Status Differences in Target-Specific Prosocial Behavior and Aggression

Longitudinal relationship between adolescent emotional self-regulation and prosocial behavior toward powerful people: Disentangling between-person differences from within-person effects

INTRODUCTION

This study investigated the longitudinal effects between adolescent emotional self-regulation and prosocial behavior toward powerful people (i.e., actions aimed at benefiting or supporting individuals who hold significant influence or authority within a group or society), based on the perspective of positive socialization cycle.

METHODS

We recruited 543 Chinese adolescents (284 girls, M age at Time 1 = 11.27 years) and collected three waves of data over 3 years, each approximately 1 year apart (n Time 2 = 449, n Time 3 = 417). Traditional cross-lagged panel model was conducted to test the longitudinal relationship between emotional self-regulation and prosocial behavior toward powerful people. Then, a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was performed to disentangle the between-person differences from the within-person predictive processes.

RESULTS

The results showed that, emotional self-regulation in the previous year was positively associated with prosocial behavior toward powerful people in the next year, whereas earlier prosocial behavior toward powerful people was not predictive of subsequent emotional self-regulation.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings advocate the domain-specific nature of self-regulation and prosocial behavior and deepen our understanding of the relationship between the two from the culture-specific perspective. This study also highlights the value of emotional self-regulation intervention as a viable way to promote adolescent prosocial development. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.

The interplay between popularity and aggression in adolescence: Focusing the lens on sense of power and prestige

There is accumulating longitudinal evidence that popularity predicts relative increases in adolescents' aggression. Yet, we know very little about the conditions that motivate popular youth to engage in coercive behaviors. In this study, we evaluated whether popular adolescents would show elevated levels of aggression over time when they felt powerless and had low prestige (respect and admiration) among their peers. In addition, we examined whether popular youth would gain a greater sense of power and prestige over time via aggressive means. Participants were 419 fifth (MagetT1 = 10.91 years, SD = 0.42) and eighth graders (MagetT1 = 13.95 years, SD = 0.43) who participated twice over a 1-year interval. Popularity was measured at Time 1, while the other central constructs, such as direct forms of aggression, sense of power and prestige, were assessed at Times 1 and 2. Our findings demonstrate that aggression might be a threat-triggered response by popular youth to protect their ego and/or resolve the discrepancy between their position in the hierarchy and what that role should afford them. Moreover, popular youth feel the greatest sense of power over time when they abstain from resorting to aggressive means. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Clique Hierarchy Moderates the Association between Social Preference and Defending Behaviors in Early Adolescence: The Role of Gender Differences

Although social preference promotes adolescents' defending behaviors, its potential mechanisms across gender cliques remain unclear from the group dynamic perspective. This study investigated 2470 Chinese early adolescents (49% girls, Mage = 14.40, SD = 0.58) to explore how social preference and clique hierarchy are associated with defending behaviors and whether these associations differ across gender-specific cliques. The results revealed that social preference was positively related to defending behaviors in boys' cliques, but negatively in girls' cliques. Furthermore, the association was strengthened by hierarchization in boys' cliques but was weakened in girls' cliques, while the status structure strengthened the association in boys' but not girls' cliques. These findings hold crucial implications for understanding and promoting defending behaviors among adolescents.

The Development and Preliminary Validation of a Measure of Victimization within the Friendships of Emerging Adults

For emerging adults, high-quality friendships can be an important source of companionship and support. The most commonly studied negative interaction between friends is conflict, yet work with youth suggests more serious victimization also occurs in friendship. In the current study, we developed and obtained preliminary psychometric evidence for the Friendship Victimization Scale, a measure that assesses physical, sexual, relational, and verbal forms of victimization in the friendships of emerging adults, as well as coercive and controlling behaviors. Emerging adults (N = 316, Mage = 21.27 years, SD = 1.47; 60.4% women, 37.0% men; 59.2% White) completed the Friendship Victimization Scale along with measures to examine construct validity. The majority of the sample reported experiencing at least one act of victimization by a friend, and men reported more victimization than did women. Results supported a 2-factor structure, with relational and verbal victimization loading on one factor and physical and sexual victimization and controlling behaviors loading on the other. Cronbach's alphas exceeded .90 for the total score and both subscales. Greater friendship victimization was predicted by negative features in each of a best and a challenging friendship, even after accounting for negative features in a dating relationship, and was unrelated to positive features in any of these relationships. Overall, results indicate that victimization is common in emerging adults' friendships. The findings provide preliminary evidence for the utility of the Friendship Victimization Scale as a measure of this understudied source of risk in the interpersonal lives of emerging adults.

Bidirectional Associations of Prosocial Behavior with Peer Acceptance and Rejection in Adolescence

As most studies on the link between peer status and prosocial behavior are cross-sectional, conducted with children, and operationalize status as the difference between acceptance and rejection, it remains unclear whether peer acceptance and rejection are consequences or prerequisites of prosocial behavior in adolescence. To fill this gap, this study examines the bidirectional associations of prosocial behavior with peer acceptance and peer rejection with data collected at 3 time points, 6 months apart, in a sample of 660 early Chilean adolescents (M = 12.94, SD = 0.62; 55.1% boys). Cross-lagged panel analyses showed that prosocial behavior positively predicted future peer acceptance, whereas peer acceptance had no significant effect on future prosocial behavior. The association between rejection and prosocial behavior was negative and bidirectional between Time 1 and Time 2. When a new academic year began, between Time 2 and Time 3, prosocial behavior negatively predicted rejection, whereas rejection in the previous grade level was positively associated with prosocial behavior at the beginning of the next grade. Multi-group panel analyses did not detect significant differences between boys and girls in the cross-lagged associations of prosociality with peer acceptance and peer rejection. The results suggest that acting prosocially can make adolescents better liked by their peers and highlight the possible importance of the transition to a new academic year for the prosocial behavior of previously rejected students. Implications for future research on peer relations are discussed.

Identifying Relationally Aggressive Students: How Aligned are Teachers and Peers?

Relational aggression is characterized by attempts to damage another's relationships or social status and is a major concern affecting academic, socioemotional, behavioral, and health outcomes, particularly for urban, minority youth. Teachers and peers frequently disagree about which students are relationally aggressive. Factors associated with peer and teacher discordant and concordant identification of relationally aggressive students were explored including prosocial behavior, perceived popularity, academic competence, and gender. Participants included 178 3rd-5th grade students across 11 urban classrooms. Findings revealed that students were more likely to be rated as relationally aggressive by their peers but not their teacher as scores on peer nominations for prosocial behavior decreased, while teacher-rated academic motivation/participation increased. Female students were more likely to be concordantly identified by peers and teachers as relationally aggressive when ratings for overt aggression increased. These results highlight the utility of obtaining ratings from multiple informants as well as the difficulty in accurately identifying all students who may benefit from interventions targeting relational aggression. Findings also suggest factors that may be related to the potential shortcomings of current measures and provide avenues for additional research to improve detection of relationally aggressive students.

Preference and popularity as distinct forms of status: A meta-analytic review of 20 years of research

INTRODUCTION

A systematic meta-analysis was conducted of the association between preference and popularity across childhood and adolescence. The role of development, sex, and region of the world were examined.

METHOD

The analysis was conducted on 135 samples including 136,014 participants. The samples were divided by age (upper grades primary school, k = 41; lower grades secondary school, k = 72; upper grades secondary school, k = 22) and region (North America, k = 54; Europe, k = 66; China, k = 10).

RESULTS

Across all samples, a moderate positive association between preference and popularity was found (r = 0.45). The association was significantly weaker in the upper grades of secondary school (r = 0.37) than in the lower grades of secondary school (r = 0.47) or the upper grades of primary school (r = 0.47). The association was weaker for girls (r = 0.26) than for boys (r = 0.38) in the upper grades of secondary school. The association was weaker in European samples (r = 0.41) than in those from North America (r = 0.50) and China (r = 0.57).

CONCLUSIONS

The results confirmed that preference and popularity are related but distinct dimensions of adolescent peer status. The association differed significantly by age, sex, and region of the world. Further research should examine additional factors that explain the variability in the association between preference and popularity.

Situationally Selective Activation of Moral Disengagement Mechanisms in School Bullying: A Repeated Within-Subjects Experimental Study

With reference to social-cognitive theory, the aim of the present study was to examine whether school students' tendency to display different moral disengagement mechanisms varies according to different social cues in hypothetical events in which they are engaged in bullying behavior. A repeated within-subjects experimental design was adopted. A total of 706 Swedish students (aged 10-20) from 75 classrooms responded to four verbal bullying vignettes by filling out a self-report survey. The results showed changes in moral disengagement mechanisms across the bullying situations. For instance, moral justification, victim blaming, and dehumanization scored higher in the mean victim condition and lower in the likable victim condition than in the other two conditions. Diffusion of responsibility was higher in the group conformity condition than in the other conditions. The findings also revealed differences in the levels of moral disengagement mechanisms within the bullying conditions. For example, euphemistic labeling and displacement of responsibility scored higher than the other mechanisms in the laughing audience condition. Victim blaming scored higher than the other mechanisms in the mean victim condition. Dehumanization, victim blaming, and moral justification scored lowest while euphemistic labeling was higher than most of the other mechanisms in the likable victim condition.

Prospective Associations between Popularity, Victimization, and Aggression in Early Adolescence

Recent research has highlighted an understudied phenomenon in the peer victimization literature thus far: the overlap between high status (i.e., popularity) and victimization. However, the research on this phenomenon has primarily been cross-sectional. The current investigation uses a longitudinal design to address two questions related to high-status victims. First, the present study examined prospective associations between popularity and two forms of indirect victimization (reputational victimization and exclusion). Second, this study examined elevated aggression as a consequence of high-status youth’s victimization (using self- and peer- reports of victimization). Participants were 370 adolescents (M_age = 14.44, range = 14.00–16.00; 56.5% girls) who were followed for 1 year. Both high and low levels of popularity were prospectively associated with reputational victimization. Moreover, popularity moderated the association between self-reported indirect victimization (but not peer-reported indirect victimization) and aggression. The results help build toward a more comprehensive understanding of both victimization and aggression in adolescence. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for a cycle of aggression in youth and the lowered effectiveness of bullying interventions in adolescence.

Brief report: Patterns of prosocial behaviors in middle childhood predicting peer relations during early adolescence

INTRODUCTION

Early adolescence is a developmental period in which peer victimization, bullying, relational aggression, and social exclusion are particularly prominent. As these behaviors have long-term implications for children, in this study, we investigated early variations of prosocial behaviors as one of the critical precedents that shape youth's subsequent peer relational outcomes. Specifically, we identified different profiles of prosocial behaviors in middle childhood (Grade 4) and related these profiles to peer relationships in early adolescence (Grade 6).

METHOD

Using longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 914; 52% girls), a three-step latent profile analysis was conducted on Grade 4 prosocial behaviors, which were then related to Grade 6 teacher- and student-rated peer relationships (e.g., relational aggression).

RESULTS

Four patterns of prosocial behaviors emerged: low prosocial (18%), high prosocial (67%), primarily friendly (8%), and primarily kind (7%). These four patterns of prosocial behaviors were differentially related to later problematic peer relationships: Low prosocial youth demonstrated the most problematic peer relationships (Mdiff = 0.36-0.93, all p < .001). Primarily friendly (but not kind) youth displayed more general and relational aggression (Mdiff = 0.22, SE = 0.07, p = .002; and Mdiff = 0.18, SE = 0.06, p = .006, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Both low prosocial and primarily friendly youth are at risk for displaying peer-related problems; interventions that build prosocial behaviors in youth with a low prosocial or primarily friendly profile may help prevent problematic peer relationships at early adolescence.

Is Inspiring Group Members an Effective Predictor of Social Dominance in Early Adolescence? Direct and Moderated Effects of Behavioral Strategies, Social Skills, and Gender on Resource Control and Popularity

Dominance in the peer group is important for adolescents. Resource Control Theory posits that both coercive and prosocial (positively assertive) strategies are associated with dominance. Combining Resource Control Theory with Socioanalytic Theory on personality, we hypothesized that inspiring group members would be an additional effective strategy. This study examined whether the three behavioral strategies and two types of social skills (social competence and manipulation) predicted dominance (resource control and popularity). Participants were 619 Dutch adolescents (M_age = 13.1; 47% female) in the first grade of secondary school. They completed peer reports (behavioral strategies and dominance) and self-reports (social skills). Only inspirational and coercive strategies substantially predicted dominance. Main effects of social skills emerged. Moderation between strategies and social skills was only observed for girls (e.g., coercive strategy use was associated with more popularity for girls with higher levels of social manipulation skills). This study furthered our understanding of the predictors of dominance in adolescence by including inspirational behavior and examining prosocial and antisocial skills.