Adolescents’ Social Reasoning About Relational Aggression

We examined early adolescents’ reasoning about relational aggression, and the links that their reasoning has to their own relationally aggressive behavior. Thinking about relational aggression was compared to thinking about physical aggression, conventional violations, and personal behavior. In individual interviews, adolescents (N = 103) rated the acceptability of relational aggression, physical aggression, conventional violations, and personal behavior, and justified their ratings. Results indicated that adolescents’ views about relational aggression are complex. Although gossip was viewed as very wrong (comparable to beliefs about physical aggression), exclusion was perceived to be somewhat acceptable (less wrong than conventional violations, but more wrong than personal behaviors). With regard to associations between beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior, the results indicated that beliefs about gossip were associated with gossiping behavior, and that beliefs about physical aggression were associated with physically aggressive behavior. No links emerged between beliefs about exclusion and exclusionary behavior. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed within the frameworks of social domain theory and social information processing models of aggressive behavior.     

Relational aggression and victimization in gay male relationships: the role of internalized homophobia

This article presents two studies that are the first to examine relational aggression and relational victimization in gay male peer relationships. A qualitative pilot study provides a strong rationale for a subsequent empirical investigation of 100 young adult, self-identified gay males. Results of both studies demonstrate that relational aggression and relational victimization are common experiences in gay male relationships. They also reveal forms of relational aggression and victimization that appear to be unique to gay males (e.g., outing). Results of the empirical study found significant relations between engaging in relational aggression against gay males and experiencing relational victimization and between experiencing relational victimization and internalized homophobia. However, there was no significant correlation between internalized homophobia and engaging in relational aggression. A multiple regression analysis found that experiencing relational victimization was correlated more strongly with the combination of engaging in relational aggression and internalized homophobia together than with relational aggression alone. Results are discussed within the framework of Allport's "traits due to victimization" theory and Meyer's theory of "minority stress." Implications for the prevention of relational aggression/victimization in gay male relationships are offered.     

Child and Parent Perceptions of Relational Aggression Within Urban Predominantly African American Children’s Friendships: Examining Patterns of Concordance

Increasing research documents the negative short- and long-term effects of relational aggression on children’s behavior and social–emotional functioning. Although parents likely play an important role in the way children learn to cope with and attempt to resolve relational aggression, there is little research on this issue. The present study explored children and parents’ beliefs concerning relational aggression and the children’s use of coping strategies when experiencing relational aggression in close friendships. Fifty-four low-income, urban, predominantly African American children and a parent/guardian participated in the current study. Findings suggest that the children and their parents were largely discordant in their perceptions of relational aggression and the way the children cope with being a victim of relational aggression. Although the vast majority of parents perceived that their children would come to them for support when experiencing relational aggression, the girls were most likely to report going to teachers, whereas boys were most likely to go to another adult. These results enhance our understanding of how parents and children view relationally aggressive behaviors and may inform the development of strategies to help children cope with relational aggression.     

Parent-Child Symbolic Pay: Three Theories in Search of an Effect

In symbolic play, children construct increasingly sophisticated representations of the world as well as relations between symbols and their external referents as they advance upon their developing cognitions about people, actions, and objects. Presumably, more sophisticated partners, like parents, promote children′s development in this domain. Yet the empirical literature to date shows little support for the notion that child solitary symbolic play grows through adult-child symbolic play interactions. This paper first reviews empirical studies that address the role and effects of a more sophisticated partner on children′s early symbolic play. Next, the paper presents three theoretical perspectives that support a view that symbolic play and advance children′s representational competencies more broadly; they include attachment, scaffolding, and ethological theory. Finally, the paper revisits the literature on interactive influences on children′s play reconsidering the nature and role of specific independent and dependent variables in studies of the growth of children′s symbolic play.     

青少年抑制控制与同伴拒绝:身体攻击、关系攻击的中介作用

选取1589名青少年(平均年龄15.22±0.36岁)为被试,考察身体攻击、关系攻击在抑制控制与同伴拒绝间的中介作用。结果发现,(1)抑制控制与身体攻击、关系攻击、同伴拒绝之间均存在显著负相关,身体攻击、关系攻击与同伴拒绝之间存在显著正相关;(2)身体、关系攻击在抑制控制与同伴拒绝之间发挥中介作用;相比关系攻击,身体攻击的中介效应更强。该结果表明抑制控制对于同伴拒绝的作用既存在直接效应,又可通过身体攻击、关系攻击的中介效应实现,身体攻击、关系攻击的中介效应存在差异。     

Health Status and Peer Relationships in Early Adolescence: The Role of Peer Contact, Self-esteem, and Social Anxiety

We examined associations between children’s health status and the quality of their peer relationships, as well as factors that may account for individual variation in the quality of chronically ill and healthy children’s peer relationships. Our sample included 268 children (138 boys; 130 girls) with 149 European-Americans and 119 African-Americans. There were 91 children with a chronic illness; 35 with asthma, 26 with diabetes, and 30 with obesity. Chronically ill children were characterized by teachers as displaying less prosocial behavior, less overt aggression, and less relational aggression with peers than healthy children. Chronically ill children reported lower levels of peer contact and higher levels of social anxiety than healthy children. Among chronically ill children those with high self-esteem were more prosocial and less aggressive than those with low self-esteem. Our findings suggest that chronically ill children are at risk for peer relationship difficulties, but that self-esteem may serve as a protective factor against poor peer relationships for some chronically ill children.     

A Review and Reconceptualization of Social Aggression: Adaptive and Maladaptive Correlates

The emergence of a research literature exploring parallels between physical and nonphysical (i.e., social, relational, indirect) forms of aggression has raised many questions about the developmental effects of aggressive behavior on psychological functioning, peer relationships, and social status. Although both forms of aggression have been linked to problematic outcomes in childhood and adolescence, more recent findings have highlighted the importance of considering the possible social rewards conferred by socially aggressive behavior. This paper examines relevant theory and empirical research investigating the adaptive and maladaptive correlates specific to nonphysical forms of aggression. Findings are explored at the level of group (e.g., peer rejection), dyadic (e.g., friendship quality), and individual (e.g., depressive symptoms) variables. Key developmental considerations and methodological issues are addressed, and recommendations for future research integrating current theoretical conceptualizations and empirical findings on social aggression are advanced.     

Attachment and Relational Aggression: Power as a Mediating Variable

Evidence illustrates that insecure romantic attachment predicts higher levels of relational aggression. However, no research has attempted to explain that relationship with mediating variables, such as relationship power, which is associated with attachment and partner violence. Data for this study included 457 couples from Wave 2 of the Flourishing Families Study. Actor Partner Interdependence results indicated that insecure attachment was significantly predictive of relational aggression actor effects. There was also a significant partner effect between male insecure attachment and female relational aggression, and power was a significant mediator between attachment and relational aggression for males and females.     

大学生依恋焦虑与抑郁的关系:恋爱中关系攻击和关系质量的序列中介作用

浪漫关系中的关系攻击指通过操纵或损害关系以达到伤害浪漫关系伴侣的行为。本文以628名处于恋爱关系中的大学生为被试,探讨了依恋焦虑与抑郁之间的关系,并考察了恋爱中的关系攻击和恋爱关系质量在其中的序列中介作用。结果表明:(1)大学生依恋焦虑对抑郁有显著的正向预测作用;(2)关系攻击和关系质量在大学生依恋焦虑与抑郁之间分别发挥着单独中介作用;(3)关系攻击和关系质量在大学生依恋焦虑与抑郁之间发挥着序列中介作用。研究结果验证了依恋焦虑个体在关系中的“自我实现预言”模型,同时能够为大学生心理健康教育提供实践指导。     

Recent research on children’s testimony about experienced and witnessed events

Research on memory development has increasingly moved out of the laboratory and into the real world. Whereas early researchers asked whether confusion and susceptibility to suggestion made children unreliable witnesses, furthermore, contemporary researchers are addressing a much broader range of questions about children’s memory, focusing not only on children’s frailties but also on their competencies. In this review, we emphasize work on factors that promote the retrieval and accurate recounting of experienced or witnessed events and the implications of these findings for forensic interview practices. Research shows that children are capable of providing accurate information about their experiences, although their ability to convey the information is affected not only by the qualities of their memories, but also by the types of retrieval mechanisms employed and the quality of the communication between them and their interlocutors. We thus discuss several characteristics of to-be-remembered events that affect memory and are relevant to children’s recall in applied settings; retrieval conditions and their effects on the amount and accuracy of the information that children report; and research on investigative interviews conducted in forensic contexts. Because many of the variables that influence memory are age-related, developmental changes in children’s ability to accurately report, and recount their experiences are highlighted.     

Animals and humans,thinking and nature

Studies that compare human and animal behaviour suspend prejudices about mind, body and their relation, by approaching thinking in terms of behaviour. Yet comparative approaches typically engage another prejudice, motivated by human social and bodily experience: taking the lone animal as the unit of comparison. This prejudice informs Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s comparative studies, and conceals something important: that animals moving as a group in an environment can develop new sorts of “sense.” The study of animal group-life suggests a new way of thinking about the creation of sense, about the body, the brain, and the relation between thinking and nature.     

Mothers’ attuned responses to infant affect expressivity promote earlier achievement of language milestones

To investigate infants’ affective expressivity and maternal attuned responsiveness to infant expressivity in relation to early language achievement, 77 dyads were visited in their homes at 9 and 13 months, and mothers were interviewed about their children’s language between 9 and 21 months. Maternal responses that were attuned to infant affect, by selectively matching either the gradient features or the valence of infants’ affective expressions, were more predictive of children’s language achievement than maternal nonmatching responses; and maternal matching responses at 9 months were more predictive of children’s language achievements than maternal responses at 13 months. Moreover, maternal matching responses at 9 months predicted second-year language achievements over and above infant affect expressivity at 9 and 13 months, and over and above maternal matching responses at 13 months. Infants’ affective expressivity per se was not predictive.     

Becoming a teller of tales: associations between children's fictional narratives and parent-child reminiscence narratives

Previous research has revealed a connection between the contributions parents make while reminiscing and their children’s narratives for personally experienced events. The current research expands the literature by focusing on the connection between parental reminiscing and children’s production of fictional narratives. After 4- to 9-year-olds and their parents reminisced about past shared events, the children (with an experimenter) produced narratives based on wordless picture books. The results revealed that the overall quality of the fictional narratives was correlated with parents’ provision statements that emphasized orientation and evaluation in the reminiscence narrative. For younger children, correlations held for reminiscence narratives about recent events. For older children, correlations held for reminiscence narratives about events from the distant past. The results are consistent with the suggestion that children learn general storytelling skills from adult models.     

Predictors of Relational Aggression and the Moderating Role of Religiousness

Predictors of relational aggression and the moderating role of religiousness on associations between relevant predictors and relational aggression were examined in a sample of 244 university students. Increased childhood relational aggression, increased adult relational victimization, lower agreeableness, and lower emotional stability significantly predicted increased adult relational aggression. Prayer moderated the relationship between agreeableness and adult relational aggression and the association between relational victimization and aggression, and religious service attendance moderated the relationship between emotional stability and relational aggression. Results are discussed in terms of the higher level latent personality constructs of self-regulation and communion, which suggest a potential protective function for religiousness in association with relational aggression.     

Difficult Days: On the Use of Theory in Group Psychotherapy Reply to Grossmark and Weinberg

My response to Grossmark’s and Weinberg’s commentaries consists of four parts: The first relates to the use of theory in the analytic endeavor, emphasizing its relational quality, suggesting that our ability to reflect on how we unconsciously use theory is part of the therapeutic process. In the second part I discuss the relations between theory and metatheory, suggesting a possible parallelism between aggression in group therapy, and the existing debate about theorizing aggression. The third part briefly presents the affinity between relational psychoanalysis and the concept of The Social Unconscious. Finally, the fourth part notes the different languages of theory and poetry.     

Attachment and Autism: Parental Attachment Representations and Relational Behaviors in the Parent-Child Dyad

While attachment research has demonstrated that parents’ internal working models of attachment relationships tend to be transmitted to their children, affecting children’s developmental trajectories, this study specifically examines associations between adult attachment status and observable parent, child, and dyadic behaviors among children with autism and associated neurodevelopmental disorders of relating and communicating. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was employed to derive parental working models of attachment relationships. The Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS) was used to determine the quality of relational and functional behaviors in parents and their children. The sample included parents and their 4- to 16-year-old children with autism and associated neurodevelopmental disorders. Hypothesized relationships between AAI classifications and FEAS scores were supported. Significant correlations were found between AAI classification and FEAS scores, indicating that children with autism spectrum disorders whose parents demonstrated secure attachment representations were better able to initiate and respond in two-way pre-symbolic gestural communication; organize two-way social problem-solving communication; and engage in imaginative thinking, symbolic play, and verbal communication. These findings lend support to the relevance of the parent’s state of mind pertaining to attachment status to child and parent relational behavior in cases wherein the child has been diagnosed with autism or an associated neurodevelopmental disorder of relating and communicating. A model emerges from these findings of conceptualizing relationships between parental internal models of attachment relationships and parent-child relational and functional levels that may aid in differentiating interventions.     

Children's knowledge of the earth: a new methodological and statistical approach

In the field of children’s knowledge of the earth, much debate has concerned the question of whether children’s naive knowledge—that is, their knowledge before they acquire the standard scientific theory—is coherent (i.e., theory-like) or fragmented. We conducted two studies with large samples (N = 328 and N = 381) using a new paper-and-pencil test, denoted the EARTH (EArth Representation Test for cHildren), to discriminate between these two alternatives. We performed latent class analyses on the responses to the EARTH to test mental models associated with these alternatives. The naive mental models, as formulated by Vosniadou and Brewer, were not supported by the results. The results indicated that children’s knowledge of the earth becomes more consistent as children grow older. These findings support the view that children’s naive knowledge is fragmented.     

Attachment, depression, and fear of death in older adults: The roles of neediness and perceived availability of social support

This study investigated individual differences in depression and fear of death in older adulthood in the context of attachment theory. The roles of neediness and perceived availability of social support were examined. Participants were 113 Israeli older adults (aged 69–85) who were all in good health and functioning well. Social support was found to moderate the association between a low positive other-dimension (PO) of attachment and fear of death. Neediness mediated the relationships between a low positive self-dimension (PS) of attachment and depression. Findings are discussed within the framework of Bowlby’s distinction between attachment and dependency.     

Priming attachment security improves attitudes towards a range of therapies

We sought to understand how attachment orientation influenced attitudes towards different types of psychological therapies. In two studies, we (1) examined attachment orientation as a predictor of attitudes towards different therapies and (2) tested whether attachment security priming could improve attitudes. Study 1 (n = 339) found associations between attachment orientation and attitudes towards, and likelihood of using different therapies. Positive and negative attitudes about different therapies mediated the relationship between attachment avoidance and likelihood of use. Study 2 (n = 412) showed that primed security (vs. neutral prime) improved attitudes towards relational, non‐relational and distanced‐relational therapies for those with a fearful‐avoidant attachment orientation. For relational and distanced‐relational therapies, the mechanism of this effect was increased cognitive openness. Attachment orientation is a determinant of therapy attitudes and anticipated help‐seeking behaviour. Priming security may promote open‐minded decision‐making about some therapies. Findings are discussed with relevance to attachment theory, research and clinical practice.     

Personal epistemology and theory of mind: deciphering young children's beliefs about knowledge and knowing

The beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing have been the focus of a growing body of work on “personal epistemology.” There has been general agreement among researchers about a developmental trajectory of epistemological understanding that takes place in adolescence and adulthood. Rarely has this research included children, however, and we know little about the origins of epistemological awareness or its early development. A separate group of researchers have investigated children's “theory of mind,” or the ability to understand others’ beliefs, actions, and desires, with primary attention to the onset of this cognitive achievement between the ages of 3 and 5. This article reviews the theoretical foundation for a proposed relation between these constructs, and reports on an exploratory investigation with 3–5 year olds, in which epistemological level was significantly related to theory of mind ability. Results are discussed in relation to a general timeline depicting the development of children's beliefs about knowledge and knowing, a process that involves an ongoing tension between objective and subjective perspectives. We propose that the trajectory of epistemological development be expanded to include an initial period of egocentric subjectivity that characterizes epistemological thinking prior to the achievement of theory of mind.