150 Psychologie
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In this article, I examine the development of aggressive behavior from middle childhood to adolescence as a result of the interaction between the person and the environment and discuss implications for intervention measures. Three main questions are addressed and illustrated by examples from recent research: What are intrapersonal risk factors for the development and persistence of aggressive behavior from middle childhood to adolescence? What factors in the social environment contribute to the development of aggressive behavior? How do individual dispositions and environmental risk factors interact to explain developmental trajectories of aggressive behavior?
Being surrounded by peers who are accepting of aggression is a significant predictor of the development and persistence of aggression in childhood and adolescence. Whereas past research has focused on social reinforcement mechanisms as the underlying processes, the present longitudinal study analysed the role of external control beliefs as an additional mediator explaining the link between peers’ acceptance of aggression and the development of aggressive behaviour. Drawing on a large community sample of N = 1,466 male and female children and adolescents from Germany aged between 10 and 18 years, results of latent structural equation modeling were consistent with the hypotheses that peer acceptance of aggression would predict external control beliefs in the social domain, which in turn, should predict aggressive behaviour over time. Additional multigroup analyses showed that the predicted pathways were consistent across gender and age groups.
As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop insecure feelings regarding their social standing among their peers (i.e., social status insecurity). These adolescents sometimes use aggression to defend or promote their status. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social status insecurity, callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and popularity-motivated aggression and prosocial behaviors among adolescents, while controlling for gender. Another purpose was to examine the potential moderating role of CU traits in these relationships. Participants were 1,047 (49.2% girls; Mage = 12.44 years; age range from 11 to 14 years) in the 7th or 8th grades from a large Midwestern city. They completed questionnaires on social status insecurity, CU traits, and popularity-motivated relational aggression, physical aggression, cyberaggression, and prosocial behaviors. A structural regression model was conducted, with gender as a covariate. The model had adequate fit. Social status insecurity was associated positively with callousness, unemotional, and popularity-motivated aggression and related negatively to popularity-motivated prosocial behaviors. High social status insecurity was related to greater popularity-motivated aggression when adolescents had high callousness traits. The findings have implications for understanding the individual characteristics associated with social status insecurity.
As competition over peer status becomes intense during adolescence, some adolescents develop insecure feelings regarding their social standing among their peers (i.e., social status insecurity). These adolescents sometimes use aggression to defend or promote their status. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social status insecurity, callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and popularity-motivated aggression and prosocial behaviors among adolescents, while controlling for gender. Another purpose was to examine the potential moderating role of CU traits in these relationships. Participants were 1,047 (49.2% girls; Mage = 12.44 years; age range from 11 to 14 years) in the 7th or 8th grades from a large Midwestern city. They completed questionnaires on social status insecurity, CU traits, and popularity-motivated relational aggression, physical aggression, cyberaggression, and prosocial behaviors. A structural regression model was conducted, with gender as a covariate. The model had adequate fit. Social status insecurity was associated positively with callousness, unemotional, and popularity-motivated aggression and related negatively to popularity-motivated prosocial behaviors. High social status insecurity was related to greater popularity-motivated aggression when adolescents had high callousness traits. The findings have implications for understanding the individual characteristics associated with social status insecurity.
Lean back and relax
(2018)
Frustration is a powerful instigator of anger-based aggression. We hypothesized that the impact of a frustration on anger and aggressive behavior is reduced in a state of feeling relaxed, which is considered incompatible with the experience of anger. Seventy-nine participants received frustrating feedback either when sitting upright or sitting in a reclined position and were then given a chance to act aggressively toward the frustrator. Feelings of anger and relaxation were assessed before and after the frustration. Participants in the reclined position felt more relaxed than those sitting upright, which indirectly predicted less aggressive behavior via lower anger. The results are consistent with theories of incompatible states and embodiment and have implications for using body-related cues to mitigate anger-based aggression.
Is bad intent negligible?
(2018)
The hostile attribution bias (HAB) is a well-established risk factor for aggression. It is considered part of the suspicious mindset that may cause highly victim-justice sensitive individuals to behave uncooperatively. Thus, links of victim justice sensitivity (JS) with negative behavior, such as aggression, may be better explained by HAB. The present study tested this hypothesis in N=279 German adolescents who rated their JS, HAB, and physical, relational, verbal, reactive, and proactive aggression. Victim JS predicted physical, relational, verbal, reactive, and proactive aggression when HAB was controlled. HAB only predicted physical and proactive aggression. There were no moderator effects. Injustice seems an important reason for aggression irrespective of whether or not it is intentionally caused, particularly among those high in victim JS. Thus, victim JS should be considered as a potential important risk factor for aggression and receive more attention by research on aggression and preventive efforts.
Several personality dispositions with common features capturing sensitivities to negative social cues have recently been introduced into psychological research. To date, however, little is known about their interrelations, their conjoint effects on behavior, or their interplay with other risk factors. We asked N = 349 adults from Germany to rate their justice, rejection, moral disgust, and provocation sensitivity, hostile attribution bias, trait anger, and forms and functions of aggression. The sensitivity measures were mostly positively correlated; particularly those with an egoistic focus, such as victim justice, rejection, and provocation sensitivity, hostile attributions and trait anger as well as those with an altruistic focus, such as observer justice, perpetrator justice, and moral disgust sensitivity. The sensitivity measures had independent and differential effects on forms and functions of aggression when considered simultaneously and when controlling for hostile attributions and anger. They could not be integrated into a single factor of interpersonal sensitivity or reduced to other well-known risk factors for aggression. The sensitivity measures, therefore, require consideration in predicting and preventing aggression.
An observational measure of anger regulation in middle childhood was developed that facilitated the in situ assessment of five maladaptive regulation strategies in response to an anger-eliciting task. 599 children aged 6-10 years (M = 8.12, SD = 0.92) participated in the study. Construct validity of the measure was examined through correlations with parent- and self-reports of anger regulation and anger reactivity. Criterion validity was established through links with teacher-rated aggression and social rejection measured by parent-, teacher-, and self-reports. The observational measure correlated significantly with parent- and self-reports of anger reactivity, whereas it was unrelated to parent- and self-reports of anger regulation. It also made a unique contribution to predicting aggression and social rejection.
The girls set the tone
(2015)
In a four-wave longitudinal study with N = 1,321 adolescents in Germany, we examined the impact of class-level normative beliefs about aggression on aggressive norms and behavior at the individual level over the course of 3 years. At each data wave, participants indicated their normative acceptance of aggressive behavior and provided self-reports of physical and relational aggression. Multilevel analyses revealed significant cross-level interactions between class-level and individual-level normative beliefs at T1 on individual differences in physical aggression at T2, and the indirect interactive effects were significant up to T4. Normative approval of aggression at the class level, especially girls’ normative beliefs, defined the boundary conditions for the expression of individual differences in aggressive norms and their impact on physically and relationally aggressive behavior for both girls and boys. The findings demonstrate the moderating effect of social norms on the pathways from individual normative beliefs to aggressive behavior in adolescence.
BACKGROUND: Aggressive behavior at an early age is linked to a broad range of psychosocial problems in later life. That is why risk factors of the occurrence and the development of aggression have been examined for a long time in psychological science. The present doctoral dissertation aims to expand this research by investigating risk factors in three intrapersonal domains using the prominent social-information processing approach by Crick and Dodge (1994) as a framework model. Anger regulation was examined as an affective, theory of mind as a cognitive, and physical attractiveness as an appearance-related developmental factor of aggression in middle childhood. An additional goal of this work was to develop and validate a behavioral observation assessment of anger regulation as past research lacked in ecologically valid measures of anger regulation that are applicable for longitudinal studies.
METHODS: Three empirical studies address the aforementioned intrapersonal risk factors. In each study, data from the PIER-project were used, a three-wave-longitudinal study covering three years with a total sample size of 1,657 children in the age between 6 and 11 years (at the first measurement point). The central constructs were assessed via teacher-reports (aggression), behavioral observation (anger regulation), computer tests (theory of mind), and independent ratings (physical attractiveness). The predictive value of each proposed risk factor for the development of aggressive behavior was examined via structural equation modeling.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The newly developed behavioral observation measure was found to be a reliable and valid tool to assess anger regulation in middle childhood, but limited in capturing a full range of relevant regulation strategies. That might be the reason, why maladaptive anger regulation was not found to function as a risk factor of subsequent aggressive behavior. However, children’s deficits in theory of mind and a low level in physical attractiveness significantly predicted later aggression. Problematic peer relationships were identified as underlying the link between low attractiveness and aggression. Thus, fostering children’s skills in theory of mind and their ability to call existing beliefs about the nature of more versus less attractive individuals into question may be important starting points for the prevention of aggressive behavior in middle childhood.