Poster #193 - Hostile Intent Attribution and Aggressive Behavior in Children Revisited: A Meta-analysis

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

Hostile intent attribution (HIA) is defined as the tendency to attribute hostile intent to others in ambiguous social situations and is hypothesized to play an important role in children’s aggressive behavior (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, 1980). The last meta-analysis on the relation between aggressive behaviors in children and HIA demonstrated a modest robust positive association (De Castro, Veerman, Koops, Bosch, & Monshouwer, 2002). However, further progress in our understanding of hostile intent attribution in aggressive behavior seem to be thwarted by unexplained variation in the strength of the relation between HIA and aggression. Fortunately, since 2002 a number of important reviews and theoretical papers have suggested adaptations to SIP theory that may help to explain the divergent findings between studies.
Therefore we conducted a new meta-analysis to test specific hypotheses about determinants of the strength of the relation between HIA and aggression in children. We could now include over four times as many effect sizes (see Figure 1), resulting in more variance, and use statistical innovations to model effects. Based on theory, we expected that the relation between HIA and children’s aggressive behavior is stronger in emotionally-engaging real-time social situations and is present in social interactions with both known and unknown peers. In addition, we expected that the relation between HIA and children’s aggressive behavior is stronger for aggressive-rejected children, reactive aggression, and a comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis.
As expected, the relation between HIA and aggressive behavior was found to be stronger in emotionally-engaging real-time social situations and not limited to interactions with known peers (see Figure 2). The association between HIA and aggressive behavior was – contrary to our expectations - not limited to rejected-aggressive children, nor to reactive aggression, nor to a comorbid ADHD diagnosis. In line with the previous meta-analysis, results showed that the association between childhood HIA and aggression is stronger in more severely aggressive samples. The exploratory moderator analyses furthermore demonstrated that the strength of the association between HIA and aggression was dependent on the reliability of the HIA measures.
In sum, the meta-analytical findings indicate that HIA is a general cognitive disposition that guides information processing across a broad variety of contexts, including interactions with unknown peers. The relation between HIA and aggression is stronger in social situations that elicit sufficient emotional engagement and for more severely aggressive children. In addition, the relation between HIA and aggression depends on the reliability of HIA measures, but is not stronger for reactive aggression or proportion of ADHD diagnoses in the samples. Given the promising findings regarding HIA measured in real-time interactions, future research should focus on measuring HIA in emotionally-engaging social situations.

Authors

• Rogier Verhoef, Utrecht University
  Presenting Author

• Sophie Alsem, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Esmée Verhulp, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bram O. De Castro, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author