5 - Motivational approaches to aggression within the context of peer relationships

Summary

For children in school, aggressive behavior often has adverse social and academic consequences. Aggressive behavior negatively impacts upon classroom functioning, as such behavior can be quite disruptive to the learning environment, both for the individual and for the class as a whole. Children who are aggressive are significantly more likely than their peers to engage in off-task, disruptive classroom behavior, and this behavior has been linked to these children experiencing academic difficulties (Coie & Krehbiel, 1984). In addition, aggressive behavior is highly visible and contributes greatly to these children earning an unfavorable image with their teachers and peers (Coie & Koeppl, 1990). Indeed, children who are excessively aggressive, hostile, and disruptive tend to be actively disliked, or rejected, by their peers (Coie, Dodge, & Kupersmidt, 1990).

It is important to note that peer rejection is associated with a variety of negative consequences for school children, including higher levels of loneliness and social dissatisfaction (Asher, Parkhurst, Hymel, & Williams, 1990) and problems with school transitions both into kindergarten (Ladd & Price, 1987) and junior high (Berndt, 1987). Furthermore, children who are rejected by their peers are more likely to drop out of school, to engage in criminal activity, and to suffer from mental health problems (Kupersmidt, Coie, & Dodge, 1990; Parker & Asher, 1987). Interestingly, however, peer acceptance and aggression show somewhat different relations to school drop-out and criminality. Specifically, whereas low peer acceptance is more predictive of dropping out of school than of criminality, aggressiveness is more predictive of later criminality than of dropping out of school (Parker & Asher, 1987).