The Association Between Relational Aggression and Internalizing Symptoms: A Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Relational aggression is associated with negative psychosocial consequences, but more information is needed about connections between relational aggression and other problems. this review and meta-analysis examines the association between relational aggression and internalizing symptoms in 24,622 children between the ages of 5 and 17 years old, gathered from 42 studies. In addition to evaluating the overall relation between these constructs, this review examines the state of the literature with respect to six potentially important moderators of the relation: age, type of internalizing symptom (depression versus anxiety), sex, ethnicity, reporter, and type of aggression (relational versus indirect). the overall association was significant (average r = .24). Findings were inconclusive with respect to age as a moderator of this relation. there was no difference in relational aggression's association in boys compared to girls. the relation was slightly stronger for indirect versus relational aggression and for anxiety than depression. almost no data address how associations vary as a function of ethnicity. associations were substantially stronger when the same informant was used to assess both constructs. Findings point to the importance of identifying and addressing relational aggression in childhood, and the importance of collecting data from multiple informants.

The role of empathy and social anxiety in Latinx adolescents' indirect peer aggression during the transition to high school

“…From a theoretical standpoint, fears about social interactions might magnify one's existing decreased ability to understand another's perspective or internalize another's emotions in situations of social distress. Among older adolescents, social anxiety has been related to risk-avoidant decision making (Maner et al, 2007). Therefore, for socially anxious adolescents, lower empathy levels might be more strongly associated with covert types of aggression (such as indirect or cyber aggression) compared to adolescents low on social anxiety.…”

Relationships Between Workplace Deviance Interacted With Gender and Marital Status: The Correspondence Analysis Approach

“…However, the above-mentioned conclusions are unequivocal: There are studies that have revealed non-significant correlations between gender and workplace aggression (e.g., Douglas & Martinko, 2001;Inness, Barling, & Turner, 2005), including circumstances in which gender was included as the control variable and consequently dropped from the analyses, given the non-significant relations with workplace deviance (e.g., Biron, 2010). Accordingly, a meta-analysis of workplace aggression conducted by Hershcovis et al (2007) indicated that there is little gender difference with respect to indirect forms of aggression (e.g., spreading rumors, damaging property, acts of verbal aggression, and giving ''dirty looks''; see Marshall, Arnold, Rolon-Arroyo, & Griffith, 2015;Richardson, 2014 for formulizations of ''direct'' and ''indirect'' aggression).…”

Gender Profiles of Workplace Individual and Organizational Deviance

“…However, while these comparisons provide information on the magnitude of a general tendency of each gender to behave in certain way (and indicate whether any differences in these tendencies are statistically significant), they led only to rough distinctions but did not provide data regarding the prevalence of more specific behavioral manifestations (see Bjorkqvist et al, 1994;Kogut et al, 1992;Meyers-Levy & Loken, 2015). Since the previous gender differences studies were based on overall or average measure of verbal and physical aggression (e.g., Marshall, et al, 2015) or of direct and indirect aggressive behaviors (e.g., Warren et al, 2011), not a specific measure of them, it would not be possible to identify which subscales or items (included in the mean score) are responsible for gender differences.…”