The aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world, and the main currency for an IPA study is the meanings particular experiences, events, states hold for participants. The approach is phenomenological (see Chapter 3) in that it involves detailed examination of the participant’s lifeworld; it attempts to explore personal experience and is concerned with an individual’s personal perception or account of an object or event, as opposed to an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object or event itself. At the same time, IPA also emphasizes that the research exercise is a dynamic process with an active role for the researcher in that process. One is trying to get close to the participant’s personal world, to take, in Conrad’s (1987) words, an ‘insider’s perspective’, but one cannot do this directly or completely. Access depends on, and is complicated by, the researcher’s own conceptions; indeed, these are required in order to make sense of that other personal world through a process of interpretative activity. Thus, a two-stage interpretation process, or a double hermeneutic, is involved. The participants are trying to make sense of their world; the researcher is trying to make sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world. IPA is therefore intellectually connected to hermeneutics and theories of interpretation (Packer and Addison, 1989; Palmer, 1969; Smith, in press; see also Chapter 2 this volume). Different interpretative stances are possible, and IPA combines an empathic hermeneutics with a questioning hermeneutics. Thus, consistent with its phenomenological origins, IPA is concerned with trying to understand what it is like, from the point of view of the participants, to take their side. At the same time, a detailed IPA analysis can also involve asking critical questions of the texts from participants, such as the following: What is the person trying to achieve here? Is something leaking out here that wasn’t intended? Do I have a sense of something going on here that maybe the participants themselves are less aware of?

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Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

It has been widely asserted that low self-esteem causes violence, but laboratory evidence is lacking, and some contrary observations have characterized aggressors as having favorable self-opinions. In 2 studies, both simple self-esteem and narcissism were measured, and then individual participants were given an opportunity to aggress against someone who had insulted them or praised them or against an innocent third person. Self-esteem proved irrelevant to aggression. The combination of narcissism and insult led to exceptionally high levels of aggression toward the source of the insult. Neither form of self-regard affected displaced aggression, which was low in general. These findings contradict the popular view that low self-esteem causes aggression and point instead toward threatened egotism as an important cause.

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Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence?

Meta-analytic reviews of sex differences in aggression from real-world settings are described. They cover self-reports, observations, peer reports, and teacher reports of overall direct, physical, ...

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Sex Differences in Aggression in Real-World Settings: A Meta-Analytic Review:

Drug use and drug trafficking are examined as etiological factors in the creation of violence. A conceptual framework is presented for examining the drugs/violence nexus. Drugs and violence are see...

The Drugs/Violence Nexus: A Tripartite Conceptual Framework:

Using 3 experiments, the authors explored the role of perspective-taking in debiasing social thought. In the 1st 2 experiments, perspective-taking was contrasted with stereotype suppression as a possible strategy for achieving stereotype control. In Experiment 1, perspective-taking decreased stereotypic biases on both a conscious and a nonconscious task. In Experiment 2, perspective-taking led to both decreased stereotyping and increased overlap between representations of the self and representations of the elderly, suggesting activation and application of the self-concept in judgments of the elderly. In Experiment 3, perspective-taking reduced evidence of in-group bias in the minimal group paradigm by increasing evaluations of the out-group. The role of self-other overlap in producing prosocial outcomes and the separation of the conscious, explicit effects from the nonconscious, implicit effects of perspective-taking are discussed.

Perspective-taking: decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism.

The studies presented in this paper examined empathy, especially perspective taking, as a potential inhibitor of interpersonal aggression. The theoretical rationale for these investigations derived from Zillmann's [(1988): Aggressive Behavior 14: 51–64] cognitive excitation model. Study 1 revealed that dispositional empathy correlates negatively with self-reported aggression and with conflict responses that reflect little concern for the needs of the other party. Empathy also was positively related to constructive responses to interpersonal conflict (i. e., those that do involve concern for the needs of the other party). In Study 2, perspective taking was manipulated with instructions to subjects prior to participation in a reaction-time task designed to measure aggression. When threat was relatively low, subjects who were instructed to take the perspective of the target responded less aggressively than did those who had been instructed to focus on the task. Study 3 examined the effect of dispositional perspective taking on verbal aggression. Threat was manipulated in terms of the combination of provocation and gender of the interactants. As predicted, perspective taking related to aggression inhibition under conditions of moderate threat–for males under low provocation and females under high provocation. These effects were predicted and explained in the context of the cognitive-excitation model. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Empathy as a cognitive inhibitor of interpersonal aggression

This study examined the effects of victim and offender intoxication on attributions of blame in a rape incident. Participants read scenarios of a rape incident in which victim, offender, both, or neither were intoxicated. The male offender was attributed less and the situation was attributed more responsibility when the offender was drunk than when he was sober. In addition, participants derogated the female victim's character and assigned her greater responsibility when she was drunk than when she was sober.

Alcohol and Rape The Effect of Alcohol on Attributions of Blame for Rape

The present study examined two explanations for gender differences in expression of direct and indirect aggression. The social sanction model suggests that aggressor and target gender effects may be accounted for in terms of social sanctions against behaving aggressively; indirect aggression is the likely outcome of inhibitions against expression of direct aggression. The threat argument suggests that high levels of direct aggression in male-male dyads as well as apparent inhibitions against harming females might be accounted for by the fact that males are more threatening targets than are females. Research participants completed a questionnaire measure of direct and indirect aggression twice, once with reference to their behavior toward a same-gender target and once with reference to their behavior toward an other-gender target. Although most direct aggression was reported by male aggressors toward male targets, gender of target did not relate to indirect aggression. Males reported approximately equal levels of indirect and direct aggression. Although females reported using more indirect than direct aggression, they did not differ from males in their reports of the frequency of use of indirect aggression. These results provided some support for both models of gender effects on human aggression and suggest the appropriateness of a relatively complex model of gender effects on aggression. Aggr. Behav. 25:425–434, 1999. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Social sanction and threat explanations of gender effects on direct and indirect aggression

Although the Taylor and Buss paradigms have been the most widely used measures of human physical aggression, few attempts have been made to establish validity of the measures. The present investigation attempted to demonstrate convergent and discriminant validity of the paradigms. Fifty-five males engaged in five tasks designed to measure helping, competition, and aggression. Correlations computed among these measures lend support for convergent and discriminant validity of the Taylor and Buss paradigms.

Convergent and discriminant validity of the Taylor and Buss measures of physical aggression.

Most studies that report males as more aggressive than females have examined only direct aggression. However, recent research has shown that females may be more indirectly aggressive than males. Lagerspetz et al. [1988: Aggressive Behavior 14:403-414] have suggested that this gender difference in indirect aggression may arise because females have more dense networks than males, providing them with more opportunities for using indirect aggression. The present study examined the relationship between network density and aggression by administering self-report measures of each variable to 148 undergraduates. Males with high-density networks reported more indirect than direct aggression, and less direct aggression than males with low-density networks. Use of direct and indirect aggression by females was not related to network density. Explanations consider possible inhibitory and facilitating effects of network density.

Deborah R. Richardson

Papers

Empathy as a cognitive inhibitor of interpersonal aggression

Alcohol and Rape The Effect of Alcohol on Attributions of Blame for Rape

Social sanction and threat explanations of gender effects on direct and indirect aggression

Convergent and discriminant validity of the Taylor and Buss measures of physical aggression.

How do friendship, indirect, and direct aggression relate?