To what extent is an individual’s aggressive behavior specific to the context of alcohol misuse, drug misuse, or a lack thereof? On one side of the spectrum of possibilities, individuals would only be aggressive while misusing alcohol, misusing drugs, or sober — with no overlap between these categories. On the other side, individuals’ aggressive tendencies would blur these boundaries to the point of nonexistence and those who were aggressive while sober would be certain to behave aggressively under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Given that a substantial amount of violent crimes occur outside the context of substance misuse (Collins & Messerschmidt, 1993; Martin, 1992; National Institute of Justice, 1991) and the modest correlations between self-report measures of these phenotypes (r = .37; Berke, Leone, Parrott, & Gallagher, 2020), there is clear reason to expect that these three aggression phenotypes are to some extent orthogonal and to some extent correlated. Yet the extent of the conceptual overlap and distinction between these constructs remains un-estimated.
