Aggressive children are known to have friends. However, less is known about the impact of aggression on friendship development and how this can differ for overt and relational (i.e., the forms) and instrumental and reactive (i.e., the functions) of aggression. This longitudinal study utilized the forms and functions perspective on aggression to assess social selection and influence in adolescen...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the distinct forms (i.e., physical and relational) and functions (i.e., proactive and reactive) of aggressive behavior during early childhood (n = 101; M age = 45.09 months). Forms, but not functions, of aggressive behavior were stable over time. A number of contributors to aggression were associated with distinct subtypes of aggressive behavior. Fem...

Aggressive children are known to have friends. However, less is known about the impact of aggression on friendship development and how this can differ for overt and relational (i.e., the forms) and instrumental and reactive (i.e., the functions) aggression. This longitudinal study utilized the forms and functions perspective on aggression to assess social selection and influence in adolescents’...

Prior studies of childhood aggression have demonstrated that, as a group, boys are more aggressive than girls. We hypothesized that this finding reflects a lack of research on forms of aggression that are relevant to young females rather than an actual gender difference in levels of overall aggressiveness. In the present study, a form of aggression hypothesized to be typical of girls, relationa...

Interrelations among cultural values, parenting practices, and adolescent aggression were examined using longitudinal data collected from Chinese adolescents and their mothers. Adolescents' overt and relational aggression were assessed using peer nominations at Time 1 (7th grade) and Time 2 (9th grade). Mothers reported endorsement of cultural values (collectivism and social harmony) and parent...

The relationship between exposure to violent electronic games and aggressive cognitions and behavior was examined in a longitudinal study. A total of 295 German adolescents completed the measures of violent video game usage, endorsement of aggressive norms, hostile attribution bias, and physical as well as indirect/relational aggression cross-sectionally, and a subsample of N=143 was measured a...

Developmental cascade models linking childhood physical and relational aggression with symptoms of depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; assessed at ages 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14) to borderline personality disorder (BPD) features (assessed at age 14) were examined in a community sample of 484 youth. Results indicated that, when controlling for within-time covariance and a...

This research was designed as an initial attempt to assess relational aggression in preschool-age children. Our goal was to develop reliable measures of relational aggression for young children and to use these instruments to address several important issues (e.g., the relation between this form of aggression and social-psychological adjustment). Results provide evidence that relationally aggre...

The role of physical and relational aggression in adolescents' friendship selection was examined in a longitudinal sample of 274 Chilean students from 5th and 6th grade followed over 1 year. Longitudinal social network modeling (SIENA) was used to study selection processes for aggression while influence processes were controlled for. Furthermore, the effects of network characteristics (i.e., re...

Several studies have linked Cluster B personality pathology to aggression in clinical and community samples. However, the structure of Cluster B traits, and association to aggression and psychopathology, has yet to be investigated among young female offenders. In order to better inform treatments for female aggression, we studied 121 incarcerated girls, aged 13 to 19 years, who completed a seri...