Overt and relational aggression and victimization: Multiple perspectives within the school setting

Abstract

The current study involved a comprehensive comparative examination of overt and relational aggression and victimization across multiple perspectives in the school setting (peers, teachers, observers in the lunchroom, self-report). Patterns of results involving sociometic status, ethnicity and gender were explored among 4th graders, with particular emphasis on girls. Controversial and rejected children were perceived as higher on both forms of aggression than other status groups, but only rejected children were reported as victims. Both European American and African American girls showed a greater tendency toward relational aggression and victimization than overt aggression or victimization. Results indicated negative outcomes associated with both relational and overt victimization and especially overt aggression for the target girl sample. Poorer adjustment and a socially unskillful behavioral profile were found to be associated with these three behaviors. However, relational aggression did not evidence a similar negative relation to adjustment nor was it related to many of the behaviors examined in the current study. Implications of these results are discussed.

Introduction

For many years, studies of children's aggression and victimization focused on overt, confrontational behaviors like physical and verbal assault, threats, and insults. The vast literature that has been amassed confirms that for many children, overt aggression (see Coie & Dodge, 1998) and victimization (Juvonen & Graham, 2001) are recurring and stable problems that place children at risk for a host of adjustment difficulties, both internalizing and externalizing. More recently, conceptualizations of aggression and victimization have been broadened to include more “relational” forms of aggression such as negative gossip, ostracism, or manipulation of social relationships. Whether these forms of aggression are referred to as indirect, social, or relational aggression, all capture to some degree behaviors that are intended to harm another's reputation, social relationships, or feelings of inclusion by the peer group. Ranging from direct and unambiguous exclusion to indirect and even disguised attacks (e.g., negative gossip in the guise of helpful advice), relational forms of aggression are characterized by an intent to do social harm, using relationships to inflict the damage.

The inclusion of relational aggression in our conceptualization of harm has also broadened the range of children identified as potential targets of intervention, and most of those identified in this casting of a wider net are girls. In fact, researchers have found that as many as 60% of girl aggressors (Henington, Hughes, Cavell, & Thompson, 1998) and 71.4% of girl victims (Crick & Nelson, 2002) would be overlooked if intervention programs excluded relational forms of harm from their identification of perpetrators and victims (corresponding rates for boys were only 7% of aggressors and 21.1% of victims). The predominant instigators and targets of physical aggression are boys (Coie & Dodge, 1998), so it is not surprising that a literature historically focused on physical aggression would place so little emphasis on girls. However, over the past decade, growing interest in girls' aggression has generated much research activity (Pepler et al., 2005, Putallaz and Bierman, 2004), including a proliferation of studies on relational aggression and its victims. But the topic is still in its infancy and many questions remain.

The current study aims to further the development of this emerging literature with a comprehensive comparative examination of aggression and victimization in the school setting, with a particular emphasis on girls. We first collected peer nominations from a large and diverse sample of elementary aged children (boys and girls) to validate and expand upon previous research on gender, ethnicity, and sociometric status differences in both overt and relational forms of aggression and victimization. To address the paucity of data on girls, we then selected a smaller sub-sample of African American and European American girls for a more in-depth study of girls' relational aggression and victimization as compared to more overt forms. Using a multi-method, multi-informant approach, the objectives of the current study were to: (1) explore the role of ethnicity and sociometric status in aggression and victimization; (2) address unresolved questions in the adjustment correlates of aggression and victimization, particularly relational forms; (3) provide a broader and more complete behavioral profile of aggressors and their victims.