Navigating Power, Control, and Being Nice: Aggression in Adolescent Girls' Friendships

Abstract

Female friendships (i.e., friendships among girls and women) are among the most important relationships that girls and women develop during their lifetimes. Gilligan (2003) proposed that women's morality and sense of self are based on connectedness and interdependence with others and that affiliation with and acceptance by other girls or women often become essential elements of identity. The process of establishing and maintaining friendships with other women is a crucial aspect of psychosocial development (Pipher, 2002), and as girls become adolescents, these relationships assume an increasing amount of importance, potentially assisting with adjustment and a sense of well-being. Research conducted during the last decade, however, suggests that girls are just as likely as boys to be aggressive in their friendships but that they use their social intelligence rather than physical aggression when in conflict. Girls, who tend to be more emotionally intimate in their friendships than boys, are able to use females' strong desire for connectedness as leverage against each other (Talbot, 2002). Unfortunately, relationally aggressive behavior can deprive girls of opportunities to meet their needs for friendship and emotional intimacy, both of which are important for their emotional health (Crick, Casas, & Nelson, 2002). Relational aggression (including socially and direct relationally aggressive behavior) can encompass a range of emotionally hurtful behaviors. Socially aggressive include gossiping; social exclusion, isolation, or alienation; writing notes or talking about someone; and stealing friends or romantic partners. Direct relationally aggressive behaviors, defined as the use of confrontational strategies to achieve interpersonal damage, include not talking to or hanging around with someone, deliberately ignoring someone, threatening to withdraw emotional support or friendship, and excluding someone from a group by informing her that she is not welcome (Xie, Swift, Cairns, & Cairns, 2002). Why do girls tend to use relational aggression when engaged in conflict? According to Bern (1981b), children rapidly learn and understand societal perspectives about gender and incorporate these views into their behavior. Girls with traditional feminine gender identities match their preferences, attitudes, behaviors, and personal attributes with traditional feminine gender schema (Bern, 1981b). Such gender role constructions (O'Neal & Egan, 1993) involve restricting the emotional expression of anger; this restriction may be extremely limiting for girls. Developing power through voicing one's feelings may result in hurting others (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1997). Girls are expected to maintain harmonious relationships with others, and if they are concerned about the potential negative impact of the expression of anger on others, they will likely temper their reactions (Hatch & Forgays, 2001). Thus, because directness and overt confrontation are not consistent with a feminine gender identity, girls adhering to such standards are forced to use more manipulative and covert means of expressing anger, resolving conflict, and establishing dominance (Bern, 1981b). It is interesting that because of the diversity among young women in the United States, it is not possible to fit them neatly into the construct of gender identity. There may be quite different socialization practices for White, middle- and upper-class adolescent girls than for adolescent girls of color from middle- and upper-class backgrounds. For example, African American adolescent girls may encounter familial socialization practices that proactively prepare them for dealing with oppression, prejudice, and overt and covert discrimination. Robinson and Howard-Hamilton (1994) discussed Afrocentric socialization strategies that assist an individual's ability to avoid internalizing negative societal messages that can foster unhealthy self-images and self-depreciatory behaviors (p. …