AbstractTwo studies exploring the use of physical/verbal aggression are reported, the first using women and the second using men as subjects. Both studies allowed subjects to choose between and control the intensity of two response modes: verbal aggression (insults) and physical aggression (electric shock). Aggressive style was investigated over two levels of arousal, sex of experimenter, and sex of provocateur‐victim. Results indicated that women aggressed discriminatively in the verbal mode as a function of their arousal, while men were capable of aggressing discriminatively in both the verbal and physical modes. Men who had been disagreed with and punished by a female victim‐provocateur in the presence of a male experimenter or by a male victim in the presence of a female experimenter demonstrated high levels of physical aggression compared to the other gro