A longitudinal study of relational and physical aggression in preschool

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Abstract

To understand the development of relational aggression during early childhood, 91 girls and boys (M age = 39.0; SD = 7.6 months) and their teachers participated in an 18-month longitudinal study. Children were observed for relational and physical aggression during free play in four time periods. Individually administered interviews were conducted to provide peer reports of relational and physical aggression. Teachers completed measures of relational and physical aggression and peer rejection. Findings support the psychometric properties of the observational methods for use during early childhood. Results suggest that girls are more relationally aggressive than male peers and boys are more physically aggressive than female peers. Moreover, children primarily direct their aggressive behavior at same-sex peers. Finally, relational aggression was found to be moderately stable during early childhood and was associated with future peer rejection problems. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of developing methods to investigate behavior patterns for understanding the early development of and future social–psychological risks that may be associated with relational aggression.

Introduction

Due to its deleterious effects on children's development, peer-directed aggression has been one of the most widely studied adjustment problems in the past several decades. Although hundreds of studies, books, and journals have been dedicated to the topic, past investigations of aggressive behavior have been limited in two crucial ways: (1) aggressive boys have received most of the empirical attention, whereas aggressive girls have often been excluded from relevant studies; and (2) forms of aggression that are salient to boys have been emphasized (e.g., physical aggression) whereas forms that are salient to girls have been neglected (e.g., relational aggression; Bjorkqvist and Niemela, 1992, Crick and Grotpeter, 1995, Robins, 1986). Compounding these limitations, current prevailing theories of the development of aggression depict the behavioral problems of girls as virtually nonexistent until the onset of adolescence (Keenan and Shaw, 1997, Silverthorn and Frick, 1999). Due to these empirical and theoretical shortcomings, we currently know much less about aggressive girls than aggressive boys, and we particularly lack knowledge of young girls' behavior problems. Given the negative risk status typically associated with aggression and given the numerous advantages afforded by early intervention (Bloomquist & Schnell, 2002), this lack of knowledge is significant.

In one attempt to “suspend our acceptance of the mythology of more benign childhoods for girls” (Zahn-Waxler, 1993, p. 84), a relational form of aggression has been recently identified that has been shown to be more characteristic of girls than the physical forms that have captured the majority of previous empirical and theoretical efforts (for a review see Crick et al., 1999). In contrast to physical aggression, in which physical damage or the threat of physical damage serves as the means of harm, relational aggression includes behaviors in which damage to relationships or the threat of damage to relationships serves as the vehicle of harm (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). Relational aggression includes both direct and indirect acts such as threatening to end a friendship unless the friend complies with a request, using social exclusion or the “silent treatment” as retaliatory behaviors, and spreading false rumors to encourage peers to reject a classmate.

One fundamental question that remains unanswered in studies of relational aggression concerns the early developmental course of relational aggression for boys versus girls. This information is crucial for the generation of theories regarding the etiology of relationally aggressive behavior patterns. Unfortunately, however, investigators interested in these issues have been limited by a lack of reliable and valid observational methods for assessing relational aggression. Researchers have primarily relied upon teacher and peer assessment tools that, although quite useful for addressing a number of empirical questions, may also be subject to a variety of significant biases (e.g., they may be influenced by explicit or implicit stereotypes about males and females, see Pellegrini, 2001b, Susser and Keating, 1990). Recently, however, a naturalistic observational approach for assessing relational aggression among preschoolers has been developed that appears both reliable (e.g., inter-rater reliability of .82) and valid (e.g., observed relational aggression scores and teacher-based scores are associated r = .54; Ostrov & Keating, 2004).

Our first goal for the present study was to evaluate further the psychometric properties of the observational approach developed by Ostrov and Keating (2004) by employing it in the first prospective study of relational and physical aggression in young children. Specifically, we examined the predictive validity of children's observationally based relational aggression scores derived from this scheme as well as correspondence with other informants (i.e., teachers and peers), and the association between relational aggression and physical aggression. This information is necessary for establishing the appropriateness and generalizability of the Ostrov and Keating approach for use with a variety of different types of samples and in prospective investigations.

After establishing the favorable psychometric properties of the Ostrov and Keating observational scheme for the present sample, the second goal of this research was to use the scheme to evaluate sex differences in relational and physical aggression during early childhood. Some but not all recent studies have demonstrated that, in sharp contrast to current theories and empirical investigations of aggression that largely depict girls as lacking in behavioral problems prior to adolescence, a significant proportion of girls can be identified as highly aggressive as early as the preschool years if relational aggression is assessed in addition to physical aggression (e.g., Bonica et al., 2003, Crick et al., 1997, McNeilly-Choque et al., 1996, Ostrov and Keating, 2004). In addition to studies conducted in the United States, cross-cultural research has demonstrated the particular importance of relational aggression for identifying preschool age aggressive girls in other countries including Russia, China, and Australia (see studies by Hart and co-workers, such as Hart et al., 1998, Russell et al., 2003). Studies of middle childhood have yielded similar results. For example, in one study, 4.2% of the participating girls were identified as aggressive when only physical aggression was taken into account whereas 21.6% were classified as aggressive when both relational and physical aggression were considered (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). In this instance, a focus solely on physical aggression would have failed to identify over 80% of aggressive girls but would have failed to identify only 7% of the aggressive boys. These studies provide robust evidence to counter the stereotypical view that girls, in general, are not aggressive and that young girls do not exhibit or experience behavioral problems.

Although it is relatively clear that the study of relational aggression adds significantly to our ability to identify and understand aggressive females, less clarity has been achieved regarding sex differences in children's propensity to use relational aggression. Mixed findings particularly abound for studies of early childhood. Specifically, studies in which teacher reports of relational aggression have been utilized have tended to show that preschool-age girls are more relationally aggressive than preschool age boys (cf. Hart et al., 1998), whereas studies that have relied on peer reports have often failed to find significant sex differences (e.g., Bonica et al., 2003, Sebanc, 2003; for a review see Crick, Ostrov, & Kawabata, in press-a). In the one study to utilize a reliable and valid naturalistic observational approach, preschool girls were shown to be significantly more relationally aggressive than preschool boys (Ostrov & Keating, 2004). These discrepant findings may be due to a number of factors including reporter bias (for teacher and peer reports; for further discussion of this issue see Pellegrini, 1996, Pellegrini, 2001b) or possible changes in sex differences during the preschool years that have not been taken into account in existing studies due to their cross-sectional designs. These issues were addressed in the current study through the use of an assessment method (i.e., naturalistic observation) that is less prone to bias than those employed in the majority of most previous studies (i.e., teacher and peer reports) and through the use of a longitudinal design in which preschoolers were followed for approximately 18 months. We tested the association between physical and relational aggression and based on past findings (e.g., Bonica et al., 2003, Crick et al., 1997, Ostrov and Keating, 2004) we predicted that these constructs would be only slightly associated at each time point using observational methods that are based on information from multiple independent observers. We also predicted that observational assessments would be moderately associated with teacher report methods. We hypothesized that preschool age girls would be significantly more relationally aggressive than preschool age boys. We further predicted, in keeping with the gender-segregated nature of early childhood play settings (Maccoby, 1998) and past findings (Ostrov & Keating, 2004) that relational aggression would be more frequently directed to female peers than to male peers.

Our third objective was to provide the first examination of the stability of relational aggression in early childhood. Existing evidence indicates that individual differences in physical aggression may be relatively stable beginning at about two years of age (e.g., Fagot, 1984, Rose et al., 1989, Zahn-Waxler et al., 1990). This stability tends to persist into childhood (Cairns et al., 1989, Coie and Dodge, 1998, Huesmann et al., 1984, Olweus, 1979, Pulkkinen, 1992, Yoshikawa, 1994) and is most apparent from early childhood to third grade for a small group of extremely aggressive children (NICHD ECCRN, 2004). Thus, children who exhibit relatively high levels of physically aggressive behavior during the early preschool years are at risk for continued behavior problems, a trajectory that has been shown to be associated with a host of serious developmental difficulties. Studies of relational aggression indicate a relatively high degree of stability for individual differences for older children (i.e., 9–12 year olds; Cillessen and Mayeux, 2004, Crick, 1996, Crick et al., in pressb, Tomada and Schneider, 1997, Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2005); however, no research has yet been conducted on the stability of relational aggression among young children using naturalistic observations.1 Given the importance of early detection of aggressive behavior patterns in the prevention and treatment of future, as well as concurrent, adjustment difficulties (Levy-Shiff and Hoffman, 1989, Wasik, 1987), this lack of information has significant negative implications for our ability to adequately identify young children at risk. Given initial evidence regarding the greater prevalence of relational aggression among preschool girls (Ostrov & Keating, 2004), this lack of knowledge about the stability of relational aggression during the preschool period has likely had the greatest impact on our understanding of and our ability to appropriately serve young females. In this investigation, we predicted that individual differences in relational, as well as physical, aggression would be relatively stable during the preschool years.

Our fourth and final objective for this study was to examine the concurrent and future associations among relational aggression, physical aggression, and peer rejection during early childhood. Evidence is mounting that relational aggression is associated with social–psychological adjustment problems including social maladjustment, internalizing problems, and externalizing difficulties (for a review see Crick et al., 1999). This association has been demonstrated for preschoolers (e.g., Crick et al., 1997, McNeilly-Choque et al., 1996, Ostrov et al., 2004), for children in middle childhood (e.g., Blachman and Hinshaw, 2002, Crick, 1996, Crick, 1997, Crick et al., in pressa, Crick et al., in pressb, Rys and Bear, 1997, Zalecki and Hinshaw, 2004), for adolescents (e.g., MacDonald and O'Laughlin, 1997, Prinstein et al., 2001), and for adults (e.g., Linder et al., 2002, Werner and Crick, 1999). Further, this relation has been shown to hold for non-U.S. as well as U.S. samples including Italian, Russian, Chinese, and German samples (e.g., Hart et al., 1998, Tomada and Schneider, 1997; for a review see Crick et al., 1999). Although longitudinal studies are few in number, available evidence indicates that relational aggression predicts future as well as concurrent social–psychological adjustment difficulties (Crick, 1996, Crick et al., in pressa, Crick et al., in pressb, Werner and Crick, 2004, Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2005). For example, relational aggression in third grade significantly predicts negative changes in peer rejection (i.e., becoming more rejected) three years later in sixth grade, even after controlling statistically for physical aggression, peer status, and prosocial behavior (Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2005). Taken together, findings from these studies generally demonstrate that relationally aggressive behavior patterns may place children at risk for serious future difficulties. Further, they indicate that a singular focus on physical aggression may seriously hamper our comprehensive understanding of these difficulties.

Thus far, prospective studies of relational aggression and adjustment have focused exclusively on children in middle childhood and early adolescence. Consequently, the utility of assessing relational aggression for identifying young children “at risk” for future social–psychological problems is currently unknown. We addressed this gap in the present research. Specifically, we hypothesized that relational aggression would significantly predict future peer rejection for preschool-age boys and girls. Although future associations have been evaluated for school age children (e.g., Crick, 1996, Crick et al., in pressa, Crick et al., in pressb, Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2005), studies of preschoolers have been limited to concurrent associations (e.g., Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997). In this research we hypothesized that relational aggression would provide information about future peer rejection primarily for preschool-age girls.

To address these objectives, we followed prospectively a sample of preschool age children for approximately one and a half years. Assessments of aggression and peer rejection were conducted at four time periods for each child (i.e., beginning of school year 1, end of school year 1, beginning of school year 2, and end of school year 2).

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 91 children (52 girls; 39 boys) between the ages of 30 and 52 months (M  =  39.0; SD  =  7.6) who were recruited from two nationally accredited university affiliated preschools in a large Midwestern city participated in this research. Written parental consent and verbal child assent were required for each child's participation. During the first round of recruitment, the overall consent rate between the two sites was 73%. All subsequent recruitment occurred under blanket consent

Results

In order to examine the study objectives, analyses were conducted to: a) evaluate the association between relational and physical aggression for each informant; b) examine the psychometric properties of the observational scheme used in this study; c) evaluate sex differences in relational aggression during early childhood; d) examine the stability of relational aggression in early childhood; and e) examine the associations among relational aggression, physical aggression, and future peer

Discussion

This research significantly extends our knowledge of aggression by providing the first prospective look at relational aggression during early childhood. Findings indicated general support for our hypotheses. First, findings from this study provided additional evidence for the reliability and concurrent validity of the observational scheme utilized (from Ostrov & Keating, 2004) and, more importantly, provided the first evidence for the favorable predictive validity of this scheme (this was

Acknowledgment

This study was funded by a grant (BCS-0126521) from the NSF to the first author. Preparation of this manuscript was facilitated in part by grants from NIMH (MH-63684) and NICHD (HD-046629) to the first author. The second author was funded in part by a NIMH (MH-15755) traineeship to the Institute of Child Development. The third author is now at Colby College. We thank the participating students, teachers, directors and children. We thank the entire Preschool PALS Project staff and special thanks

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