An Attributional Intervention to Reduce Peer-Directed Aggression among African-American Boys

Abstract

An attributional intervention was designed to reduce aggressive males' tendency to attribute hostile intentions to peers following ambiguously caused peer provocations. African-American elementary school boys (N = 101), aggressive and nonaggressive, were randomly assigned to the attributional intervention, an attention training program, or a no-treatment control group. Data were collected on subjects' attributions about hypothetical and laboratory simulations of peer provocation, disciplinary referrals to the school office, and teacher ratings of aggressive behavior. Aggressive subjects in the attributional intervention were less likely to presume hostile intent by peers in hypothetical and laboratory simulations of ambiguous provocation. They were also less likely to endorse hostile retaliation on judgment measures and to engage in verbally hostile behaviors in the laboratory task. Further, intervention subjects were rated as less aggressive by their teachers following the treatment. Both the benefits of attributional change and its limitations in the African-American population are discussed.

An Initial Evaluation of a Culturally Adapted Social Problem-Solving and Relational Aggression Prevention Program for Urban African-American Relationally Aggressive Girls

“…Children’s behavioral response in a social situation is posited to be a function of how these pre-existing capabilities interact with the way in which children process a series of social cognitive steps (Crick & Dodge, 1994). F2F is, in part, a SIP re-training program modeled after two best practice attributional re-training programs, the Anger Coping Program (Lochman, 1992) and the Brain Power Program (Hudley & Graham, 1993). These social problem solving programs were chosen because they have shown aggression reduction among urban African American boys, retrain participants at each social information processing step, and have been designated as highly promising aggression interventions (Leff et al, 2001).…”

Consent Procedures and Participation Rates in School-Based Intervention and Prevention Research: Using a Multi-Component, Partnership-Based Approach to Recruit Participants

“…F2F is based upon three theoretical models including a social information processing (SIP) model of aggression (Crick & Dodge, 1994), a developmental-ecological systems paradigm (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Kazak & Simms, 1996), and social learning theory (e.g., Bandura, 1973; Dishion, Capaldi, Spracklen, & Li, 1995). The program used intervention techniques derived from two empirically supported interventions for physical aggressors (e.g., Hudley & Graham, 1993; Lochman, 1992) and was designed specifically for urban African-American third and fourth grade girls by partnering with culturally diverse students, teachers, and playground/ lunchroom supervisors over the course of several years (see Leff et al, 2007, for a review of the design of this program). Preliminary results of the F2F program suggest that it is viewed as highly acceptable by participating girls and teachers, and that it may help to reduce relationally aggressive girls’ levels of relational and physical aggression, hostile attributions, and feelings of loneliness (Leff et al, in press).…”

Children’s Intent Attributions and Feelings of Distress: Associations with Maternal and Paternal Parenting Practices

“…A related premise is that social information processing patterns might be modified in order to diminish problematic behaviors like aggression (Dodge et al 1990; Guerra and Slaby 1990;Hudley and Graham 1993). The ongoing cognitive processing of social events is frequently portrayed in these models as a series of unique steps, and physically aggressive children, in particular, appear to struggle in their processing at every step (Crick and Dodge 1994).…”