Poster #52 - Children’s beliefs about overt and relational aggression, aggressive behaviors, and social adjustment in Japan.

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Many studies have focused on aggressive behavior because aggressive behavior is related to children's maladjustment. Previous studies have pointed out that there are two forms of aggressive behavior. That is, it is overt aggression and relational aggression. Overt aggression is a type of aggression in which hurt others through physical or direct verbal aggression, as opposed to relational aggression that relationships are used as a means to hurt others (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995).
Although there are many factors involved in the engagement of aggression, cognitive variables have played a central role in this area (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997). The present study focuses on the beliefs about aggression. Previous studies have considered general norms about aggression, norms about retaliatory aggression, and norms about frequency of aggression as contents of beliefs concerning aggressive behavior (Henry, et al. 2000; Huesmann & Guerra, 1997; Werner & Grant, 2009). However, the content of the beliefs dealt with in those studies was only for overt or relational aggression. Therefore, in this research, we aim to measure beliefs concerning both overt and relational aggression, and to clarify how they relate to aggressive behavior and social adaptation.
All participants had provided their own consent to take part in this investigation. Two assessments were carried out, Time 1 and Time 2, which were separated by an interval of approximately 1 month. Those who participated in both time 1 and time 2 were 691 fifth to ninth graders (332 girls) belonging Japanese 4 elementary schools and 3 junior high schools. At time 1 and time 2, participants completed the same questionnaire. First, they responded to the scales of beliefs about overt and relational aggression (20 items 4-point Likert scale). In this study, we utilized three subscales: general norms (6 items; α=.80) and norms about retaliatory aggression (6 items; α=.87), norms about frequency of aggression (8 items; α=.82). And, participants finished P-R Aggression Questionnaire (Sakai & Yamasaki, 2004) that included overt aggression scale (7 items, α=.84) and relational aggression scale (7 items, α=.81). Finally, children completed the satisfaction with school life scales (Kawamura & Tagami, 1997) that included peer approval scale (6 items, α=.84) and peer victimization scale (6 items, α=.85) to assess their own social adjustment.
We used path analysis in AMOS 24.0 to examine the associations among children’s beliefs, aggressive behavior, and social adjustment. The goodness of fit indices were good (Figure 1, Table 1). The result suggested that norms about retaliatory aggression was a significant predictor of overt and relational aggression at Time 2. Norms about frequency of aggression predicted an increase in relational aggression at Time 2. Also, overt aggression at Time 1 was a positively associated with norms about retaliatory aggression, and peer victimization at Time 2. Furthermore, relational aggression at Time 1 was a positively associated with norms about retaliatory aggression, and norms about frequency of aggression at Time 2. This finding suggests that the content of the beliefs is associated with the forms of aggression.

Author

• Yuichi SEKIGUCHI, Yamagata University
  Presenting Author