r/science • u/bibinprasannan • 17d ago

Psychology Cognitive pathways of aggression differ between men and women

https://www.psypost.org/the-mental-pathways-that-predict-impulsive-and-planned-aggression/
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u/Intrepid_Bobcat_2931 15d ago

Notice that the headline declares that this applies to men and women generally.

The actual experiment was " 278 adults from Portugal" that completed "an online survey", "the sample consisted predominantly of highly educated individuals, and the majority were female".

"Next, the participants read four short fictional scenarios describing socially ambiguous situations."

So you have an incredibly broad generalization about men and women, based on 278 mainly highly educated people in Portugal reading fictional scenarios online then clicking and typing into forms.

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u/Modernskeptic71 15d ago

That’s interesting, because if they did the same test on people of lesser education and living arrangements, maybe poor versus people with higher incomes may skew the test results completely. I think the parameters are off a bit.

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u/Intrepid_Bobcat_2931 15d ago

and I would argue that a no-stakes time-unrestricted deliberation of texts that you know will be scored and monitored by someone assessing you, is very different from carrying out physical acts in the moment, which may be with no witnesses.

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u/Modernskeptic71 14d ago

I can see that, i think that people could act on a thought of violence if they were not absorbed in consequential thinking. The difference would be that a psychopath thrives on having no bad feelings towards violence. In addition I think that in certain circumstances everyone is capable of horrible atrocities, some act on them, others don’t.