Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 17, 2020

Last Modified: January 02, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992).

Note: "No permission is needed if the questionnaire is used for research purposes." (Buss & Perry, 1992, p. 453)

References

Buss, A.H. and Perry, M.P. (1992). The Aggression Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 452-459.

Duration

2.5 minutes

Description

29 5-point Likert style questions on 4 scales: Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger, and Hostility.

Scoring

Each question is scored on a scale 1 (extremely uncharacteristic) to 5 (extremely characteristic)
( two questions are automatically reversed-scored).
A subscale score is computed for each of the 4 subscales based on the sum of the individual responses.
The Total BPAQ score is based on the sum of all responses.

Norms:
Norms are calculated (if gender is provided) by default based on data (means and standard deviations)
provided by Buss & Perry (1992, p.455, table 3).
Check out section Editable Parameters to turn off the demographic questions (and norm calculations).

Summary Data

File Name: bpaq_summary.iqdat' (Inquisit Lab: one data file per participant)

Data Fields

NameDescription
inquisit.version Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
computer.touch 0 = device has no touchscreen capabilities; 1 = device has touchscreen capabilities
computer.hasKeyboard 0 = no external keyboard detected; 1 = external keyboard detected
startDate Date the session was run
startTime Time the session was run
subjectId Participant ID
groupId Group number
sessionId Session number
elapsedTime Session duration in ms
completed 0 = Test was not completed
1 = Test was completed
bpaqNumberMissingItems The number of questions that have not been answered
by default settings, all questions are required to be answered. However, that setting can be changed.
If default setting is changed, the above variable can be used as a flag.
bpaqTotal The sum of all responses (Range: 29 - 145)
bpaqZScore Z-score of Total Score (if applicable)
bpaqPercentile Percentile of Total Score (if applicable)
physicalAggression The sum of all responses to Physical Aggression (PA) questions (Range: 9-45)
pZScore Z-score of PA Score (if applicable)
pPercentile Percentile of PA Score (if applicable)
verbalAggression The sum of all responses to Verbal Aggression (VA) questions (Range: 5-25)
vZScore Z-score of VA Score (if applicable)
vPercentile Percentile of VA Score (if applicable)
anger The sum of all responses to Anger (A) questions (Range: 7-35)
aZScore Z-score of A Score (if applicable)
aPercentile Percentile of A Score (if applicable)
hostility The sum of all responses to Hostility (H) questions (Range: 8-40)
hZScore Z-score of H Score (if applicable)
hPercentile Percentile of H Score (if applicable)

Raw Data

File Name: bpaq.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
build Inquisit version number
q*_response Response given (in assigned values)
Scale: 1 (extremely uncharacteristic) to 5 (extremely characteristic)
R = automatically reversed scored questions
q*_latency How much time (in ms) the participant spent on the surveyPage with this particular
question (the last time this particular surveyPage was visited)

Parameters

The procedure can be adjusted by setting the following parameters.

NameDescriptionDefault
calculateGenderNorms True = the script collects gender information and calculates z-scores and percentiles based on reported gender
false = the script does not collect gender information (and does not calculate z-scores/percentiles)
true