The influence of social context on early aggression

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童和青少年中的反社会和攻击行为是全国公认的公共卫生问题。从社会学习理论的角度来看，研究表明早期攻击行为是通过强制性家庭过程中的负强化机制习得的，其中主要的社会化主体是父母。目前尚不清楚，当儿童进入学前环境时，发生了哪些特定的社会过程来调节攻击行为。据推测，攻击性行为的反复表现会影响成年人（即老师）和同伴对攻击性儿童的反应和互动方式。然而，在学前环境中，教师和同伴互动的相对影响尚未得到很好的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Antisocial and aggressive behavior among children and youth is a nationally recognized public health problem. From a social learning theory perspective, research suggests that early aggressive behavior is learned through negative reinforcement mechanisms underlying a coercive family process in which the principal socialization agent is the parent. It is unclear what specific social processes occur and come to regulate aggressive behavior when the child enters the preschool environment. Presumably, repeated displays of aggressive acts affect the way adults (i.e., teachers) and peers respond to and interact with the aggressive child. However, the relative effects of teacher and peer interactions in preschool environments are not well understood. A sample (N=72) of preschool children characterized as high aggressors will be randomly selected from three urban alternative schools serving young children with severe behavior problems. Using a repeated measures longitudinal design, standardized direct-observation data will be collected monthly for all subjects. Within-subject lag sequential analysis will be used to determine the magnitude of association between aggressive behavior and social consequences on a session-by-session basis. A dynamic covariate analysis will be used to test the effects of the victim's response (i.e., reciprocated aggression), the sex of the victim, and the sex of the aggressor on changes in teacher responsivity. To test the effects of changes in teacher responsivity on changes in the base rate of aggression over time, longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) will be used. Longitudinal studies are needed to determine how early patterns of high-rate aggression in preschool classrooms is influenced by social context.