Varieties of Angry Experience: Interpersonal Construct Validity of the Displaced Aggression Questionnaire and Its Alteration Via Partialing

The Displaced Aggression Questionnaire (DAQ) assesses the trait tendency to aggress against innocent targets, following unrelated provocation. In a primary aim, interpersonal concepts and methods and other measures were used to evaluate the construct validity of DAQ subscales (i.e., angry rumination, revenge planning, behavioral displaced aggression). A second aim evaluated the extent to which partialing altered interpersonal and other correlates of the DAQ subscales. A representative online sample of 999 U.S. adults completed the DAQ, interpersonal circumplex measures of trait social behavior and problems, agentic and communal values, negative interpersonal experiences, social support, loneliness, and subjective social status, as well as measures of self-regulatory processes. In Structural Summary Method analyses, DAQ subscales had expected associations with hostile interpersonal style and more severe interpersonal problems. Additional correlations with interpersonal processes and self-regulation generally supported predictions. However, partialing DAQ subscales from each other severely undermined this otherwise supportive evidence of construct validity.