Relational Aggression, Overt Aggression, and Friendship

Abstract

This study (n = 315 9-12-year-olds) was conducted to assess whether the social problems that relationally and overtly aggressive children typically experience in the peer group context are also exhibited in the dyadic, friendship context. The qualities of children's friendships (e.g., levels of intimacy) and of the importance of those qualities (e.g., the importance of intimacy) were assessed with self-report instruments adapted from past research. Results indicated that the friendships of relationally aggressive children were characterized by relatively high levels of intimacy, exclusivity/jealousy, and relational aggression within the friendship context. In contrast, the friendships of overtly aggressive children were characterized by engaging together in aggressive acts toward those outside the friendship. In addition, overtly aggressive children placed relatively high importance on these coalitional acts and on companionship with their friends. Implications for our understanding of aggressive children and for our knowledge of children's friendships are discussed.

How Do Children with ADHD (Mis)manage Their Real-Life Dyadic Friendships? A Multi-Method Investigation

“…The runway cannot accommodate both trucks side by side, and the rules prohibit the players from lifting their wheels from the runway. A player can thus: (1) compete energetically but without breaking the rules, e.g., by blocking or pushing against the opponent's car; (2) compete in violation of the rules, e.g., by lifting one's own car over the 2 Despite various exploratory or confirmatory factor analyses, we were not able to replicate Grotpeter and Crick's (1996) 14 original factors or to find another logic factor structure other than the two-factor structure reported here. This result is, however, not surprising as these two constructed dimensions are consistent with previous empirical evidence (e.g.…”

“…In our assessment of friendship, we included, first of all, measures that assess the perceptions of the relationship by both friends in each dyad. We selected the questionnaires to be used for this purpose on the basis of their theoretical relevance to the hypotheses, sound psychometric properties, and successful previous use with children and early adolescents with externalizing disorders (e.g., Blachman & Hinshaw, 2002;Dishion et al, 1995;Grotpeter and Crick, 1996). Importantly, the measures had to be applicable and enjoyable across the age range of the participants.…”

“…Grotpeter and Crick (1996) added additional subscales to obtain more specific information about negative interactions (e.g., aggression within friendships) and coalitional features (e.g., aggression by friends toward others, preferences to play exclusively with one's friend) that aggressive children might experience in their friendships. For additional details regarding the construction of this scale, see Grotpeter and Crick (1996).…”

The Broader Context of Relational Aggression in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: Predictions from Peer Pressure and Links to Psychosocial Functioning

“…Each item was rated on a 7-point scale (1 = never, 7 = always) with higher scores indicating higher levels of relational aggression and victimization. Scale items are consistent with the types of peer nomination items used to assess relational aggression in childhood (e.g., "Tells friends they will stop liking them unless friends do what they say; When mad at a person, ignores them or stops talking to them"; Grotpeter and Crick 1996). Both relational aggression and victimization scales have shown relatively good internal consistency in previous studies (α = .73, α = .72; Linder et al 2002) and in the current investigation (α = .76, α = .84, respectively for teens; α = .58, α = .86, respectively for romantic partners).…”

A Meta-Analysis of the Distinction between Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Children and Adolescents

“…Emphasizing on forms of behavior, may result in erroroneously high correlations between reactive and proactive aggression as different functions may not be distinguished by respondents if they tend to focus on the form (which is the same in both items). These high correlations can, then, probably be ascribed to the established correlations between forms of aggression in the .54 to .77 range (Crick, 1996;Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997;Crick & Grotpeter, 1995;Grotpeter & Crick, 1996), In the above example, a respondent might thereby rate a child high in both reactive and proactive aggression because it often hits others, not because it does so with both functions.…”