Relational aggression, big five and hostile attribution bias in adolescents

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Highlights

  • Personality, hostile attribution bias and relational aggression were studied in adolescents.

  • Both proactive and reactive relational aggression were examined.

  • Both forms were associated with personality and hostile attribution bias.

  • Hostile attribution bias partially mediated the personality and relational aggression link.

  • Conscientiousness moderated the hostile attribution bias and relational aggression link.

Abstract

Τhe study examined two plausible models of the interplay between hostile attribution bias (HAB) for relational provocations, personality traits (big five), and the two distinct functions of relational aggression (RA) in a sample of 347 Greek adolescents (193 female participants; M = 13.1, SD = 1.20). In the first model the mediating role of HAB in the association between personality and RA was investigated. The moderating effects of personality in the association between HAB and RA were also explored. Results of the mediation analyses revealed that HAB partially mediated the relationship between low extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, high neuroticism, and both proactive and reactive RA. Moderation analyses indicated that low conscientiousness adolescents were more likely to engage in reactive RA when they make more hostile attributions for relational provocations. The findings emphasize the crucial role of personality and social-cognitive factors in understanding RA and are discussed in terms of their practical implications.

Section snippets

FFM and RA: the mediating role of HAB

Prior research has mainly demonstrated direct links of HAB (e.g., Ostrov & Godleski, 2013) and FFM traits (e.g., Tackett et al., 2014) with RA. It has been argued that someone's personality might contribute to more biased interpretations, which in turn could lead to aggressive behaviors (Bettencourt et al., 2006, Miller et al., 2008). In an endeavor to understand aggressive behavior based on the GAM, recently published studies (Barlett and Anderson, 2012, Cavalcanti and Pimentel, 2016) showed

HAB and RA: the moderating role of FFM

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that the associations between cognitive distortions (including tendencies to attribute hostile intentions; Pornari & Wood, 2010) and aggression are differentiated depending on personality traits (Fite et al., 2008, Koolen et al., 2012, Meier and Robinson, 2004). It has been recommended that the modest relationships, often found between SIP or specifically HAB and aggressive behavior (Fite et al., 2008, Orobio de Castro et al., 2002), could be

Gender differences

Currently, research has shown inconsistent evidence regarding gender differences in the function of aggression (i.e., proactive or reactive) as well as in the form of aggression (i.e., relational or overt) that each gender selects (Murray-Close et al., 2016, Voulgaridou and Kokkinos, 2015). Thus, the present study sought to investigate both between and within gender differences in the functions of both relational and overt aggression.

As far as the between gender differences are concerned,

The present study

Given the conflicting findings regarding the relationship between HAB for relational provocations and RA and the limited number of studies which have examined the association between big five traits and RA in children and adolescents, this study aims at further exploring the aforementioned linkages, in order to provide insights in the intrapersonal factors involved in the manifestation of such behaviors. As far as the relationship between HAB and RA is concerned, although the empirical evidence

Participants

A convenience sample of 347 predominantly adolescents students (193 female and 154 male), aged between 11 and 16 years (Μ = 13.1, SD = 1.20), selected from urban public primary and junior high schools from Northern Greece, participated in the study. Ninety-five of the participants (27%) were attending the last grade of the primary school, whereas the rest 252 (73%) the three grades of the junior high school. That is, 105 (30.3%) the first, 81 (23.3%) the second and 66 (18.7%) the third grade. The

Procedure

The study was conducted upon permission by the Institute of Education Policy, a scientific and consulting body under the authority of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs. A combination of active assent by the students and passive consent by their parents and/or guardians was obtained as it was requested by the terms of the research permit. Thus, school principals were contacted and students were provided with a letter that briefly explained the purpose of the study,

Analysis plan

Descriptive statistics were calculated for all measures. A series of independent t-tests examined potential gender differences in RA, HAB and personality traits. Further, paired samples t-test explored within-group gender differences for proactive and reactive RA. Pearson correlation coefficients evaluated the associations among these variables. For the first conceptual model, ten mediation analyses were run to examine the mediating role of HAB in the relationships between big five personality

Preliminary analyses

Means, standard deviations and correlations for the study's variables are reported in Table 1. Preliminary analyses regarding the between gender differences revealed that male participants reported higher proactive t(345) = 3.67, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.30 and reactive RA t(345) = 2.72, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.13 as well as proactive t(345) = 3.67, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.47, and reactive overt aggression t(345) = 3.67, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.22 than female participants. Further, female students reported higher

Mediation

The mediation model (Fig. 1) was tested using model 4 from the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2013). With this method, significance is tested by calculating bias-corrected 95% bootstrap confidence intervals (CI) for the direct and indirect effects, while significance is inferred if the resultant interval does not contain zero (Hayes, 2013). In the present study, the direct effects of personality traits on RA were estimated, as well as the indirect effect of these traits on RA through the

Discussion

The current study addresses a gap in the literature by examining the underlying mechanisms implicated in the association between HAB, personality and the distinct functions of RA (i.e., proactive and reactive). As expected, the results indicated that both reactive and proactive RA were positively correlated with HAB for relational provocations (Bailey and Ostrov, 2008, Murray-Close et al., 2010). Relationally aggressive students, irrespective of their goals (i.e., instrumental or retaliatory),

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