Inductive discipline can reduce problem behavior and promote moral internalization in children, but its role in reducing peer aggression in adolescence is less well‐understood, especially across diverse socialization agents. Using hypothetical vignettes, this study examined adolescents’ evaluations of and expected emotional reactions to parents’, teachers’, and friends’ inductive responses to peer aggression. Participants were 209 middle school (Mage = 12.29 years) and 266 high school (Mage = 15.86 years) students (68% female, 39.4% White, and 37.7% Black). Adolescents approved of induction and expected it to be somewhat effective at preventing peer aggression and inducing guilt and empathy. When compared with power assertion, adolescents typically viewed induction as the fairer but less effective strategy. Evaluations varied by socialization agent, aggression status, and demographics. Inductions by parents were rated consistently as most impactful and youth who were younger, female, and less aggressive appeared more responsive to such discipline. Results highlight the importance of incorporating parents into peer aggression interventions, combining confrontive and inductive responses, and providing aggressive youth with additional skills to help them better internalize the inductive messages.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.