Trait impulsivity has long been proposed to play a role in aggression, but the results across studies have been mixed. One possible explanation for the mixed results is that impulsivity is a multifaceted construct and some, but not all, facets are related to aggression. The goal of the current meta-analysis was to determine the relation between the different facets of impulsivity (i.e., negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking) and aggression. The results from 93 papers with 105 unique samples (N = 36, 215) showed significant and small-to-medium correlations between each facet of impulsivity and aggression across several different forms of aggression, with more impulsivity being associated with more aggression. Moreover, negative urgency (r = .24, 95% [.18, .29]), positive urgency (r = .34, 95% [.19, .44]), and lack of premeditation (r = .23, 95% [.20, .26]) had significantly stronger associations with aggression than the other scales (rs < .18). Two-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling showed that these effects were not due to overlap among facets of impulsivity. These results help advance the field of aggression research by clarifying the role of impulsivity and may be of interest to researchers and practitioners in several disciplines.
