Measurement Invariance and Item Response Theory Analysis of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm

Abstract

The Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) is a widely used laboratory aggression task, yet item response theory analyses of this task are nonexistent. To estimate these aspects of the TAP, we combined data from nine laboratory studies that employed the 25-trial version of the TAP (combined N = 1,856). One- and four-factor solutions for the TAP data exhibited evidence of measurement invariance across gender (men vs. women) and experimental provocation (negative vs. positive social feedback), as well as negligible instances of differential item functioning. As such, psychometric properties of the TAP were invariant across binary representations of gender and experimental provocation. Furthermore, trials following low and high provocation were the least informative and those following moderate provocation were the most informative. Scoring approaches to the TAP may benefit from giving greater weight to trials following moderate provocation. Overall, we find great utility in applying item response theory approaches to behavioral laboratory tasks.

Keywords

Taylor Aggression Paradigm measurement invariance item response theory psychometrics provocation

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

C. A.

Bushman

B. J.

(1997). External validity of “trivial” experiments: The case of laboratory aggression. Review of General Psychology, 1(1), 19-41. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.1.1.19

Archer

(2004). Sex differences in aggression in real-world settings: A meta-analytic review. Review of General Psychology, 8(4), 291-322. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.8.4.291

Arriaga

Aguiar

(2019). Gender differences in aggression: The role of displaying facial emotional cues in a competitive situation. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 60(5), 421-429. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12568

Asparouhov

Muthén

(2014). Multiple-group factor analysis alignment. Structural Equation Modeling, 21(4), 495-508. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2014.919210

Bettencourt

Miller

(1996). Gender differences in aggression as a function of provocation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 119(3), 422-447. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.3.422

Bialosiewicz

Murphy

Berry

(2013). An introduction to measurement invariance testing: Resource packet for participants. http://comm.eval.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=63758fed-a490-43f2-8862-2de0217a08b8

Björkqvist

(2018). Gender differences in aggression. Current Opinion in Psychology, 19(February), 39-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.03.030

Bushman

B. J.

Baumeister

R. F.

(1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 219-229. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.219

Chalmers

R. P.

(2012). mirt: A multidimensional item response theory package for the R environment. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(6), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i06

10.

Chalmers

R. P.

Counsell

Flora

D. B.

(2016). It might not make a big DIF: Improved differential test functioning statistics that account for sampling variability. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 76(1), 114-140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164415584576

11.

Chester

D. S.

(2019). Beyond the aggregate score: Using multilevel modeling to examine trajectories of laboratory-measured aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 45(5), 498-506. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21837

12.

Chester

D. S.

DeWall

C. N.

(2017). Combating the sting of rejection with the pleasure of revenge: A new look at how emotion shapes aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(3), 413-430. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000080

13.

Chester

D. S.

Lasko

E. N.

(2019). Validating a standardized approach to the Taylor Aggression Paradigm. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(5), 620-631. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618775408

14.

Chester

D. S.

Lynam

D. R.

Milich

DeWall

C. N.

(2017). Social rejection magnifies impulsive behavior among individuals with greater negative urgency: An experimental test of urgency theory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(7), 962-967. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000308

15.

Chester

D. S.

Merwin

L. M.

DeWall

C. N.

(2015). Maladaptive perfectionism’s link to aggression and self-harm: Emotion regulation as a mechanism. Aggressive Behavior, 41(5), 443-454. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21578

16.

Coulacoglou

Saklofske

D. H.

(2017). Psychometrics and psychological assessment: Principles and applications. Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410605269

17.

Davidov

Muthen

Schmidt

(2018). Measurement invariance in cross-national studies: Challenging traditional approaches and evaluating new ones. Sociological Methods & Research, 47(4), 631-636. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124118789708

18.

Embretson

S. E.

Reise

S. P.

(2013). Item response theory. Psychology Press.

19.

Flake

J. K.

Pek

Hehman

(2017). Construct validation in social and personality research: Current practice and recommendations. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(4), 370-378. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617693063

20.

Giancola

P. R.

Parrott

D. J.

(2008). Further evidence for the validity of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm. Aggressive Behavior, 34(2), 214-229. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20235

21.

Giancola

P. R.

Zeichner

(1995). Construct validity of a competitive reaction-time aggression paradigm. Aggressive Behavior, 21(3), 199-204. https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-2337(1995)21:3<199::AID-AB2480210303>3.0.CO;2-Q

22.

Hussey

Hughes

(2020). Hidden invalidity among 15 commonly used measures in social and personality psychology. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3(2), 166-184. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919882903

23.

Hyatt

C. S.

Chester

D. S.

Zeichner

Miller

J. D.

(2019). Analytic flexibility in laboratory aggression paradigms: Relations with personality traits vary (slightly) by operationalization of aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 45(4), 377-388. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21830

24.

Hyatt

C. S.

Chester

D. S.

Zeichner

Miller

J. D.

(2020). Facet-level analysis of the relations between personality and laboratory aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 46(3), 266-277. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21887

25.

Hyatt

Zeichner

Miller

(2019). Laboratory aggression and personality traits: A meta-analytic review. Psychology of Violence, 9(6), 675-689. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000236

26.

King

A. R.

Russell

T. D.

(2019). Lifetime Acts of Violence Assessment (LAVA) predictors of laboratory aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 45(5), 477-488. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21835

27.

Lawrence

Hutchinson

(2013). The influence of individual differences in sensitivity to provocations on provoked aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 39(3), 212-221. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21473

28.

Millsap

R. E.

(2011). Statistical approaches to measurement invariance. Routledge

29.

Pignatiello

G. A.

Martin

R. J.

Hickman

R. L.

Jr. (2020). Decision fatigue: A conceptual analysis. Journal of Health Psychology, 25(1), 123-135. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318763510

30.

R Core Team. (2019). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Software]. http://www.R-project.org/

31.

Raiche

Magis

(2010). nFactors: An R package for parallel analysis and non-graphical solutions to the Cattell scree test (R Package Version 2.3.3) [Software]. http://www.R-project.org/

32.

Rosseel

(2012). Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling and more. Version 0.5–12 (BETA). Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2), 1-36.

33.

Taylor

S. P.

(1967). Aggressive behavior and physiological arousal as a function of provocation and the tendency to inhibit aggression. Journal of Personality, 35(2), 297-310. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1967.tb01430.x

34.

Tedeschi

J. T.

Quigley

B. M.

(1996). Limitations of laboratory paradigms for studying aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 1(2), 163-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/1359-1789(95)00014-3

35.

Williams

K. D.

Jarvis

(2006). Cyberball: A program for use in research on interpersonal ostracism and acceptance. Behavior Research Methods, 38(1), 174-180. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192765

36.

Zeichner

Parrott

D. J.

Frey

F. C.

(2003). Gender differences in laboratory aggression under response choice conditions. Aggressive Behavior, 29(2), 95-106. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.10030

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.47 MB

0.45 MB

0.13 MB