3-154 - The Adaptive Nature of Adolescent Aggression

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In contrast to earlier views of aggression, researchers are increasingly recognizing that aggression may offer adolescents adaptive benefits. This symposium explores how adolescent aggression, cyber aggression, and bullying may relate to adaptive outcomes using longitudinal or cross-cultural data. Study 1 followed Dutch adolescents from Grade 7 to Grade 9 and found that popularity was an antecedent, rather than an outcome, of popularity goals. Furthermore, they found evidence of bidirectional associations between popularity, popularity goals, and antisocial behavior in early adolescence that suggest that antisocial behavior are more strongly linked to popularity and popularity goals over time than are prosocial behavior. Study 2 examined the one-year longitudinal links between physical attractiveness, peer-perceived popularity, and peer aggression among adolescents initially in Grades 6-9. They found that for girls only, attractiveness was concurrently related to popularity and indirect aggression and there was an indirect pathway from attractiveness (T1) to popularity (T1) to indirect aggression (T2). Study 3 examined the concurrent mediation of personality and social dominance by bullying behavior in Canadian and Chinese adolescents. In both samples predatory and reckless traits indirectly predicted social dominance via bullying. Study 4 examined cyber aggression in Canadian adolescents and found that 63.4% were uninvolved, 30.1% were moderate cyber aggressor-victims, and 6.4% were high cyber aggressor-victims. Post-hoc analyses indicated that moderate cyber aggressor-victims reported significantly more girlfriends/boyfriends but lower levels of alliance formation than the uninvolved group. When combined these results support the hypothesis that aggression can be, under the right circumstances, adaptive for adolescent perpetrators.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Anthony Volk, Brock University

Individual Presentations

• Longitudinal Associations Between Aggression, Popularity, and Popularity Goals - Presenting Author: Sarah T. Malamut, University of Southern California; Non-Presenting Author: Yvonne van den Berg, Radboud University, Nijmegen; Non-Presenting Author: Toon Cillessen, Radboud University

• The Longitudinal Links Between Physical Attractiveness, Peer-Perceived Popularity, and Peer Aggression Among Children - Presenting Author: Adam C Davis, University of Ottawa; Non-Presenting Author: Heather Brittain, University of Ottawa; Non-Presenting Author: Tracy Vaillancourt, University of Ottawa

• How Might Arrogant and Impulsive Adolescents Achieve Social Dominance? Bullying! - Presenting Author: Anthony Volk, Brock University; Non-Presenting Author: Daniel Provenzano, University of Windsor; Non-Presenting Author: Ann H. Farrell, University of Ottawa; Non-Presenting Author: Andrew Dane, Brock University; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth Shulman, Brock University

• Social Costs and Benefits of Cyber Aggression-Victimization: A Latent Class Analysis - Presenting Author: Kiana LaPierre, Brock University; Non-Presenting Author: Andrew Dane, Brock University