Online Education And Degree. Part 14. Agression.

Aggression is a common problem among schoolchildren and results in negative psychological, educational, and social outcomes for both aggressors and victims. This entry considers this aggression from both sides, that is, the side of the aggressors and the side of their victims. More specifically, it defines the terms aggression and peer victimization and reviews prevalence estimates of each. It also reviews the consequences of aggression for both aggressors and victims, as well as the antecedents or risk factors for each. This entry then moves beyond these generalities to discuss some of the subtypes of aggression and victimization. Finally, it offers some conclusions that can be drawn from the existing research and describes likely future directions for studying aggression.

Definitions and Prevalence
Aggressive behavior can be defined as any act that is aimed at harming another individual. More specifically, the study of childhood aggression often involves aggressive behaviors among peers, that is, children of similar ages (excluding aggression toward or from adults). Using this definition, attention is placed both on aggressors, who frequently enact aggression toward their peers, and on victims, who are often the targets of aggression by peers. It is important to note that some children may be considered both aggressors and victims; these aggressive-victims often have outcomes and risk factors that are distinct from children who are only aggressors or only victims.
Prevalence estimates of aggressors, victims, and aggressive-victims vary widely across studies because of different measurement strategies (e.g., reliance on children's self-reports or nominations of peers, teacher reports, observations) and criteria for classifying children (e.g., many studies define a child as a victim if they are targeted about once a week or more, but others will consider entire school years or lifetime incidents). Despite this variability across studies, it appears that about 10% to 20% of children can be considered aggressors, 10% to 20% can be considered victims, and 5% to 10% can be considered aggressive-victims. These prevalence estimates are remarkably consistent across countries, so it appears that aggression is a problem among schoolchildren worldwide. It is also worth noting that although these prevalence estimates would suggest that most children (50%-75%) are not directly involved as aggressors and/or victims, most children play some role in aggressive incidents, often serving as assistants or reinforcers to aggressors or as defenders of victims.
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Consequences
The substantial prevalence of aggression and victimization is especially alarming when one considers the serious negative consequences of each. Aggressive children are often disliked by their normative (nonag-gressive) peers and affiliate with delinquent peers who may solidify and expand the child's antisocial tendencies. Aggressive children are also often disengaged from school, either by their own choice or through negative teacher reactions, suspensions, and expulsions. These negative consequences of childhood are often exacerbated over time, leading to further delinquency, substance use, and school dropout during adolescence and to criminal behavior, poor marital relations, and unemployment/underemployment during adulthood. Of course, these associations are not perfect, and most aggressive children will discon-tinue, or at least decrease, their use of aggression with time and lead normal, well-adapted lives (in fact, there is evidence that most early adolescents will engage in some antisocial behavior, generally with few long-term consequences). At the same time, these long-term associations suggest that childhood aggression places individuals at increased risk for negative trajectories, and such behavior should certainly not be dismissed as "kids being kids."
As might be expected, victims of peer aggres-sion suffer in numerous ways as a consequence of being abused. Victimization often leads to diminished self-esteem and increases in internalizing problems (depression, anxiety, social withdrawal). Victims also tend to have poorer academic adjustment, including lower grades, disliking of school, and truancy; these consequences are intuitive if we imagine, as adults, how we would perform at work if we expected that someone might assault us on our next break. Victimization also leads to poor social outcomes, in the forms of having fewer friends, having friendships of poorer quality, and being disliked by most peers. This is unfortunate because the psychological consequences of victimization are diminished for victims who have good social support (e.g., friendships). Although the empirical evidence is limited, that which is available indicates that these negative consequences are long-lasting and persist as increased rates of depression and problematic romantic relationships, for example.
Children who are both aggressors and victims tend to suffer even more serious adjustment difficulties than children who are only aggressors or only victims. The additive risks alone of being both aggressive and victimized suggest negative adjustment, and these aggressive-victims do indeed appear to suffer the short- and long-term consequences of both aggressors and victims. Moreover, there is some evidence that these aggressive-victims suffer even worse outcomes than would be predicted by the additive effects of aggression and victimization. It is unclear if the dual roles of aggressor and victim are especially detrimental, or if the same risk factors that predict children becoming aggressive-victims (e.g., neurological deficits, histories of parental abuse) also contribute to their long-term maladjustment. Nevertheless, these children represent a special cause for concern.
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Risk Factors
Given the prevalence and negative consequences of aggression and victimization, researchers have sought to identify factors that place children at risk for enacting and/or receiving aggression.
Predictors of aggressive behavior can be found in both home and peer contexts. Specifically, the home environments of children who enact aggression tend to be characterized by marital conflict and frequent aggression (e.g., domestic violence). Furthermore, aggression is predicted by parenting styles of inappropriate permissiveness or lack of monitoring of children's behavior, negative or rejecting behaviors toward children, and of physical punishment and/or inconsistent discipline of children's behavior. In the peer context, research has shown that experiences of peer rejection and victimization predict increases in aggression, as do group social norms encouraging aggressive behavior and affiliation with aggressive and/or delinquent peers. It is worth noting that some of these peer-group risk factors for aggression are also consequences of aggression; thus, initial home environment may contribute to children's aggressive behavior, which results in peer relations that further solidify and exacerbate aggressive tendencies.
Victims of peer aggression are more often physically weak, suffer internalizing problems (i.e., depression, anxiety), and have lower self-concept than nonvicti-mized peers; each of these factors might make children less likely or less able to behave assertively or defend themselves, which may contribute to them being viewed as "easy targets" by potential aggressors. Similar to aggression, risk factors for peer victimization can also be found in both home and peer contexts. Parents who provide little support or responsiveness to their children's needs tend to have children who are more likely to be victimized by peers. Other parenting risk factors differ by gender; for instance, overprotectiveness and enmeshment predict victimization for boys (presumably leading to the failure to develop age-appropriate assertiveness), whereas coerciveness and threats of rejection are more predictive for girls (presumably leading to low self-concept). For both boys and girls, peer rejection, lack of friends, and engagement in antipathetic relationships (e.g., enemies) in the peer group place children at risk for victimization. Again, it should be noted that these peer-group risk factors are also con-sequences of victimization, suggesting the vicious cycle between peer victimization and poor peer relations in which children can become trapped.
Although aggressive-victims often have risk factors similar both to aggressors and to victims, there is also evidence of distinct risk factors. In the home context, rates of parental abuse and physical punishment are dramatically higher for aggressive-victims than for other children, and aggressive-victims tend to be rejected more and have fewer friends than either aggressors or victims. Although this entry has not focused on biological origins, it is worth noting that aggressive-victims have high rates of neurological deficits and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well. It is believed that these home and peer-group experiences (and possibly the biological risk factors) lead to hostile attribution biases (i.e. tendencies to interpret ambiguous behavior by others as hostile in intent), which contribute to aggressive-victims' behavior and further maltreatment by peers.


EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.


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