Aggression and Bullying Flashcards
Definition of Aggression
“injurious and destructive behaviour that is socially defined as aggressive on the basis of a variety of factors, some of which reside in the evaluator rather than in the performer” (Bandura, 1973, p.8)
Types of Aggression
o Hostile and instrumental aggression
o Angry and non-angry aggression
o Aggression – behaviour
o Hostility – attitudinal
o Anger – emotional arousal
o Assertiveness
Theories of Aggression
o Trait theory
A) consistency
B) stability
o Drive theory
A) Freud
• Hydraulic model
• Catharsis model
o Ethological theory
A) agonistic interactions
o Social cognitive theory
• Information Processing Model of aggression (Dodge & Crick, 1994)
o A) encode social cues
o B) interpret social cues
o C) formulate social goals
o D) generate problem solving strategies
o E) evaluate the likely effectiveness of strategies and select a response
o F) enact a response
Acquisition of Aggression
o Patterson’s model
Negative reinforcement
Coercive
o Child rearing practices and aggression
Inconsistency in parental discipline
o Positive reinforcement
Modelling influence on aggression
o Laboratory findings vs. field studies – self-selection issue
o Performance acquisition issue
The role of the victim
o Children who cry when victimised are often targets
o Pain cues are gratifying to those who are highly aggressive
• Egan & Perry (1998) showed how children’s self-doubts contribute to their victimisation
o 2 measures 6 months apart
o Measured
Global self-worth
Self-perceived peer social competence
Assertive self-efficacy
Aggressive self-efficacy
Peer assessments (via nomination inventories)
o Results
Self-regard, especially self-perceived social competence within the peer group contributes to victimisation in two ways:
• 1) a belief in not being able to interact effectively with one’s peers leads to an increase in victimisation over time irrespective of any behavioural problems
• 2) confidence in being able to interact with one’s peers protects behaviourally at-risk children from being victimised.
Low self-regard and abusive treatments are mutually reinforcing
• Types of Peer victimisation
o Physical
o Verbal
o Relational
o Cyber
• Early views of peer victimisation assumed…
that victimisation automatically leads to adverse results.
This was found to oversimplified
• Behavioural reactions to victimisation
o Passive victim (submissive, anxious)
o Provocative victim (attention seeking, argumentative)
• Peer factors in victimisation
o Status in peer group (disliked/rejected kids targeted)
o Minority status
Ethnicity, sexuality
o Few friends
o Poor quality friendships
• Family factors in victimisation
o Overprotection
o Enmeshed relationships
o Poor parent-child communication patterns
• School factors in victimisation
o Bullying not taken seriously
o Bystanders and victims do not feel supported when they report bullying
o No clear procedures for handling bullying
• Psychological outcomes of peer victimisation
o Depression
o Anxiety
o Low self-esteem
o Acting out
o School refusal and loneliness
o Suicide ideation
• Factors influencing depressive victimisation outcomes
o Barchia and Bussey examined the social cognitive processes that mediate the link between peer victimisation and depression.
o Children who are victimised more, ruminated more and this led to greater depression
• Attenuating factors in adjustment to peer victimisation
o Coping skills
Revenge, denial – less adjustment
Problem solve and seek support – better adjustment
• Coping self-efficacy
o Perceived capability to mobilise the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action needed to exercise control over negative events
• Two cognitive domains in peer victimisation
o Self-efficacy for avoiding self-blame
Keep from thinking, it only happens to me
o Victim role disengagement
Stop from taking personally, don’t allow negative comments to define them.
• Two behavioural domains
o Self-efficacy for proactive behaviour
Ask friends for advice
o Self-efficacy for avoiding aggressive behaviour
Avoid revenge and escalation, stay calm and reduce emotional arousal.
• Relationship of Coping self-efficacy to psychological outcomes
o The greater the level of victimisation the less able children were to use coping self-efficacy strategies
o The more that coping self-efficacy strategies were used, there was less evidence of anxiety, depression and acting out.
o Overall, the use of the cognitive self-efficacy strategies reduced children’s anxiety and depression and use of the behavioural self-efficacy strategy of avoiding aggressive led to less acting out
Sex differences in Aggression
o Physical aggression
Boys more likely than girls
o Verbal aggression
Boys more likely than girls
o Relational aggression
Boys and girls equally likely
o Direct/indirect aggression
o Crick et al (1996)
o Electronic/cyber aggression
Less frequent that other types of bullying
More depression associated with cyber bullying than with other forms of bullying
Definition of bullying
o A student is being bullied or victimised when he is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students. There needs to be an imbalance in power between the bully and bullied.
• Participant roles in bullying
o Bully
o Reinforcer of bully
o Assistant of bully
o Defender of victim/interveners
o Outsider
• Deficit explanations of aggressors and bullies
o Argued that highly aggressive children and bullies are ‘oafs’ who suffer from cognitive deficits and have a limited awareness of the effects on others of their aggressive interactions
• Counter deficit model explanation of bullies
o Rather than lacking awareness of the effect of their aggressive behaviours on others, it is suggested that they lack empathy and perspective taking skills to appreciate how their victims feel.
• An alternative model: Social cognitive model - Moral disengagement
o Selective activation and disengagement of internal control permits different types of conduct with the same moral standards
o Self-sanctions
Can be disengaged from detrimental conduct by re-construing the conduct, obscuring personal causal agency, misrepresenting or disregarding the injurious consequences of one’s actions, and vilifying the recipients of maltreatment by blaming and devaluing them.
o Mechanisms to morally disengage (you know the definition of all of these)
o Bullies and aggressive children score higher on moral disengagement than all other kids.
• Peer identified bullies reported more _________ and _______when taking the perspective of a hypothetical bully
o Indifference, pride - Menesini (2003)
• Peer identified bullies did not show deficits in ___ tasks nor did they perform more poorly in ____ ___ ____. Bullies reported high levels of ________
o ToM, identifying others’ emotions, moral disengagement - Gini (2006)
• Paciello (2008) Peer evaluations of aggression at 14 years predicted ______ ______ and _______ _______ at 20. Violence at 20 was also predicted from ________ ________ measured 6 yrs earlier.
o physical violence, verbal aggression, moral disengagement - Paciello (2008)
• Moral disengagement and cyber bullying
o Reason for the weaker linkage between cyber bullying and moral disengagement than between traditional bullying and moral disengagement may be due to the measure of moral disengagement
o Study found that those that had both self-efficacy to cyber bully and moral disengagement were predicted to engage in more cyber bullying.
o Moral disengagement strategies are needed to reduce cyber bullying and bullying more generally.
• Research implications for intervention in bullying
o Moral disengagement
Implement a whole school approach
Focus on the unacceptability of all forms of bullying
Targeted intervention
o Outcome expectations
Support bystanders to censure all forms of bullying
Finding alternative ways for bullies to gain peer acceptance.
• KiVa
o Professionally developed
o Internet based resources
o Stronger role to bystanders
