Theory and research using a social-information processing framework indicate that reward-focused (proactive) aggression has different social consequences than defense-focused (reactive) aggression. Students use norms that identify expected and socially approved behaviors as guides to their own actions. Differences in social-cognitive processing characteristics and social status linked to each type of aggression may increase the relevance of some normative sources relative to others. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the contributions of personal beliefs, classroom beliefs, and classroom rates of aggression to future proactive and reactive aggression. During fall and spring, we observed students’ aggression on school playgrounds using a random subsample (n = 254) of consented students from 35 classrooms (Grades 3–6). We calculated classroom rates of proactive and reactive aggression from fall observations. Classroom means for beliefs endorsing retaliation were calculated from surveys of 536 students. Results of multilevel analyses revealed, as hypothesized, that personal beliefs predicted high rates of students’ proactive aggression, but not reactive aggression. Classroom beliefs predicted high rates of students’ reactive but not proactive aggression. Students in classrooms with high rates of fall proactive aggression showed low spring rates of both types of aggression. In contrast, students in classrooms with high rates of fall reactive aggression displayed high spring rates of proactive and reactive aggression. The latter pattern may represent classrooms in which students continue to struggle against status inequities. The discussion examines how inequities may impact intervention efforts.

African American, European American, Mexican American, and Native American adolescents (N = 270) described how they felt and appraised their own actions in response to a peer's victimization. Analyses compared times they had calmed victim emotions, amplified anger, avenged, and resolved conflicts peacefully. Adolescents felt prouder, more helpful, more like a good friend, and expected more peer approval after calming and resolving than after amplifying anger or avenging peers. They also felt less guilt and shame after calming and resolving. Avenging elicited more positive self‐evaluation than amplifying. Epistemic network analyses explored links between self‐evaluative and other emotions. Pride was linked to relief after efforts to calm or resolve. Third‐party revenge reflected its antisocial and prosocial nature with connections between pride, relief, anger, and guilt.

Coders used real-time focal-child sampling methods to observe the playground behavior and victimization experiences of 600 third to sixth grade youth. Person-centered analyses yielded three profiles that specified aggressive function (reactive, proactive) and form (direct, indirect), and conformed to social-information-processing functional classifications of proactive, reactive, and pervasive aggressors. Consistent with social information processing models, direct reactors and pervasive aggressors evidenced poor self-regulation (argumentative, seldom agreeable), and pervasives were drawn to dominance-linked activity. The form and function of experienced victimization generally corresponded to the form and function of aggression typical of each profile. Indirect proactors were agreeable but heavily involved as perpetrators, facilitators, and victims of indirect aggression. Developmental differences in victimization, rough play, agreeable behavior, and bystander reinforcement of aggression suggest greater fluidity in social roles prior to adolescence. Possible links from

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