Impression management theory is used to derive hypotheses about the escalation of incidents involving aggression and violence among samples of the general population, ex-mental patients, and ex-criminal offenders. Respondents were interviewed about incidents they had been involved in at four levels of severity: incidents in which they were angry but did nothing about it; verbal disputes; incidents involving physical violence but no weapon; and incidents in which a weapon was used. The findings generally support impression management theory: (I) respondents were more likely to express their anger when they had been insulted, particularly when they were males; (2) the probability of physical violence was lower when participants gave accounts for their actions; (3) conflicts involving same-sex participants were generally more severe when an audience was present; and (4) instigation from third parties resulted in more severe incidents while third party mediation resulted in less subsequent aggression.
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