Many cardiovascular psychophysiological studies have found evidence of lower arousal states in aggressive individuals and hyper-arousal states in individuals exposed to chronic stress. However, most of these studies have relied on clinical diagnoses or self-reports to identify aggressive and victimized individuals. The present study used peer nominations to identify aggressive, victimized, and non-aggressive or victimized adolescents (mean age = 12.09 yrs.) to examine if any psychophysiological differences exist during resting and startle conditions. ANOVAs revealed that high aggressive/low victimized adolescents had a lower resting heart period/rate compared to high victimized/low aggressive adolescents. Further analyses revealed a statistical trend of lower resting heart period variability in high victimized/low aggressive individuals compared to non-aggressive non-victimized controls. Due to evidence suggesting that individuals with high self-reported empathy display less aggression, empathy as a moderator for aggression was investigated. Although gender differences w3ere found across measures, empathy ws not found to moderate aggression. / by Christopher Aults. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_4007 |
| Contributors | Aults, Christopher D., Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | x, 81 p. : ill., electronic |
| Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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