Using police narratives on dispute-related assaults, this study examines the extent to which the notion of character contests underlies these assaults and the individual and situational factors associated with them. Previous research emphasizes youth, masculinity, and public location as major contributing factors in escalating character contests to violence. Accordingly, we expected particular combination of variables to correlate with character contests. The analysis of 185 incidents of dispute-related assaults revealed that character contests are significantly more likely among men than women and occur more frequently in public than private settings. Contrary to previous theoretical speculation and empirical research, however, character contests are observed among female offenders, among older persons, and in violent acts that occur in private settings and outside the presence of third parties. These findings are then discussed in terms of their implications for future research on the utility of character contests as an explanation for violent acts.
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