative model of personality assessment for aggressive personality. Explicit elements of aggressive personality as assessed by traditional, self-report measures were combined with implicit elements of aggressive personality as assessed by a conditional reasoning measure in an attempt to differentially predict three types of naturally occurring aggressive behavior. The sample consisted of 183 intramural basketball players tracked over the course of a two-month season. The results revealed significant interactions between these two measures in the prediction of overt behaviors, obstructionism behaviors, and expressions of hostility. As expected, the specific nature of these interactions depended on the type of behavior being predicted. These results are discussed in the context of an integrative model for measuring both implicit and explicit aggression to effectively predict and prevent future violence and harassment.