Social Aggression and Social Cognition in Peer Conflicts

描述(申请人提供)：本研究的主要目的是阐明儿童在同伴冲突中使用社交攻击的社会认知因素。此前的研究表明，身体攻击性儿童与非攻击性儿童在社会认知过程和社会能力上存在差异。关于更微妙的社交攻击形式(例如，八卦、社会排斥)，人们知之甚少。最近的研究表明，与身体攻击不同，社交攻击更有可能被女孩使用，而且往往是由同龄人调解的。使用社交攻击性的儿童往往是同伴网络的中心成员，他们通常被认为是社交智能的(Kaukiainen等人，1999；Xie等人，2002)。这项研究将继续和扩展这一研究路线，考察(A)儿童使用社交攻击和(B)对同伴网络的社会认知的准确性和情绪理解程度(即报告儿童自己和他们的同伴在冲突期间的情绪)之间的关系。其他类型的攻击性(例如，身体和言语)也将包括在内。此外，我们计划确定在同伴体验上不同的攻击性儿童的亚群(例如，攻击性-受欢迎和攻击性-不受欢迎)。这项研究的一个必然目的是确定市中心青年和农村-郊区青年之间的潜在差异。我们计划利用在两个不同的样本中收集的数据：一个是在卡罗莱纳纵向研究中涉及来自农村和郊区地区的青年，另一个是在2000年城市研究中涉及来自高风险市中心社区的青年。在两项研究中，对个别访谈都使用了类似的方案。从纵向研究的头两年收集的数据中，将分析与同龄人冲突的叙述性报告，参与冲突的自我和他人的感知情绪，以及同龄人群体的提名。农村-郊区样本包括四年级的220名儿童(116名女孩和104名男孩)和七年级的475名青少年(248名女孩和227名男孩)。其中约25%是非洲裔美国人。市中心的样本包括147名四年级学生(77名女孩和70名男孩)和256名七年级学生(156名女孩和100名男孩)。超过99%的样本是非洲裔美国人。从第一年到第二年的保留率很高：农村-郊区样本为0.95，市中心样本为0.88。将进行面向变量的分析和以人为本的分析(构型分析)。

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.