Abstract
Adolescent girls often perpetrate aggression by gossiping and spreading rumours about others, by attempting to ruin relationships and by manipulating and excluding others. Further, males and females engage in reactive and proactive relational aggression differently. In this study, we examined the individual, peer and parental contextual factors that best explained the use of reactive and proactive relational aggression in girls. Female participants (n = 614; ages 11–18 years) completed questionnaires on aggression, callous-unemotional (CU) traits, delinquency, peer delinquency, gender composition of their peer group, resistance to peer influence and perceived parental overcontrol. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the effects of individual, peer- and parent-related variables on the likelihood of being classified as a low aggressor, reactive aggressor or proactive/reactive aggressor. Girls in the combined reactive/proactive aggression group were younger, had greater CU traits, a lower proportion of male peers and greater perception of parental control than both the reactive and low aggressive groups. Both highly aggressive groups were more delinquent and had greater peer delinquency than the low aggressive group. This study suggests those girls who show relational aggression for the purpose of gaining status and revenge feel restrained by their parents and may gravitate toward relationships that support their behaviour.
Highlights
Adolescent girls often perpetrate aggression by gossiping and spreading rumours about others, attempting to ruin relationships and manipulating and excluding others
By looking at factors known to relate to aggression for adolescent girls, such as individual characteristics, as well as environmental factors, we aim to examine the factors most associated with relational aggression for girls
In a large sample of high school girls from Cypriot schools, we examined individual-level characteristics consisting of delinquency, substance use and CU traits predicting relational aggression, while classifying girls by their use of reactive and proactive relational aggression
Summary
Adolescent girls often perpetrate aggression by gossiping and spreading rumours about others, attempting to ruin relationships and manipulating and excluding others. For the past few decades, research has looked at the differences between people who use physical forms of aggression and those who use more indirect or relational forms of aggression [1,2]. Girls who used high levels of relational forms of aggression showed the worst adjustment problems; this was notwithstanding the level of physical aggression they displayed [2]. Girls who used high levels of relational aggression showed low levels of caring and empathy toward others, characteristics associated with a callous-unemotional (CU; i.e., lack of remorse or empathy, callous use of others, shallow or deficient emotions) interpersonal style [2,5]. Adolescent girls who gossip and work to ruin relationships by freezing people out may show adjustment problems, and, this may depend on their reasons for using relational aggression. Relational aggression, on its own, may be important to look at in girls, because these aggressive tactics appear to negatively affect girls more than they affect boys
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