Abstract
The present study was conducted to examine for college males relations between aggressiveness (or expressive hostility) and dominance and (a) particular developmental experiences and (b) total serum cholesterol. Aggressiveness but not dominance was found to be positively related to subjects' reports of their parents' behavior which reflected (a) less genuine acceptance, (b) more interference in the person's desires as a child, and (c) more punitiveness. For low-physically fit subjects, both aggressiveness and dominance were found to be positively related to levels of total serum cholesterol. These relations are congruent with the notion that both aggressiveness and dominance may contribute to hastening coronary atherosclerosis and risk of CHD via elevated levels of plasma lipids. It should be noted, however, that the relations obtained in the present study were all modest in size. For high-physically fit individuals associations were not found between total serum cholesterol and either aggressiveness or dominance. These results suggest that good physical fitness may attenuate the degree to which either aggressiveness or dominance may adversely affect health via elevated levels of cholesterol.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Biaggio, M. K., Supplee, K., and Curtis, N. (1981). Reliability and validity of four anger scales.J. Person. Assess. 45: 639–648.
Brinegar, J. R. (1976). A study of parent behavior as it relates to classroom behavior of upper elementary school children. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Burger, J. M. (1992).Desire for Control: Personality, Social, and Clinical Perspectives, Plenum, New York.
Burke, J. J., and Fischer, P. M. (1988). A clinician's guide to the office measurement of cholesterol.JAMA 259: 3444–3448.
Buss, A. H. (1994). Dominance. In Buss, A. H. (ed.),Personality: Temperament, Social Behavior, and the Self, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, pp. 149–172.
Buss, A. H., and Durkee, A. (1957). An inventory for assessing different kinds of hostility.J. Consult. Psychol. 21: 343–349.
Cooper, G. R., Myers, G. L., Smith, S. J., and Schlant, R. C. (1992). Blood lipid measurements: Variations and practical utility.JAMA 267: 1652–1660.
Deary, U. J., Fowkes, F. G. R., Donnan, P. T., and Houseley, E. (1994). Hostile personality and risks of peripheral arterial disease in the general population.Psychosom. Med. 56: 197–202.
Dembroski, T. M., and Costa, P. T. (1987). Coronary-prone behavior: Components of the Type A pattern and hostility.J. Personal. 55: 211–235.
Dembroski, T. M., MacDougall, J. M., and Musante, L. (1984). Desirability of control versus locus of control: Relationship to paralinguistics in the Type A interview.Health Psychol. 3: 15–26.
Dujovne, V. F., and Houston, B. K. (1991). Hostility-related variables and plasma lipid levels.J. Behav. Med. 14: 555–565.
Ferguson, N. (1977). Simultaneous speech, interruptions and dominance.Bri. J. Soc. Clin. Psychol. 16: 295–302.
Feshbach, S. (1970). Aggression. In Mussen, P. H. (ed.),Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology, Wiley, New York.
Hasak, P. (1974).Relationships Between Locus of Control, Parental Antecedents, and Personality Dimensions. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Hillbrand, M., Spitz, R. T., and Foster, H. G. (1995). Serum cholesterol and aggression in hospitalized male forensic patients.J. Behav. Med. 18: 33–44.
Holleran, S. A. (1994).Pressured Dominance and Potential for Hostility: Associations with Oppositional Orientation, Developmental, and Coronary Heart Disease Risk-Related Variables. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Holleran, S. A., Greene, R. E., Jr., and Houston, B. K. (1993). Unpublished data, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Houston, B. K. (1990). Oppositional orientation and health risk. Presentation at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, Feb.
Houston, B. K., and Vavak, C. R. (1991). Cynical hostility: Developmental factors, psychosocial correlates, and health behaviors.Health Psychol. 10: 9–17.
Houston, B. K., Chesney, M. A., Black, G. W., Cates, D. S., and Hecker, M. H. L. (1992). Behavioral clusters and coronary heart disease risk.Psychosom. Med. 54: 447–461.
Johnson, C. L., Rifkind, B. M., Sempos, C. T., Carroll, M. D., Bachorik, P. S., Briefel, R. R., Gordon, D. J., Burt, V. O., Brown, C. D., Lippel, K., and Cleeman, J. I. (1993). Declining serum total cholesterol levels among U.S. adults: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.JAMA 269: 3002–3008.
Kannel, W. B. (1986). Epidemiological insights into atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease from the Framingham Study. In Pollack, M. L., Schmidt, D. H., and Mason, D. T. (eds.),Heart Disease and Rehabilitation, 2nd ed., Wiley, New York, pp. 3–29.
Kelly, J. A., and Worell, L. (1976). Parent behaviors related to masculine, feminine, and androgynous sex role orientations.J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 44: 843–851.
Linkey, H. E., and Firestone, I. J. (1990). Dyad dominance composition effects, nonverbal behaviors, and influence.J. Res. Pers. 24: 206–215.
Manuck, S. B., Muldoon, M. F., Kaplan, J. R., Adams, M. R., and Polefrone, J. M. (1989). Coronary artery atherosclerosis and cardiac response to stress in cynomulgus monkeys. In Siegman, A. W., and Dembroski, T. M. (eds.),In Search of Coronary Prone Behavior: Beyond Type A, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 207–227.
McCranie, E. W., and Bass, J. D. (1984). Childhood family antecedents of dependency and self-criticism: Implications for depression.J. Abnorm. Psychol. 93: 3–8.
McCranie, E. W., and Simpson, M. E. (1986). Parental child-rearing antecedents of Type A behavior.Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 12: 493–501.
Mosher, D. L., and Tomkins, S. S. (1988). Scripting the Macho Man: Hypermasculine socialization and enculturation.J. Sex. Res. 25: 60–84.
Parke, R. D., and Slaby, R. G. (1983). The development of aggression. In Mussen, P. H. (gen. ed.) and Hetherington, E. M. (vol. ed.),Handbook of Child Psychol, Vol. 4, Socialization, Personality, and Social Development, 4th ed., Wiley, New York, pp. 547–641.
Plomin, R. (1990). The role of inheritance in behavior.Science 248: 183–188.
Ranade, V. V. (1993). Significance of cholesterol in health and disease.Int. J. Clin. Pharm. Ther. Tox. 31: 276–284.
Ray, J. J. (1981). Authoritarianism, dominance and assertiveness.J. Pers. Assess. 45: 390–397.
Sampson, R. J., and Lauritsen, J. L. (1994). Violent victimization and offending: Individual-, situational-, and community-level risk factors. In Reiss, A. J., Jr., and Roth, J. A. (eds.),Understanding and Preventing Violence, Vol. 3. Social Influences, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, pp. 1–114.
Scragg C. W., and Hunstman, A. (1975). Self-esteem, locus of control, and perceived achievement expectations. Unpublished manuscript, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Siegler, I. C., Peterson, B. L., Barefoot, J. C., and Williams, R. B., Jr. (1992). Hostility during late adolescence predicts coronary risk factors at mid-life.Am. J. Epidemiol. 136: 146–154.
Siegman, A. W., and Smith, T. W. (eds.) (1994).Anger, Hostility, and the Heart, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
Siegman, A. W., Dembroski, T. M., and Ringel, N. (1987). Components of hostility and the severity of coronary artery disease.Psychosom. Med. 49: 127–135.
Smith, T. W. (1992). Hostility and health: Current status of a psychosomatic hypothesis.Health Psychol. 11: 139–150.
Smith, T. W., Allred, K. D., Morrison, C. A., and Carlson, S. D. (1989). Cardiovascular reactivity and interpersonal influence: Active coping in a social context.J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 56: 209–218.
Smith, T. W., Baldwin, M., and Christensen, A. (1990). Interpersonal influence as active coping: Effects of task difficulty on cardiovascular reactivity.Psychophysiology 27: 429–437.
Williams, R. B. (1989). Biological mechanisms mediating the relationship between behavior and coronary heart disease. In Siegman, A. W., and Dembroski, T. M. (eds.),In Search of Coronary-Prone Behavior: Beyond Type A, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 195–205.
Williams, R. B., Jr., and Barefoot, J. C. (1988). Coronary-prone behavior: The emerging role of the hostility complex. In Houston, B. K., and Snyder, C. R. (eds.),Type A Behavior Pattern: Research, Theory, and Intervention, Wiley, New York, pp. 189–211.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This study was supported, in part, by a General Research Fund Award (3347XX0038) to B. Kent Houston.
B. Kent Houston died on August 19, 1995.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Greene, R.E., Houston, B.K. & Holleran, S.A. Aggressiveness, dominance, developmental factors, and serum cholesterol level in college males. J Behav Med 18, 569–580 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01857896
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01857896