Verbal aggression as a function of sex of subject and sex of target.

This experiment raised the question of whether previously reported sex differences in physical aggression also hold for verbal aggression. It was hypothesized that verbal aggression would be a function of sex of the object of aggression but not of the sex of the aggressor. Eighty male and female American college students gave messages which varied in degree of hostile content to either a male or female confederate (C). As predicted, verbral aggression was a function of sex of target but not of S. Verbal aggression was inhibited only toward the female C when the S was not provoked by the C; when provoked, however, Ss displayed the same level of verbal aggression toward female and male targets.