This short-term longitudinal study examined the associations among relational aggression, physical aggression, and peer status (i.e., acceptance, rejection, and perceived popularity) across three time points, six months apart, in a Taiwanese sample. Participants were 198 fifth grade students (94 girls and 104 boys; Mean age = 10.35 years) from Taipei, Taiwan. Study variables were assessed using peer nomination procedure. Results from the cross-lagged structural equation models demonstrated that there were longitudinal associations between relational aggression and each of the peer status constructs while only one longitudinal association was found for physical aggression such that physical aggression positively predicted subsequent peer rejection. The longitudinal associations did not vary with gender. Results also showed high stabilities of relational aggression, physical aggression, and the three peer status constructs over 1 year as well as high concurrent association between relational and physical aggression. In addition, relational aggression and physical aggression were concurrently related to less acceptance, more rejection, and less perceived popularity, especially at the outset of the study. Findings of this study demonstrated both similarities and differences in relation to previous literature in primarily Western cultures. This study also highlights the bidirectional and complex nature of the association between aggression and peer status, which appears to depend on the form of aggression and on the particular indicator of peer status under study.

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Two longitudinal studies examined associations between relational aggression and friendship quality during adolescence. In Study 1, 62 adolescents in Grades 6 (25.8%), 7 (32.3%), and 8 (41.9%) completed assessments of friendship affiliations, relational and overt aggression, and friendship quality at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Results using actor partner interdependence modeling indicated that high levels of relational aggression predicted increases in self-reported positive friendship quality 1 year later. In Study 2, 56 adolescents in Grades 9 (66.7%) and 10 (33.3%) attended a laboratory session with a friend in which their conversations were videotaped and coded for relationally aggressive talk. Target adolescents completed measures of positive and negative friendship quality during the laboratory session and during a follow-up phone call 6 months later. Analyses revealed that high levels of relationally aggressive talk at Time 1 predicted increases in negative friendship quality 6 months later. In addition, among adolescents involved in a reciprocal best friendship, high levels of observed relationally aggressive talk predicted increases in positive friendship quality over time. Taken together, these studies provide support for the idea that relational aggression may be associated with adaptive as well as maladaptive outcomes within the dyadic context of adolescent friendship.

Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and a polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) were examined as predictors of depressive symptomatology. Children (M age = 11.26, SD = 1.65), including 156 maltreated and 145 nonmaltreated children from comparable low socioeconomic backgrounds, provided DNA samples and self-reports of relational peer victimization, overt peer victimization, and depressive symptoms. Path analysis showed that relational and overt victimization mediated the association between child maltreatment and depressive symptoms. Bootstrapping procedures were used to test moderated mediation and demonstrated that genotype moderated the indirect effects of relational and overt victimization on child depressive symptoms, such that victimized children with the l/l variation were at an increased risk for depressive symptoms compared to victimized children carrying an s allele. Results highlight the utility of examining process models that incorporate biological and psychological factors contributing to the development of depressive symptomatology, and provide direction toward understanding and promoting resilience among high risk youth from a multiple levels of analysis approach.

The present investigation examined whether heightened skin conductance reactivity (SCLR) to peer stress strengthened the prospective associations between physical and relational aggression and victimization, and whether associations were stronger for physical forms of aggression and victimization among boys and relational forms of aggression and victimization among girls. A total of 91 children [M age = 10.18 years, standard deviation (SD) = .68] were assessed twice over 1 year. At the first assessment, SCLR in response to recounting a relational stressor (e.g., exclusion; SCLR-R) and an instrumental stressor (e.g., property theft; SCLR-I), and teacher-reported aggression were measured. Parents reported on child victimization at both time points. Among youth with heightened SCLR-I, physical aggression was associated with increases in physical victimization for boys and decreases in physical victimization for girls. Among youth with heightened SCLR-R, relational aggression was associated with increases in physical victimization for girls only. Results were largely consistent with the hypothesis that aggressors with a propensity to exhibit negative displays of emotion, as indexed by heightened sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity to peer stress, may be especially likely to suffer peer victimization. Gender-specific effects highlight the importance of including both physical and relational forms of aggression and victimization to capture victimization risk among aggressive boys and girls.