TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - Appetitive aggression as a resilience factor against trauma disorders: appetitive aggression and PTSD in German World War II veterans
JO  - PLoS one
A1  - Weierstall, Roland
A1  - Huth, Sina
A1  - Knecht, Jasmin
A1  - Nandi, Corina
A1  - Elbert, Thomas
SP  - e50891
EP  - e50891
VL  - 7
IS  - 12
N2  - BACKGROUND: Repeated exposure to traumatic stressors such as combat results in chronic symptoms of PTSD. However, previous findings suggest that former soldiers who report combat-related aggression to be appetitive are more resilient to develop PTSD. Appetitive Aggression should therefore prevent widespread mental suffering in perpetrators of severe atrocities even after decades. METHODS AND FINDINGS: To test the long-term relationship between trauma-related illness and attraction to aggression, we surveyed a sample of 51 German male World-War II veterans (age: M = 86.7, SD = 2.8). War-related appetitive aggression was assessed with the Appetitive Aggression Scale (AAS). Current- and lifetime PTSD symptoms were assessed with the PSS-I. In a linear regression analysis accounting for 31% of the variance we found that veterans that score higher on the AAS show lower PSS-I symptom severity scores across their whole post-war lifetime (β = - .31, p = .014). The effect size and power were sufficient (f(2) = 0.51, (1-β) = .99). The same was true for current PTSD (β = - .27, p = .030). CONCLUSIONS: Appetitive Aggression appears to be a resilience factor for negative long-term effects of combat experiences in perpetrators of violence. This result has practical relevance for preventing trauma-related mental suffering in Peace Corps and for designing adequate homecoming reception for veterans.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1932-6203
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050891
ID  - ref1
ER  -