The judgement of behaviour as aggressive and sanctionable

Abstract The influence of the factors norm deviation, intent, and injury, on the judgement of a critical act as aggressive and sanctionable was tested using a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design. Scenarios depicting aggressive interactions represented the experimental conditions. 859 school children rated these scenarios on bipolar rating scales. The results show that norm deviation, intent, and injury, are important criteria for the interpretation of aggressive behaviour. Judging an action as sanctionable proved to be more sensitive for the variation of factors than the interpretation of behaviour as aggressive. In addition, an analysis of how the scenarios representing the experimental conditions were subjectively interpreted by the subjects was carried out. This showed that all combinations of the three definition criteria are psychologically meaningful. However, preferences were observed for specific interpretation patterns.