The Situational Triggers of Aggressive Responses scale in five countries: Factor structure and country clustering solutions

Much research has focused on the detection of factors that might lead to aggression based on evolutionary arguments, trait approaches, psychosocial models and cognition/information processing. There may be trait differences in the way that individuals respond to environmental triggers thus, aggression may occur as the expression of a trait during specific situations. Such specific situations have been described (Lawrence, 2006) as “situational triggers” and are assessed through the STAR (Situational Triggers of Aggressive Responses) scale which is comprised of two main situational prompts, Provocations and Frustrations. In Study 1 (N = 328 Greek university students), confirmatory factor analysis modeling confirmed the STAR scale structure with minor fluctuations. In Study 2, using data from the UK, Poland, Korea and USA, as well as an additional sample of Greek participants (N = 1219), we tested the STAR for factor equivalence levels, aiming at an overall factor structure. The scale structure was confirmed across countries with levels of factor equivalence being satisfactory, although some within-factor collinearity was observed. A clusters-of-countries approach was thus implemented for further testing within each cluster. Overall, the stability and validity levels of the STAR structure and its cross-cultural application were verified with possible considerations of country-sets being the units of future analysis.