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Personality and Individual Differences 43 (2007) 627–633

Short Communication

The relation between physical aggression, size andstrength, among a sample of young Indian men

John Archer *, VanLal Thanzami

Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Lancashire PR1 2HE, United Kingdom

Received 1 November 2006; received in revised form 21 December 2006Available online 22 February 2007

Abstract

This study assessed the hypothesis derived from the concept of Resource Holding Power (RHP) thatyoung men with greater size and strength would report more frequent physical aggression over the previousyear. This was found to be the case in a sample of young Indian men, with stronger correlations betweenweight and height than strength, and with an act-based rather than a trait-based measure of physicalaggression. The findings are discussed in relation to other reports from western samples linking size orstrength and physical aggression.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Resource holding power; Physical aggression; Size; Strength

0. Introduction

This study investigates aggression in relation to size and strength among young men. It is basedon the concept of Resource Holding Power (RHP), which originated in an evolutionary game the-ory model of animal fighting. Parker (1974) showed that if an animal was able to assess its oppo-nent’s fighting ability relative to its own, and base its decision of whether to attack or withdraw onthis, it would have a selective advantage over simply attacking without such assessment. This

0191-8869/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.01.005

* Corresponding author.E-mail address: jarcher@uclan.ac.uk (J. Archer).

628 J. Archer, V. Thanzami / Personality and Individual Differences 43 (2007) 627–633

strategy was shown to be evolutionarily stable (an ESS), i.e., it would evolve under many environ-mental conditions, and would have a selective advantage over most alternatives. Size and strengthare probably the most obvious cues to RHP or fighting ability in the animal kingdom. A largersize predicts, in a wide range of animals, which opponent is likely to initiate attack, withdraw,and win an aggressive encounter (Archer, 1988). Strength (and stamina) are indirectly assessedthrough size, or directly through pushing or wrestling contests (e.g., Blanchard, Blanchard,Takahashi, & Suzuki, 1978; Clutton-Brock, Guinness, & Albon, 1982; Mosler, 1985).

Sell, Tooby, and Cosmides (2005) transferred the concept of RHP assessment to humans. Theirapproach was to investigate whether the lifting strength of young men predicted their prior historyof fights, and also their proneness to anger. They found that it did. Other studies have examinedthe association between physical size and dominance or aggression. Pellegrini et al. (in press)found that size was correlated with dominance in preschool children; Tremblay et al. (1998) founda positive association with physical aggression and delinquency in adolescent boys; and Felson(1996) found a positive association with the likelihood that the person had attacked another, inseveral samples of adults.

The present study extends the generality of these findings by investigating the association be-tween physical aggression and strength and size among young men from a non-western culture,in India. We used the following measures: grip strength; biceps size; height; and weight. Bicepssize was used as a measure of upper body strength, since Sell et al. (2005) found a correlationof r = .74 with lifting strength. We used two measures of aggression. The first was the Buss–PerryAggression Questionnaire (BPAQ: Buss & Perry, 1992), a trait measure which includes scales mea-suring physical aggression, verbal aggression (mainly argumentativeness), anger and hostility.Since RHP assessment is concerned with physical aggression, we would only predict an associa-tion with this, and not with the other three scales. The second measure was an act-based one, theRichardson Conflict Response Questionnaire (RCRQ: Green, Richardson, & Lago, 1996), whichmeasures acts of direct (mainly physical) aggression and indirect aggression (Archer & Coyne,2005). Again, we predicted an association with direct but not indirect aggression, whose covertnature should preclude fear of retaliation from a more formidable opponent. Since previous stud-ies of size and strength have tended to ask about aggressive incidents rather than using traitassessments, we expected closer associations with the RCRQ direct scale.

1. Method

1.1. Participants

Participants (N = 88; ages 18–33 years; M = 26.01 years; SD = 3.01) were from the city of Ai-zawl, in the North Eastern Indian state of Mizoram. The Mizos are of Mongolian decent, migrat-ing from China to India in the 16th century. Although English is not their first language, it iswidespread and predominant, particularly in schools and colleges, and the work environment.Mizoram has the second highest literacy rate (88.8%) amongst all the states in India. Christianityis the predominant religion, with �87% of the population following it. The participants were anopportunity sample. Students were recruited from a Teacher’s Training College, and the remain-

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ing participants from the community, through word-of-mouth, among contacts of the secondauthor in the area.

1.2. Physical measurements

Hand grip strength (in kilograms force) was measured using a Hand Dynamometer (TakeiInstruments dynamometer), for left and right hands. Flexed bicep circumference was measuredusing a tape measure. Participants were asked to write down their height and weight.

1.3. The Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire (BPAQ: Buss & Perry, 1992)

The BPAQ is a self-report trait aggression scale, consisting of 29 statements. It was translatedinto Mizo, the participants’ native language, by the second author, translating and back-translat-ing the items in consultation with two experts in Mizo. Participants rated the degree to whichthese statements applied to them, along a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (never or hardly appliesto me) to 5 (very often applies to me). There are 4 subscales: physical aggression (9 items: e.g.,‘‘Given enough provocation, I may hit another person’’); verbal aggression (5 items: e.g., ‘‘I oftenfind myself disagreeing with people’’); anger (7 items: e.g., ‘‘I have trouble controlling my tem-per’’); and hostility (8 items: ‘‘Other people always seem to get the breaks’’). In the present study,Cronbach’s as were lower than in Buss and Perry’s (1992) original report (physical aggression:0.70 versus 0.85; verbal aggression: 0.50 versus 0.72; anger: 0.49 versus 0.83; hostility: 0.70 versus0.77 hostility). However, these values are higher than those using the English version of the AQ ina similar sample (Thanzami, 2004).

1.4. The Richardson conflict response questionnaire (RCRQ: Green et al., 1996)

The RCRQ is a self-report measure of direct and indirect aggression, 7 items on each scale. Thisscale was also translated into Mizo by the second author, as indicated for the BPAQ. Participantsrated along a five-point Likert scale (1 = never to 5 = very often) the frequency of engaging inspecific items of direct and indirect aggressive behaviour in the past year. Examples of directaggression items are: ‘‘threatened to hit or throw something at them’’ and ‘‘pushed, grabbed orshoved them’’. Cronbach’s a was 0.87. Examples of indirect aggression items are ‘‘spread viciousrumors’’ and ‘‘gossiped behind their back’’. Cronbach’s a was 0.60.

1.5. Procedure

Participants first filled in information on their age, height and weight, and their grip strengthwas recorded using the hand dynamometer, over two trials for each hand: they gripped the dyna-mometer with their preferred, and then their non-preferred hand. Their flexed biceps were thenmeasured using a tape measure, again twice for each arm. For the statistical analyses of bicep size,the mean of the right and left measures were used, since correlations were almost identical forthese. For hand grip strength, left and right are shown separately since these values differed. Fol-lowing the physical measurements, the participants filled in the BPAQ and the RCRQ.

Table 1Zero-order correlations between measures of aggression and size and strength

BMI Height Weight Bicep Left grip Right grip Combined

AQ-PA 0.10 0.34** 0.25* 0.13 0.23* 0.15 0.30**

AQ-VA �0.09 �0.01 �0.08 �0.09 0.01 0.01 �0.05AQ-anger �0.09 0.09 �0.03 �0.08 �0.05 �0.07 �0.02AQ-H �0.02 0.21* 0.09 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.12RCRQ-d 0.25* 0.40*** 0.40** 0.27* 0.25* 0.17 0.42**

RCRQ-i �0.06 0.02 �0.05 �0.08 �0.09 0.03 �0.07

Notes: Abbreviations: AQ-PA, AQ physical aggression scale; AQ-VA, AQ verbal aggression scale; AQ-anger, AQ angerscale; AQ-H, AQ hostility scale; RCRQ-d, RCRQ direct aggression scale; RCRQ-i, RCRQ indirect aggression scale:BMI, body mass index; bicep, bicep circumference (mean of left and right).Combined refers to the mean of the Z scores for height, weight, bicep circumference and left grip.

* p < 0.05.** p < 0.01.*** p < 0.001.

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2. Results

Table 1 shows the zero-order correlations between measures of aggression, and those of sizeand strength. The strongest correlations were with the RCRQ direct scale. Height and weightshowed the highest values, with bicep circumference, and left grip strength, showing lower, butsignificant values. Right grip strength showed no significant correlations with any aggression mea-sures. There were lower, but still significant, values for height, weight and left grip with the BPAQphysical scale. RCRQ direct showed a correlation of r = 0.50 with BPAQ physical and r = 0.26with BPAQ verbal. With the exception of a low but significant value for hostility and height (Ta-ble 1), no other aggression measure was significantly correlated with any of the physical measures.

Since age was negatively correlated with the BPAQ physical scale and the RCRQ direct scale(r = �0.23; P < 0.05 in both cases), across an age range from 19 to 33 years, partial correlations werecalculated, with age controlled. This made very little differences in most cases: for RCRQ direct, thecorrelation with BMI was increased slightly to r = 0.28 and that with height reduced to r = 0.35.

Bicep circumference and weight were highly correlated (r = 0.77), so that in this sample weightis a good indicator of upper body strength (and vice versa). Height and weight were also substan-tially correlated (r = 0.58), but height and bicep size showed a much lower value (r = 0.27). Leftgrip was moderately correlated with bicep circumference (r = 0.41), height (r = 0.46), and weight(r = 0.43).

In view of the high correlations between bicep circumference and weight and between heightand weight, a limited regression was calculated using height and bicep size (which were less re-lated) on to direct aggression. This produced an adjusted R2 = 0.17 (height: b = 0.35; t = 3.47,p < 0.001; bicep size: b = 0.17; t = 1.71; p = 0.09).

Combining height and weight as Body Mass Index (BMI1) produced lower correlations withboth RCRQ direct and BPAQ physical (Table 1). Combining Z scores for height and weight pro-

1 In this sample, BMI showed a mean of 22.94 (SD = 22.31; range from 17.8 to 27.4).

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duced slightly higher correlations (RCRQ-d: r = .43; BPAQ-P: r = 0.29). Adding the Z scores forbicep circumference to this resulted in the same values, and adding those for left grip producedvery similar values (shown in Table 1). When the standardised residuals for height and weightwere regressed on to RCRQ direct, to assess their separate contributions, the adjustedR2 = 0.19, with highly significant effects of both height (b = 0.49; t = 4.12; p < 0.001) and weight(b = 0.50; t = 4.17; p < 0.001).

3. Discussion

The results showed a significant association between act-based measures of direct (mainly phys-ical) aggression and greater height, weight and strength, with two pairs of these three variablesbeing closely associated with each other (weight with height and strength). They support previousstudies linking size and strength with proneness to physical aggression (see Section 0). In contrastto the findings from US students (Sell, 2005; Sell et al., 2005), we found a closer association forboth weight and height than for strength (measured by bicep circumference and hand gripstrength), although weight and strength were very highly associated. This positive association be-tween height and physical aggression was not found by Sell, and height was not measured in Fel-son’s (1996) study.

The associations were stronger for act-based measures of direct (mainly physical) aggressionthan for a well-established measure of trait physical aggression, supporting the view that it is ac-tual experience of physical aggression that is closely associated with size and strength. These aresimilar to the findings of Sell (2005), who reported values of r = 0.24 for the BPAQ physical scale,and r = 0.36 for a history of fighting. The present sample consisted of young men aged between 18and 33 years. Previously in such samples, measures of direct aggression often show a small neg-ative correlation with age (e.g., Archer, 2004; Harris, 1996; O’Connor, Archer, & Wu, 2001). Con-sistent with this, small negative correlations were found between age and the BPAQ physical andthe RCRQ direct scales in the present study. Controlling for age had little influence on the mag-nitude of the correlations between aggression and size and strength.

In contrast to these associations with measures of physical aggression, there were, as predicted,no associations between size and strength measures and verbal aggression, anger, hostility (all onthe BPAQ), and indirect aggression (on the RCRQ). Verbal aggression on the BPAQ concernsbeing argumentative; the one item involving verbally threatening someone is located on the phys-ical scale. There are only two acts of verbal aggression on the direct scale of the RCRQ: one isthreatening someone, and the other ‘‘yelled, screamed or insulted them’’, both of which are morelikely to be associated with physical aggression than with being argumentative. The larger corre-lation shown by the RCRQ direct scale with the BPAQ physical (r = 0.50) than with the BPAQverbal scale (r = 0.26) supported this distinction. We can therefore identify the tendency for directphysical aggression (and its precursors such as threatening and yelling), rather than other aspectsof aggressiveness, such as argumentativeness, anger, hostility or indirect aggression, as the impor-tant variable linked with RHP in this sample.

Together with previous findings, the present results show a degree of generality in the associa-tion between size and strength and a history of direct or physical aggression. The association hasbeen found at different ages (from 4 years to around puberty to adulthood) and in samples from

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the US, Canada, and now India. It can be viewed as indicating the generality of the principle ofRHP, outlined in Section 0: individuals can assess their retaliatory power in relation to a potentialopponent, and if this is higher than the opponent’s, they are less likely to back down from a phys-ical confrontation. Over a period of time, such high RHP individuals will be more likely to haveengaged in physical aggression than those whose assessment of their relative retaliatory power islower.

The social interactionist theory of Tedeschi and Felson (1994), involves the concept of ‘‘coer-cive power’’ (Felson, 1996), which is similar to RHP. However, RHP adds two important featuresto this conventional social science theorizing. First, it links analyses of human behavior to a richdatabase on individual differences in aggressiveness in animals, where body strength and size playan overwhelming role. Second, RHP arises from mathematically-rigorous models of evolutionarychange, rather than intuitive notions of power or respect. Much of the theorizing, and some of thestudies, arising from the social interactionist approach, can be placed within an evolutionary per-spective, this enriching both approaches to the study of aggression.

One limitation of the present study is that the use of self-reports for height and weight may haveexaggerated their relationship with aggression measures, which were also self-reported. However,significant correlations were almost all restricted to two measures of physical aggression, ratherthan being spread over all the aggression measures, as might be expected if correlations were in-flated between all self-report measures.

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