Online Education And Degree. Part 15. Agression-2.

Subtypes
Despite the general findings regarding aggression and victimization reviewed above, not all acts of aggression are the same. Instead, aggressive behavior can be distinguished in terms of the form that it takes, the function that it serves, and the relationship context in which it occurs.
Forms
Historically, attention has been directed primarily toward studying overt forms of aggression, such as hitting, pushing, or teasing. More recently, however, researchers have realized that aggression also occurs in a more covert form. This type of aggression, variously called relational, social, or covert aggression, includes behaviors such as gossiping, spreading rumors, excluding the victim from groups, and manip-ulating relationships in a hurtful manner.
Overt versus relational forms of aggression and victimization differ according to age, sex, and context. Developmentally, physical aggression occurs most commonly during early childhood, and verbal forms emerge with increasing language capacities during early to middle childhood; in contrast, relational forms of aggression become more common during adolescence as knowledge of social structure, time spent with peers, and importance placed on peer relations all increase. The historical focus on overt forms of aggression has led to the notion that boys are more aggressive than girls, but more recent considerations of the various forms of aggression have shown that girls and boys are approximately equal in the amount of relational aggression enacted and in the amount received. Finally, there is evidence that different contexts support different forms of aggression, with overt aggression being more commonly enacted on playgrounds and similar areas without adult supervision, whereas relational forms, which might be more difficult for adults to detect, occur more commonly in classrooms.
Despite these differences, there exist high correlations between the two forms of aggression and the two forms of victimization—children who enact high levels of one form tend to also enact high levels of the other, and children who are the victims of one form tend to also be the victims of the other. This has made it difficult for researchers to detect distinct antecedents or consequences of the different forms of aggression or victimization. In other words, the empirical evidence does not provide a clear picture of whether overt versus relational forms of aggression have distinct origins or outcomes, nor whether the victims of these two forms have distinct risk factors or consequences.
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Functions
Aggressive behavior can also be distinguished according to the function it serves. Most distinctions by function separate instrumental aggression from reactive aggression. Instrumental aggression (also called proactive aggression) is that which is intended to obtain resources or social status; for example, a child who pushes a peer in order to take a toy. Reactive aggression (also called defensive aggression) is a response, often in an angry, emotionally dysregulated manner, to a perceived offense or threat; for example, the child who throws a temper tantrum and hits a peer during a dispute.
There are two reasons that this distinction according to form is important. First, the two functions of aggressive behavior are believed to have distinct social-cognitive underpinnings. Instrumental aggression is believed (and there is empirical evidence to support this) to be driven by biases in the behaviors considered and evaluations of aggressive behaviors; for example, instrumentally aggressive children tend to believe that positive outcomes will result from aggression and value these outcomes obtained through aggressive behavior. Reactive aggression, on the other hand, is supported by biases in encoding and interpreting social information; for instance, reactively aggressive children tend to interpret others' ambiguous behavior as hostile. A second reason this functional distinction is important is because instrumental aggression and reactive aggression are differentially related to maladjust-ment. Although both are associated with delinquent behavior, reactive aggression is more strongly related than instrumental aggression to internalizing problems (e.g., depression, anxiety), ADHD symptoms, low prosocial behaviors, and low peer status. It is worth noting that aggressive-only children more often enact instrumental aggression, whereas aggressive-victims more often enact reactive aggression, although the overlap between subgroup classification and functions of aggression is far from complete.
Although the distinction between instrumental and reactive aggression has been important in the study of aggressive children, there has been little attention to how the function of the aggression affects the victims. It seems plausible that distinct characteristics might place children at risk for victimization via instrumental versus reactive aggression, but these distinct risk factors have not been identified. It is also unclear whether victimization by instrumental versus reactive aggression predicts greater maladjustment.
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Relationship Contexts
Although researchers have typically considered the characteristics of aggressors and victims in isolation, there is an increasing awareness that aggression often occurs within specific aggressor-victim dyads (i.e., pairs in which a specific child aggresses against another specific child; for instance, Adam aggressing against Billy). For example, one group of researchers observed boys in small play groups and found that more than 50% of aggressive incidents occurred within just 20% of the dyads. These researchers also found that dyads in which aggression was evident on one day tended to be the same dyads that contained aggression on subsequent days. Together, these findings suggest the existence of aggressor-victim dyads in which aggression is especially frequent and persistent across time. The implication of this and related research is that a better understanding of aggression and victimization might be gained by considering the specific dyadic relationships of aggressors and victims.
Although there is very little research adapting this dyadic approach, the limited results demonstrate the importance of considering this relationship context. For instance, it has been found that aggression occurred more commonly within relationships based on mutual disliking (i.e., antipathetic relationships) than within friendships or acquaintanceships with neutral peers. Moreover, victimization within antipathetic relationships was more strongly predictive of maladjustment than was victimization within other relationships, suggesting that victimization within certain relationship contexts (i.e., antipathetic relationships) is more hurtful than victimization within other relationship contexts.
This focus on aggressor-victim relationships is relatively understudied, but it represents a fruitful approach for future research and consideration of occurrences of aggression. Several questions arise from such a consideration: Is there a differential in personal (e.g., physical strength) or social (e.g., popularity) power in aggressor-victim relationships, and does the amount of this power differential predict the form of aggression or outcomes for the aggressors or victims? To what extent are aggressor-victim relationships unidirectional or bidirectional in the enactment of aggression, and what characteristics of the individuals and relationship predict this directionality? Are aggressor-victim relationships relatively stable (i.e., the same aggressors targeting the same victims) or unstable (i.e., aggressors targeting different victims) over time, and what predicts this stability or instability? These questions represent just some that can be asked regarding aggressor-victim relationships; considering and answering these (and similar) questions represent important future directions for research and considerations for those working in applied settings.
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Future Directions
Aggression is a common phenomenon in children's lives, resulting in serious maladjustment for both aggressors and victims. The evidence for this statement is conclusive, and the dismissal that such behaviors are just "kids being kids" is incorrect and arguably irresponsible.
Fortunately, research has identified several risk factors for aggression and victimization, providing a point of prevention or intervention for these pro-blems. Unfortunately, translation of this research into application has been rather slow, and the existing intervention efforts have not proven as effective as would be desired. The refinement and widespread implementation of effective prevention and intervention of aggressive behavior represents an important task of educational psychologists (indeed, all profes-sionals working with or studying children).
Part of the difficulty in developing effective interventions may be that for too long, aggression has been viewed as a homogeneous construct. Recent work has identified distinct forms and functions of aggression, as well as expanded consideration of the problem to one of an aggressor-victim relationship. Each of these approaches offers promise in better understanding and treating aggressors and victims.
Recognition and understanding of aggression and victimization holds much promise for reducing these problems. In schools where teachers are aware of school policies on aggressive behavior and have received training to deal with these problems, students tend to view teachers as more approachable and willing to take action and, more importantly, experience lower rates of aggression and peer victimization. In other words, the first, and perhaps most important, step is simply in recognizing the problem and resolving to do something about it.

Noel A. Card and Abha S. Rao

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