Date of Award:

5-2001

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Departmental Honors

Department:

Psychology

Committee Chair(s)

Tamara J. Ferguson

Committee

Tamara J. Ferguson

Abstract

Children in contemporary society can access all manner of aggressive content via the media, including violent television fare, video games that literally hone children's sharpshooting skills, and abusive pornography on the Internet. Fortunately, governments and concerned citizens worldwide have endeavored to control children's access by implementing various rating systems and devising security for certain sites on the Internet.

Unfortunately, there is a type of aggression portrayed in the media and in various video games to which the public has paid little attention. In fact, many people are not even aware of its existence, yet it may negatively impact children (and others) who are exposed to it. This newly identified type of aggression is termed "relational aggression," which may be defined as the intentional use of word or deed to hurt another's psychological and interpersonal welfare. Relational aggression is variously operationalized, but would include gossiping about another, back-biting a friend, or trying to manipulate relationships for one's own gain (Crick, 1996). Research shows that children who are victims of relational aggression are more likely to be depressed and anxious than non-victims (Craig, 1998). Furthermore, children who use relational aggression as a way of hurting people are more likely to be rejected by their peers and have problems socially in the future (Crick et al., 1999).

Past research has revealed the conditions under which viewing physical aggression on television can contribute to a child's level of aggression, both in the short- and longer-term (Donnerstein et al., 1994). However, not one study has examined whether the modeling of the more subtle and manipulative relational aggression increases children's tendencies to endorse this type of behavior as a means of achieving their goals. One goal of my honor's research project is to provide initial evidence regarding this issue: Do children who are exposed to relational aggression tend to endorse this class of behavior as a means of resolving social problems? My project will additionally examine whether children who are known to be relationally aggressive show a greater tendency to report that relationally aggressive responses, such as those viewable in popular children's television shows, gain them different types of rewards, such as peer approval, tangible rewards, removal of negative stimuli, and gains in self-esteem (Boldizar et al., 1989). I will also examine whether there might be a gender difference in the expectation of different rewards for relational aggression. In particular, I will test the hypothesis that although boys expect greater rewards for physical aggression, girls expect greater rewards for relational aggression.

Children (n = 214) in grades 4 and 5 watched either a video depicting relational aggression or one in which no aggression was depicted. They then completed two instruments designed to assess their tendencies to endorse relationally aggressive responses and to expect various types of rewards for different types of aggression. Teachers of the children offered nominations of which children in the class engaged in prosocial behaviors or various forms of aggression.

An initial pass through the results revealed several interesting and sometimes surprising findings. Compared to children who had seen the relationally aggressive video, those who had viewed the nonaggressive video actually later reported that verbal or physical aggression would result in more tangible rewards. Several explanations were offered for this "suppression" effect, including characteristics of the relationally aggressive video clip, demand characteristics, reactance effects, and failures to expose children to a long-term dose of relationally aggressive models. Interestingly, though, those children that teachers had nominated as aggressive did endorse more relationally aggressive ways of resolving conflicts in the relationally aggressive video condition compared to the control condition. It was concluded that children who were aggressive before the video exposure might already have aggressive scripts stored in memory, which were made accessible by viewing the relationally aggressive video. This is thus evidence for the significant role of "person" factors explaining violent media viewing effects. Finally, the stereotypical view that boys would endorse more aggression than girls was not confirmed. Gender differences in children's aggressive attitudes were complex and are in need of further study.

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