AggressionAggression: Sibling and Peer Relationships: Pro-social and anti-social influences through adolescence.

Aggression: Sibling and Peer Relationships:

Pro-social and anti-social influences through adolescence

Questions

In the relational model, what is the function of aggression and what determines whether there will be reconciliation?

Describe genetic and environmental factors that could influence the stability of aggressive behaviors

Describe similarities in attachment representations of parents, peers, and intimate partners.

What is relational victimization?  

Relational model. aggressive behavior is one of several ways in which conflicts of interest can be settled.

If there is a strong mutual interest in maintenance of the relationship, reconciliation is most likely. Parties negotiate the terms of their relationship by going through cycles of conflict and reconciliation.

Other possible ways are tolerance (e.g., sharing of resources), or avoidance of confrontation (e.g., by subordinates to dominants).

Kiss to make-up

Fig. 2. Chimpanzees typically seal a postconflict reunion, or reconciliation, with a mouth-to-mouth kiss, as here by a female (right) to the dominant male.

AggressionDe Waal, F. B. M. (2000). Primates--a natural heritage of conflict resolution. Science, 289(5479), 586-590.

Most primates show a dramatic increase in body contact between former opponents during post conflict (PC) as compared with matched-control (MC) observations

The cumulative percentage of opponent-pairs seeking friendly contact during a 10-min time window after 670 spontaneous aggressive incidents in a zoo group of stumptail macaques

Reconciliations allow rhesus monkeys to maintain tight kinship bonds despite frequent intrafamilial squabbles.

Shortly after two adult sisters bit each other, they reunite sitting on the left and right of their mother, the alpha female of the troop, each female holding her own infant. The sisters smack their lips while the matriarch loudly grunts.

Reconciliation

The nature of the social relationship determines whether repair attempts will be made, or not. If there is a strong mutual interest in maintenance of the relationship, reconciliation is most likely. Parties negotiate the terms of their relationship by going through cycles of conflict and reconciliation.

Weaning

A weaning compromise has been arrived at between a mother chimpanzee and her 4-year-old son. After repeated nursing conflicts, the son is permitted to suck on a part of the mother's body other than the nipple.

Human aggression

Types Reactive and proactive aggression Overt and covert anti-social behavior

Processes

Under-socialized aggressive conduct disorder associated with weak inhibition system (BIS)– Impulsivity a key (Quay)

Information Processing– Real-time processes

Somebody bumps into you at a party

Temperament and aggression

Difficult temperament associated with aggression – Aggression can lead to rejection– Low levels of positive behaviors– Report less socially competent, but only if shy– Rejection and aggression negatively impact academic

performance and predict dropping out Though some drop-outs are socially competent and

popular

Families

– Stronger attachment effects in low SES – Parental warmth

Avoiding punitiveness

– Avoiding coercive family processes Parental intrusion, child aversive response, parent

backs off, child stops response

Real-time coercion

A parent–child dyad may have two main interaction patterns:

A cooperative, mutually positive pattern and a hostile–withdrawn pattern in which the parent berates the child and the child ignores the parent.

As mutual positivity declines in early adolescence, existing habits of withdrawal will constrain the interactions that emerge next.

A repertoire of distance and disengagement may characterize the adolescent period, leading eventually to complete estrangement and alienation in adulthood. (Granic & Patterson, 2006).

Stability of aggression

The earlier a person start, the more intense the form of aggression and the longer it lasts

Stability of aggression can be as high as .76– Remarkably stable over up to 10 years (801)– The aggressive remain so

One of the more stable psychological characteristics

Other factors

Impulsivity + coercive familial interactions + peer processes – Peer rejection + deviant peer group

Granic & Patterson, 2006

Behavior genetics

One inherits a propensity toward anti-sociality which interacts with an environment in its (non)emergence– Genetic effects greater for self-reported than

adjudicated measures of aggression– Environmental, genetic, and interactive effects

evident in petty crime (806)

Environmental impacts: TV

Age 8 TV violence viewing predicts self-reported aggression and arrests at age 30 after statistical controls– TV accounts for 10% of child aggression

variance in meta-analyses

– Videogames? The armed forces?

Relational aggression

“attempts to harm the victim through the manipulation of relationships, threat of damage to them, or both” (Crick et al, ’02 p.98)

Associated with internalizing/externalizing problems and later peer rejection

Is relational aggression a cause for concern or part of everyday life?

Are some people more impacted by relational aggression?

Development

Pre-school Elementary school Middle school High school / Adolescence …

Provocation aggression

Physically aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for instrumental provocation situations– Getting pushed into the mud

Relationally aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for relational provocation contexts– Not getting invited to a birthday party.

– 662 third- to sixth-grade children Crick et al., 2002. CD.

A Longitudinal Study of Forms and Functions of Aggressive Behavior in Early Childhood

Murray-Close & Ostrov, 2009

• Examine/disentangle forms and functions of aggression in early childhood– Forms: physical, relational– Functions: proactive, reactive

• Stability of “pure” aggression subtypes• Potential predictors of aggression subtypes

– Gender, age, social dominance, exclusion

Gangi

Model of form and function

Gangi

Findings• Support for distinction between aggression forms

and functions by early childhood• Forms were stable over time, functions were not

– May use distinct forms to meet variety of needs• Predictors of aggression:

– Females more relationally aggressive– Older children less likely to use physical aggression– Dominance associated with concurrent relational

aggression, decreases in physical aggression over time– Exclusion related to increases in relational aggression

over time

Gangi

Aggression type and gender

Boys more physically victimized by their friends. Girls more relationally victimized. Friend physical victimization was particularly

related to boys adjustment difficulties Friend relational victimization was particularly

related to girls’ adjustment difficulties.– Crick & Nelson, 2002.

Toward a More Comprehensive Understanding of Peer Maltreatment: Studies of Relational Victimization

(Crick, Casas, & Nelson, 2002)

Kolnick

• Gender differences– Girls may be more victimized, but mixed findings

• Consequences may be worse for girls

• Relational Victimization (RV) & social harm:– RV most commonly cited aggressive act

• Concurrent associations for victimized– Poor peer relationships– Internalizing problems– Externalizing problems

• Longitudinal associations– Future peer rejection

Kolnick

Gender role development

Gender segregation

Research on gender typing in individuals is inconclusive– Clustering of gender-typed characteristics weak– Relations to family characteristics weak

Same-sex groupings predominate– From 3 – 12,– Cross-cultural phenomenon

Same-sex groupings

Boys– Larger groups– More conflict/competition– Cohesiveness– More autonomous from adults

Girls– Smaller, more dyadic– Less conflict, more responsive– Less goal-oriented, more intimate

Differential exposure to these groups influences individual behavior

Change

12th grade– Boys 5 hrs a week w girls. – Girls 10 hrs a week w boys.

Larger network of other-sex friends increases odds of romantic relationship

Changing functions of romance

Adolescents mention affiliative features Adolescent romantic relationships are peer

relationships

Young adults mention trust & support

Methods

Movement from questionnaire to interview and observational data

Integrate romance and sexuality