Social Aggression and Social Cognition in Peer Conflicts

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary goal of this study is to clarify the social cognitive elements underlying children's use of social aggression in peer conflicts. Previous research has shown that physically aggressive children differ from non-aggressive children in social cognitive processes and social competence. Less is known about more subtle forms of social aggression (e.g., gossiping, social exclusion). Recent studies have shown that social aggression, unlike physical aggression, is more likely to be used by girls and is often mediated by peers. Children who use social aggression tend to be central members of peer networks, and they are often judged to be socially intelligent (Kaukiainen et al., 1999; Xie et al., 2002). This study will continue and expand this line of research by examining the relations between (a) children's use of social aggression and (b) the accuracy of social perceptions of peer networks and the degree of emotional understanding (i.e., reports of children's own and their peers' emotions during the conflict). Other types of aggression (e.g., physical and verbal) will also be included. Further, we plan to identify subgroups of aggressive children who differ in peer experiences (e.g., aggressive-popular and aggressive-unpopular). A corollary aim of this study is to determine potential differences between inner-city youth and rural-suburban youth. We plan to utilize data collected in two distinct samples: One involves youth from rural and suburban areas in the Carolina Longitudinal Study, and the other involves youth from high-risk inner-city neighborhoods in the Urban 2000 study. Similar protocols were used in both studies for individual interviews. Narrative reports of conflicts with peers, perceived emotions of the self and others involved in a conflict, and nominations of peer groups will be analyzed for data collected from the first two years of the longitudinal studies. The rural-suburban sample includes 220 children (116 girls and 104 boys) from grade 4 and 475 adolescents (248 girls and 227 boys) from grade 7. About 25% of them are African-American. The inner-city sample includes 147 4th graders (77 girls and 70 boys) and 256 7th-graders (156 girls and 100 boys). Over 99% of this sample is African-American. High levels of retention from year 1 to year 2 were obtained: .95 for the rural-suburban sample and .88 for the inner-city sample. Both variable-oriented analysis and person-oriented analysis (configuration analysis) will be conducted.