Abstract
Background
There is substantial evidence to suggest that aggressive behavior is associated with poor academic performance in school-aged children. However, less is known about how different subtypes of aggression are related to academic performance and what variables may account for this association.
Objective
The current study examined unique associations between reactive (aggression in response to provocation) and proactive (goal-oriented calculated aggression) subtypes of aggression and academic performance. Further, the study evaluated whether peer rejection accounted for the link between these aggression subtypes and academic problems.
Methods
Study questions were examined using a sample of 147 school-age children (M = 8.22, SD = 1.99, 54.4 % male) who attended a community-based after school program. Path models were used to estimate the proposed associations using Mplus 6.12 statistical software.
Results
As expected, findings indicated that high levels of reactive, not proactive, aggression were uniquely associated with low levels of academic performance, and peer rejection accounted for this association.
Conclusions
Results advance the literature linking aggression and academic difficulties by indicating that reactive aggression, but not proactive aggression, is associated with academic difficulties. Findings also support previous literature suggesting that peer relationships are an important target of prevention and intervention efforts aimed at improving school performance, particularly for individuals who exhibit reactively aggressive behavior.
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Notes
Due to the high correlation between proactive and reactive aggression, Tolerance and Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) values were computed in order to evaluate whether multicolinearity was of concern. Tolerance values <.1 and VIF values >10 suggest issues of multicolinearity (Cohen et al. 2003). Tolerance and VIF values of both proactive (tolerance = .19 and VIF = 5.23) and reactive (tolerance = .19 and VIF = 5.27) aggression were acceptable, suggesting that multicolinearity between the aggression subtypes was not a concern in the present study.
There is some evidence to suggest that there may be gender differences in the link between verbal intelligence and reactive aggression (e.g., Connor et al. 2003) as well as the impact of peers on problem behavior (Burks et al. 1995). Accordingly, a multiple group model approach was employed to determine if associated varied across gender. Constraining paths to be equal across the groups did not result in a significant decrement in the model fit, ∆χ2(8) = 4.79, p = .78, suggesting that no gender differences were evident.
Due to the large age range included in the study, age was examined as a moderator in the proposed mediated pathways by adding aggression × age (i.e., proactive aggression × age and reactive aggression × age) and social problem × age interactions to the model. No significant interactions were found (ps > .25), suggesting that associations did not vary as a function of age.
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Fite, P.J., Hendrickson, M., Rubens, S.L. et al. The Role of Peer Rejection in the Link between Reactive Aggression and Academic Performance. Child Youth Care Forum 42, 193–205 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-013-9199-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-013-9199-9