Social representations of aggression: Crossing the sex barrier

European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 26, 135-147 (1996)

Social representations of aggression: Crossing the sex barrier

ANNE CAMPBELL Psychology Department, Durham University, U. K.

STEVEN MUNCER and ALISON GUY School of Human Studies, Teesside University, U. K.

and

MAURA BANIM School of Social and International Studies, Sunderland University, U. K.

Abstract

Controversy over Moscovici’s concept of social representations has focused upon the extent to which they can be viewed as enduring cognitive structures characterizing social groups and whether individual members are prisoners’ of their social representations, unable to duplicate the social representations of other socialgroups. Previous reseurch has established a consistent gender difference in orientation toward aggression with men viewing it as an instrumental act of coercion and women as a temporary loss of seu- control. These two social representations, originally recovered from spontaneous conver- sation, have been measured with a psychometric instrument called Expagg. To examine the mutability of these representations. men and women in the present study were asked to complete the questionnaire either spontaneously or as they believed a member of the opposite sex might respond. Under conditions of same-sex responding the usualsignificant sex difference appeared. When asked to respond as a member of the opposite sex, men accurately mirrored women’s higher expressive total score on the questionnaire but psychometric analysis revealed that there was no similarity in terms of item-total correlations. Women grossly overestimated the degree of men’s instrumentality but item--total total correlations revealed a considerable degree of similarity with men’s structure. The male representution whether natural or assumed showed higher internal consistency than did the female mode. The results are discussed in terms of differential modes of access to gender-linked representations and the cultural dominance of a masculine and instrumental representation of aggression. Addressee for correspondence: Dr. A. Campbell, Psychology Department, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, U.K.

CCC 0046-2772/96/010135-13 01996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received I February I994 Accepted 21 November I994

136 A . Campbell et al.

INTRODUCTION

Moscovici’s concept of social representation has both energized and polarized recent debate in social psychology. According to Moscovici (1963, p. 251), a social representation is defined ‘as the elaborating of a social object by the community for the purposes of behaving and communicating’. They are socially transmitted (and hence culturally and historically specific) topic-specific psychological ‘packages’ containing images of, attitudes to, emotions about and causal schema for a social phenomenon. In Durk- heim’s original formulation, ‘collective representations’ were seen as static, aggregate and shared conceptions of the social world including science, religion, and myth which he contrasted with individual representations - the study of which lay outside the domain of sociology. Moscovici sought to bridge the gap between these two views by introducing the concept of social representation to emphasize three aspects of their social nature (Potter and Wetherell, 1987): they are socially transmitted through communication, they provide an agreed code for communication between people and they differ as a function of social group.

Groups, individuals and social representations

Moscovici’s view of social representations as coterminus with group boundaries has been the subject of debate. He has asserted that ‘social representations are related to a wide class of cognitions that are shared by broad categories of people. The sharing is important, in as much as it leads to distinctions from other categories and establishes a group identity’ (Moscovici and Hewstone 1983, p. 116). Potter and Wetherell (1987) have argued that this presents an inherent tautology whereby there can be no indepen- dent means of defining groups aside from their sharing of a common representation. Doise (1993) rejects this criticism and advocates the view that there is nothing inherent in the theory that excludes the possibility of defining groups by external criterion and then examining, as an empirical question, the extent to which they share a common representation. In the present study we use biological sex as the marker for gender category and seek to examine the extent to which gender is systematically related to particular social representations of aggression.

Though we anticipate that these social representations will differ significantly between men and women, we expect to find some overlap between the sexes reflecting individual differences within sex. Moscovici implies that group representations are present at the level of individual cognition (‘. . . groups produce representations in order to act as filters for information coming from the environment and to shape each individual’s behaviour’ (Moscovici, 198 1 p. 188), whilst also highlighting individual differences in the reception, assimilation and transmission of social representations: ‘Whilst these representations, which are shared by many, enter into and influence the mind of each, they are not thought by them; rather, to be more precise, they are re-thought, re-cited and re-presented’ (Moscovici, 1984, p. 9). Indeed recent work has pursued the relationship between social representations as supra-individual phenomenon and their instantiation in the mind of individual group members. Thommen, von Cranach and Ammann (1992, p. 194) for example make the following distinction ‘When a group member has taken parts of a social system’s social representations, we speak of individual social representations. These form part of the individual knowledge structure. By the integration into the individual cognitive system the social

Social representations of aggression 137

representations are subjected to many changes (assimilation to the existing cognitive structures)’. In a similar vein, Dann (1992) uses the term ‘subjective theory’ to describe individual’s implicit cognitive structures which are used to define, explain, predict and guide action but which are nonetheless derived from social representations. Von Cranach (1 992) describes a recursive process whereby group level social representations are internalized and modified by the individual who, in turn, through communication and action alters the group’s representation. Though collective representations may have a life of their own, as Moscovici suggests, their evolution depends upon individual level modification and group dynamics. For this reason, we expect to find significant differences between men and women but do not anticipate any monolithic within-sex agreement regarding these representations.

Representations and repertoires

Other criticisms of Moscovici’s work stem from a basic scepticism about the unitary and enduring nature of representations within individuals (Breakwell, 1993; McKinley and Potter, 1987; Parker, 1987; Potter and Litton, 1985). Potter and Wetherell (1987) have proposed that representations should be re-conceived of as ‘interpretative repertoires’ (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984). They argue that conceptualizations of phenomenon which occur in discourse can best be seen as situationally-specific versions of events. In short, people should not be characterized as holding a single enduring representation of a phenomenon but are better understood as capable of entertaining multiple versions - the one which is actually expressed on any given occasion is the one which is most functional in the context of the interaction between speaker and hearer. Thus for example, Nigel Lawson’s resignation speech does not reflect the ex-Chancel- lor’s only way of interpreting a set of events but rather is one version selected from a near infinite number which best served his purposes in the particular political and public context of the time (Edwards and Potter, 1992). Though Potter and Wetherell (1987) eschew any attempt to reduce such variable interpretations to individual cognitive structures or processes, their criticism raises an important consideration for social representations: Are each of us ‘locked into’ a particular perceptual reality of a phenomenon by virtue of our group membership and its associated social representation or are we capable of entertaining and expressing different social representations? Moscovici’s writing is ambiguous on this point. On occasion he implies that we are prisoners of our representations; ‘. . . even if two people observe the same person, they can none the less describe that same individual differently according to whether they have a “psychic”, “organic”, “Christian”, “Buddhist” or whatever representation of the human being and behaviour . . . Each describes the other’s view as biased or mistaken’ (Moscovici and Hewstone, 1983, p. 121, 11 1). Again, using the example of differing accounts of the causes of unemployment, he notes ‘The two explanations are utterly opposed to each other and obviously stem from distinct social representations’ (Moscovici, 1984, p. 49). On the other hand, Breakwell (1993) discusses the extent to which group membership might affect exposure to, availability and use of different social representations clearly indicating that people select from various representations that are known and available to them. Potter and Wetherell (1987), in their analysis of account giving, draw attention to the distinction between ‘use’ and ‘mention’ to indicate that people are aware of other interpretations that may be placed on events even when these alternatives are rejected. Similarly Billig (1993) in his work has focused


on the argumentative or rhetorical nature of thinking which presupposes that multiple interpretations can be simultaneously held (though not necessarily accepted) by the individual. A further question then, given that people are able to reconstruct alterna- tive representations, is whether these ‘alien’ representations show the same degree of coherence as the preferred and familiar representation which has the benefit of more frequent use, greater internal cohesion and better integration into the self-schema.

In the arena of sex differences a variety of theoretical perspectives suggest that despite manifest differences, men and women would be expected to have some access to the typical behaviours and views of the other sex. Cognitive formulations highlight gender identity (Kohlberg, 1966) or gender schema (Bem, 1974) as a mechanism which acts to filter relevant environmental information. For Kohlberg, the acquisition of gender identity allows the child to actively seek out and give preferential attention to members of its own sex. According to Bem, individuals differ with respect to the extent to which they canalize information as gender-congruent and hence differ with respect to the extent to which they attend to gender as a defining feature of incoming information. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1373), similarly points out that while gender-congruent behaviour is more likely to be performed, no differences are to be expected with regard to the acquistion of information relevant to the other sex. Structural theories highlight contemporaneous activities of adult roles as crucial in determining behaviour and to the extent that men and women increasingly share occupational and social roles we may expect that the sexes would also share an understanding of one another’s behaviour (Eagly, 1987). Even more crucially perhaps, role performances in the media serve to disseminate information about the attitudes and behaviours of men and women to both sexes alike. Deaux and Major (1987) point to interactional influences on sex-typed behaviour in which a vital role is given to the attributions about sex typed behaviour accorded to the interactional partner. This implies some ability to take the role of the other and anticipate their beliefs about sex-appropriate behaviour. All these formulations anticipate some degree of knowledge about cross-sex behaviours and even attitudes. Yet to grasp the social representation of the other sex requires more than this. Social representations are complex schema which integrate affective, attitudinal, emotional and causal attributions into a coherent package. To reconstruct such a cognitive matrix requires more than piece- meal knowledge of typical cross-sex actions or attitudes - the individual must go beyond the information given to identify the social logic which glues each part of the mosaic into place. In the present study, we examine the extent to which men and women can duplicate the social representations about aggression held by members of the opposite sex.

The permeability of sex-linked representations of aggression

The notion of social representations has been used to explain gender differences in aggressive behaviour (Campbell, 1993). Discourse analysis of spontaneous conver- sation among same sex groups of men and women suggested a clear sex difference in the understanding of aggression as an experience (Campbell and Muncer, 1987). Women framed aggression as an issue of losing self-control; men as a means of imposing social control over others. This pattern of difference was found to be reflected in academic theories of aggression. Expressive theories tend to focus on the build-up of aggressive instinct, energy or frustration (Berkowitz, 1989; Freud, 1946; Dollard, Doob, Miller,


Mowrer and Sears, 1939; Lorenz, 1966) and/or its subsequent expression through aggressive action via loss of self-control or failure of behavioural inhibition (Eysenck, 1964; Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). Instrumental theories focus upon the interpersonal benefits of aggression in terms of power and control (Tedeschi, Smith and Brown, 1974), the acquisition of material goods (Bandura, 1973), informal justice (Black, 1983) or status enhancement (Athens, 1977; Felson, 1982; Toch, 1969). A systematic comparison of these theories offered divergent predictions in eight areas of aggression. From these predictions, a 20-item inventory was constructed called Expagg designed to measure an individual’s characteristic way of viewing aggression (Camp- bell, Muncer and Coyle, 1992). Factor analysis showed that, although derived from consideration of diverse domains (including emotion, cognition, aim and perceived cause), the items all loaded significantly on a first general factor of instrumental- expressive aggression. Gender differences have been found consistently in a number of studies with women showing a significantly more expressive social representation than men, reflected in a point-biserial correlation between sex and Expagg score of about r=0.40 (Archer and Parker, 1994; Campbell et al., 1992; Campbell, Muncer and Gorman, 1993; Campbell and Muncer, 1994).

The present study aims to examine whether men and women are ‘locked’ into a particular representation of aggression or whether in fact they have at their disposal two representations (one for male and one for female aggression). If they can cross the sex barrier, how well integrated is the social representation of the opposite sex’s representation? We asked subjects to fill in the Expagg questionnaire under two different conditions; either straightforwardly as they spontaneously felt about the issues or under instructions to imagine what it would be like to be a member of the opposite sex responding to these items. The aims of the study are (1) to replicate the sex difference that has been found to date, (2) to examine the extent to which subjects are capable of ‘crossing the sex barrier’ and effectively duplicating the responses of the opposite sex and, if they are, (3) to examine the internal consistency of own-sex versus opposite sex responding as a guide to the unitary and coherent nature of the underlying social representations. If in assuming the psychological reality of the opposite sex, subjects are in fact tapping into a unitary representation we would expect the pattern of responding (measured as item-total correlations) to be virtually identical to that of opposite sex subjects filling it in spontaneously. Significantly lower indices of internal consistency would suggest that the overall score does not reflect such a tight pattern of responding across items and that ‘alien’ representations are less coherently integrated into a single schema.

METHOD

The subjects of the study were English undergraduates. An original sample of 252 was reduced to 228 when questionnaires with missing data were excluded from analysis. The subjects completed the questionnaire in groups. They were instructed to first indicate their sex. Subsequently those whose questionnaires were marked ‘Same sex’ were instructed to fill out the questionnaire in terms of how they felt about each of the items (Male N = 43, Female N = 58). Those whose questionnaires were marked ‘Oppo- site sex’ were asked to imagine that they were members of the opposite sex and to respond to the items appropriately to their new sex (Male N = 58, Female N = 69).


Expagg is a 20-item forced choice questionnaire tapping eight areas of orientation to aggression: aim, form, cause, emotion, cognition, social value, reputation management and preference for public/private location. The scale is scored in the direction of an expressive representation of aggression with a range of 0 to 20. Reliability measured by Cronbach’s alpha has been between 0.75 and 0.83 in previous studies (Campbell et al., 1992, 1993; Campbell and Muncer, 1994) and factor analysis indicates a first factor with significant loadings from all items (Campbell et al., 1992). In terms of validity, Expagg scores show significant correlations with biological sex (Campbell et al., 1992, 1993; Campbell and Muncer, 1994), masculinity-femininity (Campbell et al., 1993, Campbell and Muncer, 1994) occupation (Campbell and Muncer, 1994) and self- reported aggression (Campbell et al., 1993).

RESULTS

Group differences

The Expagg scores were the dependent measures in a 2 (biological sex) x 2 (same versus other sex instructions) analysis of variance. The results are presented in Table 1. There were significant main effects of biological sex ( F = 48.52, df = 1,p < 0.0001) and same versus opposite sex instructions (F = 72.22, df = 1, p < 0.0001) and a significant two-way interaction ( F = 221.07, df = 1,p < 0.0001).

A one-way ANOVA was performed on the four groups with Scheffe tests to indicate the locus of the effects. The results are shown in Table 2. The subject groups in declining order of expressivity were ranked FemaleISame Sex (x = 15.98, S.D. = 2.71) Male/ Opposite Sex (x = 15.22, S. D. = 3.1 l), Male/Same Sex (x = 1 1.1 1, S. D. = 4.65) and Female/Opposite Sex (x = 5.26, S.D. = 4.22). The only comparison failing to reach significance was between females responding in same sex mode (F/SS) and males responding as the opposite sex (M/OS). The main effect of same/opposite sex instructions is explicable in terms of females’ tendency to grossly overestimate the actual degree of male instrumentality. Males responding as females were however statistically indistinguishable from ‘true’ females in terms of mean score.

We examined the items which were responsible for differentiating same versus opposite sex patterns of responding using t-tests. As we have noted, men assuming a female role are indistinguishable in terms of mean score from true females and item level analysis confirmed that there were significant differences on only four of the 20 items: Men overestimate the extent to which female aggression is accompanied by feelings of being out of control (t = 2.55, p < 0.02) and underestimate the extent to which women react aggressively as a function of stress rather than provocation ( t = -2.01, p < 0.05), prefer private rather than public locations for aggression (t = -2.48,

Table 1.2 x 2 Analysis of variance of biological sex (male/female) and gender instructions (same sedopposite sex) on Expagg score

Source ss df MS F P Biological sex 668.19 1 668.19 48.52 0.0001 Gender instructions 994.57 1 994.57 72.22 0.0001 Interaction 3044.68 1 3044.68 221.09 0.0001 Explained 4658.52 3 552.84 112.76 0.0001 Residual 3048.79 224 3.71


Table 2. Means, standard deviations and significance of Sheffe contrasts for Expagg scores under different instructions

~ _ _ _ _

Female Male Male Female Opposite sex Same sex Opposite sex Same sex

Mean (S .D . ) = 5.26 (4.22) 11.1 1 (4.65) 15.22 (3.11) 15.98 (2.71) Malelsame sex -

Malelopposite sex - .~

Femalelsame sex n.s.

* * * * *

~ -

.~

* p < 0.05.

pCO.02) and most fear hurting another person in an argument rather than being out-argued ( t = -2 .43 ,~ < 0.02). Women in responding as men show significantly more instrumental scores than real men on 16 of the 20 items. They are not significantly different to men in their estimates of preference for public versus private location, viewing aggression as a function of provocation rather than stress, believing that aggression results from loss of self-control versus being provoked and subsequent ability to recall details of the incident.

Psychometric analyses

The overall internal consistency of Expagg as measured by Cronbach’s alpha was 0.91. Alpha is a summary measure of all possible painvise correlations between items and thus indicates for a sample the extent to which responses to any given items predict responses to any other item. Usually reliability is taken as a property of the questionnaire with a high measure indicating the homogeneity of the items in reflecting a single underlying concept (though psychometricians emphasize the sample-specificity of reliability, see Nunnally, 1978). For the purposes of this study we were explicitly interested in differences in reliability across our different subject groups predicated on the assumption that if social representations are truly singular (i.e. perceptions of cause, emotion, cognition etc. form a unitary underlying social representation) then alpha provides a measure of this coherence. To what extent do groups responding spontaneously show a more coherent underlying structure than groups who are improvising an ‘alien’ representation? For men filling in the questionnaire in same-sex mode the reliability was 0.83 and for women filling it in opposite-sex mode it was 0.84. This difference was not significant. For women in same-sex mode the reliability was 0.63 and for men in opposite-sex mode it was 0.70, again a non-significant difference. There was a significant difference ( z = 2.85, p < 0.05) between the magnitude of the alpha coefficients for the contrast between male same-sex (0.83) and male opposite sex (0.70). These results indicate that the male response mode whether ‘natural’ or assumed by women shows higher clustering of items and a more homogeneous infrastructure than the female response mode whether ‘natural’ or assumed by men.

We then examined the pattern of item-total correlations which indicate the extent to which individual items are contributing to the overall score. Our focus of interest was whether groups responding in opposite-sex mode were using a similar or different response strategy to those in same sex mode. It would be possible for two groups to obtain similar overall scores on the questionnaire by endorsing different items. If for example, males responding as females are successfully duplicating the responses of


Table 3. Intercorrelation matrix of item-total correlations for Expagg scale completed under different instructions

Male/SS Male/OS Female/SS

Malelopposite sex 0.358 Femalehame sex 0.535* -0.055 Femalelopposite sex 0.536* 0.368 0.223

*/I < 0.01.

females we should expect to see a high correlation between item-total correlations of the two response modes (M/OS and F/SS). The data are presented in Table 3. Recall that men responding as women are statistically indistinguishable in their total scores from real women completing the questionnaire spontaneously. Yet the correlation of -0.055 between M/OS and F/SS indicates that the way in which items contribute to their overall score is quite different. Conversely, women overestimate the instrumentality of real men by a significant margin, yet the correlation of 0.536 suggests a much closer approximation to a male pattern of response. Women, though they overestimate male instrumentality in absolute terms, quite successfully duplicate the male pattern in terms of the items which most strongly predict total score.

DISCUSS I 0 N

The present study replicates the finding that groups of men and women hold significantly different social representations of aggression, with women tending to view it as a intra-psychic and guilt-inducing loss of control while men view it as an interpersonal strategy aimed at forcing compliance from other people. There is of course considerable individual variation as would be expected under a model in which social representations are realized at an individual level by virtue of undergoing assimilation into subjective schema. Nonetheless, at the level of the group (or in this case sex), there is a significant difference in the mean scores. Yet the present study also indicates that both men and women are capable of adopting new ways of responding to questions about aggression when merely instructed to assume the viewpoint of the opposite sex - this is reflected in the significant difference between scores under same sex versus opposite sex instructions for both men and women. The results also indicate that instrumental and expressive representations are not equally available to men and women and that the sexes show differences in their cross-sex accuracy and coherence.

For the purposes of discussion we shall refer to the pattern of spontaneous male responding as the instrumental representation. Not only is it, as it must be by the above definition, more characteristic of men than of women but it also shows a higher internal consistency than does the expressive representation and this is true for men responding spontaneously and for women emulating a male response. Internal consistency is a group-level property indicating the extent to which the pattern of responding across items shows coherence and predictability. This coherence is not a function of sex (and consequent personal familiarity with and use of the representation) because it does not vary across response mode (same versus other). Rather, both sexes show a high degree of internal consistency when using an instrumental representation. Item-total correlations are another group-level measure of responding which reflects the extent to


which each item contributes to overall score; it is a measure which indicates the weighting of items as determinants of overall performance. When women are asked to think like men and so to assume an instrumental mode of responding, there is a significant and substantial correlation between their item-total correlations and those of men responding spontaneously. This indicates that women are achieving their total score in much the same way as are real men. Yet, in terms of total score produced, women grossly overestimate the degree of male instrumentality. For example, for both men and women responding as men the item that was most predictive of overall score was ‘If I hit someone and hurt them I feel (as if they were asking for it/ guilty’). For the former group the item-total correlation was 0.745 and for the latter 0.735. Yet the mean difference in response by the two groups was highly significant with women underestimating the extent to which males endorse feelings of guilt ( t = 5.44, p < 0.0001). On no item do women underestimate instrumentality and on 16 of the 20, they significantly inflate instrumentality relative to true males. In summary, the instrumental response mode is characteristic of men and shows a high degree of coherence between affective, cognitive and behavioural items. When women emulate an instrumental representation, they quite successfully duplicate the weighting of items in terms of their importance in the overall group-level representation, but they sub- stantially exaggerate the degree to which instrumentality is typical of men.

Women’s spontaneous response mode will be here referred to as an expressive representation. The coherence of the representation (the internal consistency as measured by alpha) is lower than that of the instrumental representation and this is true regardless of whether women are responding spontaneously or whether men are emulating an expressive style. This suggests that the expressive representation is more fragmented and less integrated (at a group level) than the instrumental representation -the items from the various affective, cognitive and behavioural domains do not lock together so predictably. (It is important to bear in mind that we are speaking here of relative integration - the lowest alpha value was still 0.63 a figure that others have taken to indicate a very satisfactory degree of coherence for a subjective theory, see Dann, 1990). When males attempt to duplicate the expressive representation, there is no correspondence between them and true women in terms of the items which best predict total score. Men have less access to the relative weightings of the components of the alien representation than do women emulating men. However, men are remarkably accurate with regard to the total score over the whole questionnaire - they know that the expressive representation is different to the instrumental one and they accurately appraise the extent and direction of that difference.

That men and women differ in their spontaneous use of these two representations has now been shown in a number of studies using different nationalities, ages and occupations. The present study strongly suggests that the coherence of a social representation, at a group level, is not a function of its subjective use by the group members as indexed by spontaneous same sex response. Rather coherence is a function, we believe, of its structural and cultural dominance. We argue that the dominant view of aggression in our society is an instrumental one (Campbell, 1993). In a culture where males form a disproportionate fraction of both the violent criminal population as well as the social agencies empowered to monitor, report and regulate them (the judiciary, the government, the criminal justice system, the media, the psychiatric establishment), i t is inevitable that a male understanding and interpretation of aggression will predom- inate and indeed be seen as the ‘natural’ way of understanding the phenomenon. In

144 A. Campbell et al.

addition to the formal institutionalization of a male understanding of aggression, social representations are informally passed through communication and observation. Of particular significance in contemporary society are the media who enjoy a higher receiver-to-sender ratio than private individuals and thus have a marked advantage in terms of cultural penetrance. Movie and television representations of male violence tend to caricature it as emotionally-cold, strategic and as a means of establishing dominance, self-worth and public acclaim. This simplified macho image tends to dominate the representation of male aggression received by both sexes. The high levels of internal consistency for this representation and women’s capacity to reproduce a male-like pattern of item-total correlation suggests the high degree of both accessi- bility and coherence of this instrumental representation. Nevertheless, personal communication and experience can temper the extremity of the macho caricature. But these two avenues of information (media and experience) about male aggression are not equally available to the two sexes. Criminal statistics indicate that men massively outnumber women as the victims of male violence (Kruttschnitt, 1993) and studies of childhood aggression equally indicate that fights occur chiefly between boys (Weisfeld, 1994). In addition, discussion of aggressive incidents is most likely to take place among all male groups (McCarthy, 1994; Marsh, Rosser and Harre, 1978). Men have an insider knowledge of aggressive incidents that is less available to women and serves to modify the extreme instrumental view of male aggression fostered by the media. Granted, domestic violence is an area where women may gain first-hand exposure to male violence. But domestic violence is not characteristic of most husbands (Straus and Gelles, 1990). It represents a relatively small sample of men’s higher levels of aggression (Fagan, Stewart and Hansen, 1983; Kruttschnitt, 1993) and research on men’s violence in the home suggests that issues of power and control - in short instrumentality - figure highly in women’s understanding of their behaviour (Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Campbell, 1993). Most women, fortunately lacking this first hand experience, probably rely upon media information in crossing the sex barrier and in doing so employ an exaggerated instrumental representation of aggression.

Women’s expressive view of aggression is, by contrast, somewhat less coherent for both sexes. This likely stems from the greater rarity of female aggression relative to that of men (Eagly and Steffen, 1986; Kruttschnitt, 1993), the fact that aggression is judged as a predominantly masculine quality (Bem, 1974) and consequently that aggression in women constitutes a role-incongruent behaviour (Williams and Best, 1990; Eagly, 1987). Women unlike men have little social kudos to gain by rehearsing their partici- pation in fighting and rarely discuss their own aggressive feelings or thoughts (Craw- ford, Kippax, Onyx, Gault and Benton, 1992; Tavris, 1989). The media gives far less attention to female aggression and, when it is depicted, it is often distorted into a characteristically instrumental form which portrays aggressive women as cunningly instrumental husband-killers, as emotionless female cyborgs or, more recently, as female ‘buddies’ emulating a masculine pattern of tit-for-tat revenge. Criminal justice agencies, on the other hand, recognize that women’s pattern of aggression is different to that of men and acknowledge the higher level of emotion that may accompany it but respond by placing a far higher proportion of convicted female (compared to male) violent offenders in special hospitals and, within these psychiatric units, women account for 80 per cent of time spent locked in solitary confinement (Allen, 1988; Padel and Stevenson, 1988). The clinical interpretation of the highly emotional nature of women’s aggression is also evident in the use of pre-menstrual stress (or late luteal


phase dysphoric disorder) as an explanation of women’s aggressive outbursts (Dalton, 1964; Blumenthal and Nadelson, 1988). Women’s silence about the taboo area of aggression, media portrayals of atypical forms and institutions’ greater willingness to label it as a clinical problem all serve to obscure our understanding of women’s aggression. At a group level this is reflected in the lower internal consistency of both women’s and men’s expressive representations.

If the social representation of female aggression is more contradictory and less widely disseminated than that of males, how is it that men are able to arrive at mean scores which are indistinguishable from real women? We suggest that one route to their success might hinge upon a recognition of the ‘taboo’ nature of female aggression which renders it more blameworthy than that of men. The more blameworthy the act, the greater the likelihood that an exculpatory account will be offered. An instrumental representation is in effect a justification in that it denies the inherent wrongness of the act by pointing to its benefits (Tedeschi and Rice, 1981). An expressive representation however functions as an excuse - it acknowledges the blameworthiness of the act but seeks to present mitigating circumstances that temporarily affected the actor’s judge- ment. If men are sensitive to the exculpatory function of an expressive representation, it may be the source of men’s accuracy in duplicating women’s overall scores. More radically, the exculpatory social force of an expressive representation may account for women’s preferential use of it. In our past work, we have viewed an expressive representation as congruent with (and a logical extension of) women’s typical social roles and attendant communal orientation to others (Eagly, 1987). Because women place a high value on interpersonal mutuality and inter-dependence (Bakan, 1966; Gilligan, 1982), we reasoned that aggression by women would threaten these relationships and would be conceived of as a regrettable personal failure. It may be that women’s representation of aggression in expressive terms is a result of the anticipated condemnation that it will provoke, rather than fear of the relationships that it may threaten. In a future study, we plan to examine variation in account giving as a function of anticipated praise or censure to clarify the relationship between gender, representations and social acceptability of behaviour. Such an analysis would involve a closer alignment with interactional influences on gendered behaviour (Deaux and Major, 1987) and with discursive approaches (Potter and Wetherell, 1987).

In conclusion, the data suggest that there is considerable permeability in men and women’s ways of understanding aggression. Far from being locked into a single sex-linked social representation, they are capable of reproducing that of the opposite sex with a substantial degree of internal consistency and with variable accuracy. The coherence of a given social representation may be more closely tied to its structural and cultural dominance in a society than to its everyday use by individuals. The cultural predominance of a masculine and instrumental representation of aggression may derive from power relations in society whereby such a representation is widely disseminated and institutionalized. Women’s relative lack of direct access to male aggression causes them to rely on such cultural information and results in an exaggeration of the true level of male instrumentality. Women’s aggression, by virtue of its relative rarity and socially deviant status, is less coherently integrated at a representational level.

146 A. Campbell et al.

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Social representations of aggression: Crossing the sex barrier

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