Few studies have explored anger, aggression and antisocial behaviour in sport competition. Therefore, this study intends to analyse the patterns of association between aggression-related variables, and the effect of type of sport, competitive categories and success levels. Two hundred and thirty one athletes from different types of sport completed measures of anger, aggression, anti-social behaviour, anger rumination and provocation. Results provided support for the link between anger, aggression and anti-social behaviour, as well as the importance of provocation and anger rumination in aggressive behaviours. Additionally, athletes from sports with higher levels of physical contact and from lower or younger competitive categories tended to be more aggressive than those from sports with lower levels of contact and from higher competitive levels. However, results failed to demonstrate any significant differences considering the achievement level. These findings provide an important basis to understand individual differences in aggressive-related variables.The authors are very grateful for the help of Sonia Olivares on an earlier draft and to the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and commentaries that significantly improved the quality of the present article. We also would like to thank all the athletes that participated in this study, as well as coaches and members of the staff that helped and are still helping us along all the process of this research project. A special thank to the CRAV team for their collaboration in this research. This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre, University of Minho, and was supported in part by a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds (SFRH / BD / 46206 / 2008) and co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013). A non-published version of the current research study was awarded by the Portuguese Olympic Committee (COP) with an Honour Award (2014 "COP / Millenium BCP" Annual Awards for Research in Sport Sciences).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
