Social Perceptions, Behavioral Preferences, and Social Goals of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Boys

Julie A. Daumit, Antonius H.N. Cillessen, and

Julie A. Hubbard

Duke University

Social-cognitive processes play an important role in the explanation of children's aggressive behavior (Dodge, 1986). One important explanation for aggression focuses on children's hostile attributional biases. Aggressive children tend to select aggressive strategies in ambiguous situations because they expect a peer to behave aggressively towards them. It is the child's anticipation of aggression that provokes him or her to be aggressive (Dodge, 1980; Dodge & Frame, 1982; Dodge, Murphy, & Buchsbaum, 1984). While this explanation has been tested and validated, less attention has been given to other explanations of children's aggression. One additional hypothesis is that aggressive children are inaccurate self-perceivers; they may not see themselves as aggressive even though they know that peers do not like aggressive children (Kupersmidt, Patterson, & Griesler, 1987). The inaccurate perceptions prohibit aggressive children from self-monitoring their behavior appropriately and may prohibit them from altering their deviant behavior (Graziano, Leone, Muser, & Lautenschlager, 1987). Another additional hypothesis involves preferences for behavior. Aggressive children may be aggressive because they prefer rough, aggressive behaviors over more assertive or passive behaviors. A third possible way to explain the behavior of aggressive children is to examine their social goals (Parkhurst & Asher, 1985). Children who are frequently aggressive may care more about pursuing instrumental goals (e.g., obtaining a toy) than social goals (e.g., making a friend). The purpose of this paper is to test these three hypotheses focusing on children's self-perceptions, preferences for social behavior, and social goals.

Participants were 66 third-grade boys who participated in a series of play sessions and interviews in eleven groups of six familiar boys each. On the basis of the number of starts fights nominations received from classroom peers, 19 boys were classified as highly aggressive, and 47 boys were not aggressive. In order to assess the accuracy of self-perceptions, each child was rated by each of his peers on each of 11 behaviors and each child rated himself on the same behaviors. Accuracy scores will be computed by comparing self-perceptions with perceptions by peers. Behavioral preferences were assessed by asking each child to rate how much he liked a child who engaged in each behavior. To assess social goals, children were administered an instrument in which social conflict situations involving hypothetical peers were described. For each situation, children were asked to indicate whether they preferred a social goal (making a friend) or an instrumental goal (achieving a nonsocial goal).

Preliminary analyses revealed that aggressive boys did not perceive themselves as more aggressive than nonaggressive boys. However, the aggressive boys did perceive themselves as engaging in rough play more than nonaggressive boys. In terms of behavioral preferences, aggressive boys did not prefer aggression more than nonaggressive boys, but they did prefer being friendly towards peers significantly less than nonaggressive boys did. No significant differences were found between aggressive boys and nonaggressive boys in terms of their social goals. However, children's overall aggression in the classroom (based on peer nominations) correlated positively with the number of times they preferred an instrumental goal over a social goal. Further analyses will be conducted taking into account the accuracy of aggressive and nonaggressive children's self-perceptions.