Reparative Prosocial Behavior Difficulties across Childhood Predict Poorer Social Functioning and Depression in Adolescence

Dissecting shared pain representations to understand their behavioral and clinical relevance

Accounts of shared representations posit that the experience of pain and pain empathy rely on similar neural mechanisms. Experimental research employing novel analytical and methodological approaches has made significant advances in both the identification and targeted manipulation of such shared experiences and their neural underpinnings. This revealed that painful experiences can be shared on different representational levels, from pain-specific to domain-general features, such as negative affect and its regulation. In view of direct links between such representations and social behaviors such as prosocial behavior, conditions characterized by aberrant pain processing may come along with heavy impairments in the social domain, depending on the affected representational level. This has wide potential implications in light of the high prevalence of pain-related clinical conditions, their management, and the overuse of pain medication. In this review and opinion paper, we aim to chart the path toward a better understanding of the link between shared affect and prosocial behavior.

The association between peer rejection and aggression types: A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Although previous studies have assessed the association between peer rejection and aggression, the results are mixed.

OBJECTIVE

This article presents a meta-analysis of the association between peer rejection and aggression types (overt vs. relational) among children and adolescents.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

A total of 61 eligible studies with 70 independent effect sizes were included in the analysis (45,966 participants, M_age = 10.34, SD = 3.13).

METHODS

First, random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to explore the association between peer rejection and aggression types (overt vs. relational). Next, moderation analyses were conducted based on the Q statistics for categorical variables (culture, reporting method of peer rejection, reporting method of aggression) and the meta-regression analyses for continuous variable (age).

RESULTS

Peer rejection was positively correlated with overall aggression (r = 0.42, 95 % CI [0.38, 0.47], p < 0.001), overt aggression (r = 0.46, 95 % CI [0.38, 0.54], p < 0.001) and relational aggression (r = 0.43, 95 % CI [0.35, 0.51], p < 0.001). This correlation was positive for each type when controlling for other form of aggression. Moderation analyses suggested that reporting method of aggression (self-report vs. peer-nomination vs. adult-report vs. observation), reporting method of peer rejection (self-report vs. peer-nomination vs. adult-report) and culture (collectivist vs. individualist) were moderators of the association between peer rejection and overall aggression. Culture moderated the association between peer rejection and overt aggression, while age moderated the association between peer rejection and relational aggression.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings showed a strong positive association between peer rejection and aggression, although this association varied by aggression type and other moderating variables.

Failure to fail: Fear of retribution or a response to neglecting the learner?

Rudland and Rennie comment on Swails et al.'s observation that staff are failing fewer learners, offering reflection on the impact neglecting a learner may have on educator decisions if the failure to fail phenomenon is considered.