Children's Aggression in Dyadic Peer Relationships

John D. Coie

Duke University

Kenneth A. Dodge

Vanderbilt University

Antonius H.N. Cillessen and Julie A. Hubbard

Duke University

Peer relations researchers have paid little attention to the problem of aggressive dyadic relationships between children. This is surprising given that many of the long-term antisocial outcomes of childhood aggression involve aggression within dyads. For example, homicides most frequently occur during conflicts with an acquaintance or relative. Since early patterns of aggression are known to predict these later outcomes, it is proposed here that understanding of the processes involved in the early development of those dyadic aggressive outcomes can be enhanced through examination of the early dyadic relationships of children at risk.

The first purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid method of identifying aggressive dyadic relationships between children in the natural environment in the school. The second purpose of this study was to examine the social cognitions and behaviors of dyad members toward each other. Previous research has indicated that aggressive boys display a bias toward attributing hostile intent to peers in general and that the peer group tends to attribute hostile intent to aggressive boys. These hostile attributional biases have been hypothesized to lead to the maintenance and exacerbation of aggressive behavior. These previous findings, however, have sometimes been of smaller magnitude. We hypothesized that stronger links between attributions and aggression will be found when taking the dyadic context of interactions into account. We are currently testing the hypothesis that boys in mutually aggressive dyads in school are biased toward attributing hostile intent to their dyadic partners but not toward other peers with whom they have nonaggressive relationships. We will also investigate the subsequent temporal relationships between the dyad members' social cognitive biases and their actual aggressive behavior toward one another.

Using peers, teachers, and the self as multiple sources of information, we developed a method to reliably identify mutually aggressive, asymmetrically aggressive, and nonaggressive pairs of boys in a large sample of third graders. A subsample of 66 boys representing different dyad types then participated in a sequence of five experimental play group sessions in the laboratory in groups of six boys each. Children's social perceptions of one another were assessed in interviews following each session. Behavioral observations of videotaped play group interactions are currently being completed. Subsequently, the analyses linking children's hostile attributions and actual aggression in dyads over time will be conducted.