Browsing by Subject "Aggressiveness in children"
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Item The effectiveness of a classroom-based intervention for social aggression(2007) Schaber, Pamela McDonald; Carlson, Cindy I., 1949-This study sought to determine if a six session classroom intervention coupled with a teacher education program was sufficient to alter behaviors related to socially aggressive behaviors of fourth grade students. The treatment manual for this intervention was developed by Pamela McDonald Schaber and Daniel Hoard (Schaber and Hoard, 2006), following a review of the literature on ecological intervention for overt and social/relational aggression. The objectives of the intervention were to reduce aggressive behaviors through an ecological approach by: 1) educating students on types of bullying (physical and social), the role of the bystander in contributing to bullying, and the consequences for individuals and the classroom environment when bullying occurs; 2) challenging sympathetic attitudes about the appropriateness of bullying; 3) providing students with strategies for intervening when they observe bullying; 4) modeling bystander interventions; 5) giving students an opportunity to practice bystander interventions; and 6) empowering classrooms to develop a code of conduct for working together to reduce bullying. Participants were 71 fourth grade students from a Central Texas elementary school. Participants completed the Social Experiences Questionnaire -- peer-report which is a peer-rating measure of their classmates' frequency of social aggression and prosocial behavior. They also completed the Participant Roles Questionnaire -- self-report to determine how often they engaged in the different roles associated with bullying (i.e., bully, defender, assistant...). The main findings were that social aggression decreased for boys but not girls, and bully behavior decreased for both boys and girls. Unexpected findings were that prosocial behavior decreased from pre-test to post-test, and there were no changes evidenced in defender, assistant, and reinforcer behaviors. Implications and limitations for the findings are provided.Item Empathy : a proposed moderator to the relationship between Machiavellianism and social aggression in Hispanic and non-Hispanic children(2008-08) Reeves Washer, Shanna Raelene, 1979-; Sander, Janay BoswellSocial aggression is defined as a set of behaviors directed towards damaging another individual’s self-esteem or social status and may include direct forms such as verbal rejection, negative facial expressions or gestures, or more indirect means such as rumor spreading or social exclusion (Galen & Underwood, 1997). Previous research demonstrates that social aggression and self-reported empathy have a negative linear relationship, and that social aggression is positively correlated with the ability to effectively navigate varied social contexts (a subset of Machiavellianism, or a manipulative beliefs and strategies towards others; Wilson, Near, & Miller, 1996). Despite this evidence, few researchers have investigated the relationships among all three of these variables (empathy, social aggression, and social navigation) (Bjorkqvist, Osterman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Kaukiainen et al., 1999). This study examines whether social aggression is correlated with Machiavellianism, or a manipulative orientation to others, and if this relationship is contingent upon the child’s self- reported level of empathy. It is hypothesized that children’s levels of Machiavellianism are related to the use of social aggression, but the strength of this relationship will vary according to level of empathy. Therefore, empathy is proposed to serve as a moderator of the relationship between Machiavellianism and social aggression. The investigator also conducted additional exploratory analyses using a portion of the sample identified by school records as Hispanic. The same relationships are explored with this portion of the sample to determine whether this population is unique with respect to these relationships. Using this portion of the sample, intercorrelations among the variables are reported as well. A sample of 280, nine- to 13-year-old students from a school district outside a metropolitan area participated. Each one completed instruments designed to measure social aggression, empathy, Machiavellianism, and acculturation. The results indicated that there was no linear relationship between Machiavellianism and social aggression, and further, there is no moderating effect of empathy. An exploratory analysis with Hispanic participants (n = 217) suggests the relationship between Machiavellianism and social aggression, and non-significant role of empathy as a moderator, do not differ for Hispanic and non-Hispanic participants. Interestingly, acculturation is positively correlated with social aggression and negatively correlated with empathy, suggesting that as children become more oriented to US culture, they are more likely to engage in social aggression and report lower overall levels of empathy. These findings contribute uniquely to the literature, and further, provide new information on these constructs using a Hispanic sample. Implications for intervention and future research are discussed.Item The relationships among social reasoning and relational and overt aggression in preadolescents(Texas Tech University, 2004-12) Engel, Kristie DThis study examined the social reasoning of preadolescent relationally aggressive girls, nonaggressive girls, overtly aggressive boys, nonaggressive boys and comorbid relationally/ overtly aggressive boys in the context of hypothetical relational and instrumental conflict dilemmas. Social reasoning skills were assessed with the Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies Interview (Schultz, Selman, & Yeates, 1989) and participants' social goals and self-efficacy perceptions were also examined. In general, participants demonstrated better social reasoning when confronted with the instrumental conflict scenario than the relational dilemma. Girls exhibited higher levels of social reasoning than boys across both dilemmas. Between-groups comparisons of social reasoning skills at specific problem solving steps yielded more complex results. When generating possible solutions to the relational dilemma, relationally aggressive girls gave the protagonist's needs greater priority than did the nonaggressive girls. Overtly aggressive boys prioritized the protagonist's needs over the antagonist's needs to a greater extent than nonaggressive boys for both the instrumental and relational dilemmas. An examination of participants' goal and self-efficacy ratings revealed mixed findings. However, all participants strongly endorsed the prosocial goals of working out the problem peacefully and saving the friendship, and reported high levels of confidence in their own abilities to accomplish these goals. Implications and limitations of this study and future directions are discussed.