The relationship between self-reported menstrual symptomatology and aggression measured in the laboratory

This study investigated the relationship between the severity of self-reported menstrual cycle symptoms and a laboratory measure of aggression. Two groups of women were recruited, one group reporting low and one group reporting moderate to high perimenstrual symptoms. Scores from the Negative Affect subscale of the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ) were used to define groups. Each of 40 subjects (20 high symptom and 20 low symptom) participated in three testing sessions of the ©Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, an established methodology for measuring aggression in the laboratory. There were two significant findings: (a) the high symptom group emitted higher rates of aggressive response than the low symptom group independent of which menstrual cycle phase they were in when tested; and (b) rates of aggressive response were significantly correlated with the MDQʹs Negative Affect and Behavior Change scales for the menses and premenstrual phases (but not for the remainder of the cycle). These findings indicate that self-reports of perimenstrual symptoms are predictive of an individualʹs tendency to respond aggressively when provoked, and suggest that retrospectively linking self-reported menstrual symptom severity with behavior is problematic because individuals endorsing or not endorsing these symptoms may differ behaviorally regardless of menstrual cycle phase.