Piecing Together the Aggression Puzzle: A Look into the Mediating Factors of the Violence Escalation Model

We examined several untested postulates of the Violence Escalation Model. Participants completed an aggressive motive, partner attribution, and aggressive behavior task three times. Results showed that the relation between Time 1 aggressive motives and Time 3 aggressive behavior was mediated by several processes, supporting VEM postulates, for only provoked participants.