Developmental trends and sex differences in aggression. Discuss the factors which are associated with aggression during childhood and adolescence

Question 1

How would you structure this essay?

Answer 1

1. Structure
2. Define aggression
3. Developmental trends in aggression

4 Gender differences in aggression

5. Factors associated with aggression in childhood and adolescence
6. Conclusion

Question 2

What two subheadings would you include under factors associated with aggression in childhood and adolescence?

Answer 2

1. cultural and subcultural factors associated with aggression
2. interparental conflict as a factor associated with aggression

Question 3

According to the most widely accepted definition, an aggressive act is …

Answer 3

any form of behaviour designed to harm or injure a living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment (Dodge, Coie, and Lynam, 2006.

Question 4

Aggressive acts are often divided into two categories:

Answer 4

hostile aggression and instrumental aggression.

Question 5

What qualifies as hostile aggression?

Answer 5

If a person’s ultimate goal is to harm a victim

Question 6

What is instrumental aggression?

Answer 6

Aggression is considered to be instrumental in those situations in which one person harms another as a means to some other end (e.g. taking a sibling’s toy)

Question 7

The character of children’s aggression changes dramatically with X

Answer 7

age

Question 8

In her classic study of the development of aggression among pre-schoolers…

Answer 8

Florence Goodenough (1931) asked mothers of 2-5 year olds to keep diaries in which they recorded the details of their children’s angry outburst.

Question 9

What did Goodenough (1931) find in examing the data?

Answer 9

1. That unfocused temper tantrums become less and less common between ages 2 and 3 as children began to physically retaliate when playmates frustrated or attached them
2. However, physical aggression gradually declined between ages 3 an 5, only to be replaced by teasing, tattling, name-calling and other forms of verbal aggression
3. Goodenough found that conflict was most often over toys and other possessions, indicating that their aggression was usually instrumental in nature.

Question 10

A more recent study sought to characterise the developmental change in physical aggression across the span from toddlerhood to middle childhood. Who conducted it? Describe it?

Answer 10

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2004

This study used mothers’ reports of the children’s levels of physical aggression, assessed each year from when their children were 2 years old to when they were 9 years old, and 1,195 children were included in the study.

Question 11

What did the 2004 NICHD Early Child Care Research Network study that sought to characterise the developmental change in physical aggression from toddlerhood to middle childhood find?

Answer 11

Consistent with Goodenough’s findings, most of the children in the study declined in physical aggression over the preschool years.

The study also identified 5 different patterns of developmental change across toddlerhood and middle childhood.

The vast majority of the children (70%) were rated by their mothers as low in aggression across the entire study period. 27% of the sample were rated as moderate in physical aggression during some point in the study. Quite striking was a small group of children (3%) who displayed high levels of physical aggression that remained stable across the entire study period.

Question 12

How many patterns of developmental change across toddlerhood and middle childhood did the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004 study find?

Answer 12

5

Question 13

What % of children in the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004 study were rated by their mothers as low in aggression across the entire study period?

Answer 13

70%

Question 14

What % of children in the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004 study were rated by their mothers as moderate in aggression at some point during the study period?

Answer 14

27%

Question 15

What % of children in the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004 study were rated by their mothers as high in aggression during the entire study period?

Answer 15

3%

Question 16

What can you conclude from the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2004 study? 3 sentences

Answer 16

It appears that some level of physical aggression is relatively normal in early toddlerhoodm but for most children this type of aggression is relatively rare by middle childhood.

Only a small group of children appear to have problems with displays of physical aggression that remain relatively stable into middle childhood and that may be a cause for concern in their development

Over the course of middle childhood, the overall incidence of physical and verbal aggression usually declines as children learn to settle most disputes in an amicable way

Question 17

Over the course of middle childhood, the overall incidence of physical and verbal aggression usually declines as…

Answer 17

children learn to settle most disputes in an amicable way.

Question 18

Although the trends described above hold for both boys and girls, data from more than 100 countries reveal that …

Answer 18

that boys and men are more physically and verbally aggressive on average than girls or women - it is thought that their higher levels of testosterone may contribute to sex differences in aggression (Harris, 1992).

Question 19

What is thought to contribute to higher levels of male aggression? Says who?

Answer 19

Higher levels of testosterone

Harris, 1992

Question 20

What do recent studies reveal in relation to gender differences in aggression between young boys and girls?

Answer 20

Recent studies reveal that very young boys are not more aggressive than girls

Question 21

Recent studies reveal that very young boys are not more aggressive than girls. For example… 3 sentences

Answer 21

Marlene Caplan and colleagues (1991) found that forceful aggressive resolution of disputes over toys were actually more numerous among 1 year olds when the play groups were dominated by girls.

Even at age 2, groups dominated by boys were more likely that those dominated by girls to neotiate and share when toys were scarce.

It is not until age 2.5-3 that sex differences in aggression are reliable

Question 22

It is not until age 2.5-3 that sex differences in aggression are reliable - enough time for…

Answer 22

gender typing to have steered boys and girls in different directions

(fagot, leinbach, O’Boyle, 1992)

Question 23

What social influences might conspire to make boys more aggressive than girls?

Answer 23

1. Parents play rougher with boys than with girls, and react more negatively to the aggressive behaviours of daughters than to those of sons
2. The toy guns, tanks etc. that boys often receive encourage the enactment of aggressive themes and actually promote aggressive behaviour (Watson and Peng, 1992)

Question 24

During the preschool years, children come to view aggression as..

Answer 24

a male attribute in their gender schemas

Question 25

By middle childhood, boys expect aggressive acts to…

Answer 25

provide them with more tangible benefits and to elicit less disapproval from either parents or peers than girls do (Hertzberger and Hall, 1993).

Question 26

So even though biological factors may contribute, it is clear that…

Answer 26

sex differences in aggression depend to no small extent on gender typing and gender differences in social learning.

Question 27

Finally, some investigators today believe that boys may appear so much more aggressive than girls do because …

Answer 27

researchers have focused on overt aggressive behaviours and have failed to consider covertly hostile acts that may be more common among girls than boys.

Question 28

What factors associated with aggression in childhood and adolescence will we look at?

Answer 28

1. Cultural and subcultural factors

2. Interparental conflict

Question 29

Cross-cultural and ethnographic studies consistently indicate that …

Answer 29

some societies and subcultures are more violent and aggressive than others

Question 30

Peoples such as the [blank] and the [blank] all use weapons to hunt, but rarely show any kind of interpersonal aggression. When these peaceful societies are invaded by outsiders…

Answer 30

Arapesh of New Guinea

Pygmies of central Africa

, their members retreat to inaccessible regions rather than stand and fight (Gorer, 1968).

Question 31

What group is a market contrast to the Arapesh of New Guinea and the Pygmies of central Africa? Tell me about them.

Answer 31

The Gebusi of New Guinea, who teach their children to be combative and emotionally unresponsive to the needs of others and who show a murder rate that is more than 50 times higher than that of any industrialised nation (Scott, 1992)

Question 32

The US is also an aggressive society - elaborate.

Answer 32

on a percentage basis, the incidence of rape, homicide and assault is higher in the US than in any other industrialised nation.

Question 33

Studies conducted in the US and England also point to [blank differences in aggression. Explain.

Answer 33

social-class

children and adolescents from lower socioeconomic strata (SES), particularly males from larger urban areas, exhibit more aggressive behaviour and higher levels of delinquency than their age-mates from the middle class (MacMillan et al. 2004).

Question 34

Studies conducted in the US and England also point to social-class differences in aggression: children and adolescents from lower socioeconomic strata (SES), particularly males from larger urban areas, exhibit more aggressive behaviour and higher levels of delinquency than their age-mates from the middle class (MacMillan et al. 2004). Why?

Answer 34

These trends appear to be closely linked to social class differences in child rearing.

Question 35

Studies conducted in the US and England also point to social-class differences in aggression: children and adolescents from lower socioeconomic strata (SES), particularly males from larger urban areas, exhibit more aggressive behaviour and higher levels of delinquency than their age-mates from the middle class (MacMillan et al. 2004). These trends appear to be closely linked to social class differences in child rearing. Give 3 examples

Answer 35

For example, parents from lower SES families are more likely that middle SES parents to rely on physical punishment to discipline aggression and defiance, thereby modelling aggression even as they try to suppress it.

Low SES parents are also more inclined to endorse aggressive solutions to conflict and to encourage their children to repond forcefully when provoked by peers - such practices may foster the development of the hostile attributional bias that highly aggressive children often display.

Finally low SES parents often live in complex and stressful lives that may make it difficult for them to manage or monitor their children’s whereabouts and activities and choice of friends. Unfortunately, this lack of parental monitoring is consistently associated with aggressive and delinquent behaviour.

Question 36

In sum, a person’s aggressive and antisocial inclinations depend, in part, on the extent to which the X or Y condones or fails to discourage such behaviour.

Answer 36

culture

subculture

Question 37

However, it is notable that not all people in pacifistic societies are kind, cooperative and helpful, and the vast majority of people raised in ‘aggressive’ societies or subcultures are not expecially prone to violence. Why are there such dramatic indicidual differences in aggression within a givin culture or subculture?

Answer 37

Individual differences in the family system may provide some answers

Question 38

A growing body of evidence indicates that [blank] has a negative effect on children.

Answer 38

interparental conflict

Question 39

A growing body of evidence indicates that interparental conflict has a negative effect on children. Indeed, longitudinal studies reveal …

Answer 39

that even after controlling for earlier levels of child conduct problems, increases over time in parental conflict predict similar increases in children’s and adolescent’s aggression and other behavioural problems (Davies and Cummings, 2006).

Question 40

Children are especially likely to be affected by interparental conflict when parents show a pattern of …

Answer 40

attacking and then withdrawing from one another so that children are not exposed to amicable and satisfactory resolutions of heated conflicts (Katz and Woodin, 2002).

Question 41

Further, high levels of interparental conflict are likely to result in the parents becoming emotionally unavailable to their children, thus displaying aspects of behaviour that …

Answer 41

are associated with the development of aggressive behaviour (Sturge-Apple et al., 2006).

Question 42

Finally, distressed children in conflict-ridden homes come to display …

Answer 42

blunted physiological reactivity to parental conflict that may reflect a means of disengaging from or shutting out the unpleasant interparental conflict.

Question 43

Finally, distressed children in conflict-ridden homes come to display blunted physiological reactivity to parental conflict that may reflect a means of disengaging from or shutting out the unpleasant interparental conflict. However, this …

Answer 43

this decrease in physiological reactivity is a reliable predictor of conduct problems (Davies et al., 2007).

Question 44

Why is decreased reactivity a reliable predictor of conduct problems?

Answer 44

Why decreased reactivity to stress forecasts future aggressive behaviour is not well understood, but one speculation is that these less arousable children may have difficulty acquiring and marshalling the social skills and other adaptive behaviours that might enable them to make close friends and settle disputes amicably with peers.