Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (2)
Year of publication
- 2020 (2) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (2)
Language
- English (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (2)
Keywords
- development (2) (remove)
Institute
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?
Peer groups are critical socialization agents for the development of social behavior in adolescence, but studies examining peer-group effects on individuals' prosocial behavior are scarce. Using a two-wave, multilevel data set (N = 16,893, 8481 male; 8412 female; mean age at Time 1: 14.0 years) from 1308 classes in 252 secondary schools in Germany, main effects of the classroom level of prosocial behavior, cross-level interactions between the classroom and the individual levels of prosocial behavior at Time 1, and the moderating role of gender were examined. The results showed that adolescents in classrooms with high collective levels of prosocial behavior at Time 1 reported more prosocial behavior at Time 2, about two years later, reflecting a class-level main effect. A significant cross-level interaction indicated that a high classroom level of prosocial behavior particularly affected individuals with lower levels of prosocial behavior at Time 1. The influence of same-gender peers was larger compared with opposite-gender peers. The findings are discussed with respect to social learning mechanisms in the development of prosocial behavior and their implications for interventions to promote prosocial behavior.