Abstract
Although great strides have recently been made in our understanding of relational aggression and its consequences, one significant limitation has been the lack of prospective studies. The present research addressed this issue by identifying and assessing groups of relationally aggressive, physically aggressive, relationally plus physically aggressive (co-morbid), and nonaggressive children during their third grade year in elementary school and then reassessing them a year later, during fourth-grade (N = 224, 113 girls). Two aspects of social–psychological adjustment were assessed during both assessment periods including internalizing difficulties (i.e., withdrawal, depression/anxiety, and somatic complaints) and externalizing problems (i.e., aggressive behavior, delinquency). It was revealed that the strongest predictor of future social–psychological adjustment problems and increases in these problems from third to fourth was the combination of relational and physical aggression. Relational aggression also contributed unique information, relative to physical aggression, in the prediction of future maladjustment. Implications of these findings for future research and prevention efforts, particularly for aggressive girls, are discussed.
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Notes
Third graders were of interest in this research; however, some of the targeted classrooms in RS1 were mixed grade and thus some second and fourth graders were included in the peer assessments.
As with RS1, RS2 also included some mixed-grade classrooms and thus, although all of the target children were in fourth grade at Time 2, peer informants ranged from third to sixth grade.
To examine the clinical relevance of the obtained findings, we compared the means for the relational aggression groups and the physical aggression (from the ANOVAS) reported in Tables II--IV to the means obtained by Achenbach (reported in the TRF 1991 manual) for a sample of 1,275 children referred for mental services due to behavioral/emotional problems. In all three of the tables we have indicated those means that exceed the average for Achenbach's referred sample (an indicator of clinical salience).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Portions of this study were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM. This research was supported by grants to the first author from the William T. Grant Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Science Foundation and by an Eva O. Miller fellowship to the second author. Special thanks to the staff and participants of Project KIDS, particularly Crystal Cullerton-Sen, for assistance with the conduct of this investigation.
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Crick, N.R., Ostrov, J.M. & Werner, N.E. A Longitudinal Study of Relational Aggression, Physical Aggression, and Children's Social–Psychological Adjustment. J Abnorm Child Psychol 34, 127–138 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-005-9009-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-005-9009-4