Poster #76 - Latent Profiles of Aggression and Prosocial Behavior in Infancy and Toddlerhood

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

Individual differences in physical aggression can be relatively stable already in infancy and toddlerhood, and predict a range of negative outcomes later in life (Broidy et al., 2003; Hay et al., 2014). Several studies have identified children who exhibit high levels of aggression throughout their childhood (Côté et al., 2006; Huesmann et al., 2009). Most research has focused on identifying risk factors associated with such chronic aggression. Surprisingly, there is very little attention paid to the role prosocial behavior plays in the early development of aggression. Although an inverse association between aggression and prosocial behavior is found by elementary school (Obsuth et al., 2015), some evidence suggests that aggression and prosocial behavior can go hand in hand earlier in the development (Jambon et al., 2019). Moreover, despite that both aggression and prosocial behavior emerge during the first two years of life, there is a dearth of studies examining the co-development of aggression and prosocial behaviors during that developmental period. Thus, the goal of this cross-sectional study was to examine whether we could identify distinct profiles of 4- to 15-month-old children based on their aggression (directed and exploratory) and prosocial behavior, and whether profile membership would be differentially associated with children’s age, motor skills, negative affect, and overreactive parenting. Participants were 377 mothers of infants of 4 to 15 months (46.4% boys; Mage = 9.41 months , SD =3.63) who completed scales measuring infant exploratory (e.g.,“bite someone”; α = .82) and directed aggression (e.g., “kick someone”; α = .90), prosocial behaviors (e.g., “try to help someone”; α = .79; Lorber et al., 2019), early motor development (28 items; α = .95; Libertus & Landa, 2013), negative affect (e.g., “how many times a week did your child react explosively when mad?”; α = .91; Wakschlag et al., 2016), and overreactive parenting (e.g., “When my child misbehaves, I get so frustrated or angry that my child can see I’m upset”; α = .74; Arnold et al., 1993). We conducted latent profile analyses (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017). Relying on several fit indices, such as BIC and LMR test, we decided that a 5-class solution provided the most optimal fit (Figure 1). The largest class (49.4% of the sample; Low aggression-average prosocial) demonstrated low levels of both types of aggression and slightly above average levels of prosocial behavior. 23.4% of the children (Average aggression-prosocial) displayed average levels of all three types of behaviors. 14.4% of the children (Moderately high aggression-average prosocial) had relatively high levels of aggression (above the sample mean) and average levels of prosocial behavior. 8.1% of the children (High aggression-prosocial) demonstrated the highest levels of aggression and prosocial behavior. Finally, 4.7% of the sample (Low aggression-prosocial) showed low levels of all three types of behaviors. Our study covariates were also differentially related to behavioral profiles (Table 1). These results highlight the importance of studying the early development of physical aggression together with prosocial behavior to better understand the deficits and skills of different aggressive children.

Authors

• Annette Schieffelin, St. John's University
  Presenting Author

• Kätlin Peets, St. John's University

• Tamara Del Vecchio, St. John’s University