Is teacher preference associated with aggressive behavior among Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of peer rejection and rejection sensitivity

Few studies have explored the potential impact of teacher preferences on students' peer relationships and their broader psycho-behavioral growth from the perspective of classroom peer ecology. To remedy this research gap, this study hypothesized and tested a serial mediation model in which teacher preference is related to adolescents' aggressive behavior via the indirect paths of forming peer rejection and shaping rejection sensitivity. Using a longitudinal design, two-wave data were obtained from 2270 Chinese adolescents (initial age = 13.93 ± 0.59, 50.7% boys) over 6 months. The results revealed that teacher preference was negatively associated with aggressive behavior in adolescents, and the mediation model indicated peer rejection and rejection sensitivity served as serial mediators between this link. Additionally, the current study examined the unique affiliations of anxiety and anger about rejection with aggressive behavior respectively, with results supporting them as distinct constructs and highlighting the significance of research integrating both forms of rejection sensitivity. Differences were also identified regarding the role of anxious rejection sensitivity in predicting proactive and reactive aggressive behaviors. The educational implications of these findings and directions for forthcoming research were discussed.

Reactive and Proactive Aggression among Children and Adolescents: A Latent Profile Analysis and Latent Transition Analysis

The present study aimed to explore children’s and adolescents’ profiles of reactive and proactive aggression and the stability of those profiles over a six-month period using latent profile analysis (LPA) and latent transition analysis (LTA). Data were collected at two measurement points from a sample of N = 1468 children and adolescents aged from 9 to 18 years. Results of LPA revealed three distinct profiles, labeled as “Severe Reactively and Proactively Aggressive (S-RA-PA)”, “Highly Reactively and Proactively Aggressive” (H-RA-PA), and “Moderately Low Reactively and Proactively Aggressive” (M-RA-PA). All profiles appeared to be relatively stable over six months, supporting their within-sample consistency. The most stable and largest profile was the “M-RA-PA” profile, while the least stable and smallest profile was the “S-RA-PA” profile. However, there was also some within-person variability in children’s and adolescents’ profile membership because almost 40–50% of the participants of the “S-RA-PA” and “H-RA-PA” profiles transitioned to another profile across six months. In contrast, more than 90% of the participants of the “M-RA-PA” profile remained in their profile. These results provide a dynamic picture of children’s and adolescents’ development of reactive and proactive aggression and bear several implications from a short longitudinal person-oriented perspective.

Epistemic Trust and the Emergence of Conduct Problems: Aggression in the Service of Communication

Fonagy and colleagues have recently proposed that deficits in the capacity for epistemic trust (i. e., the expectation that interpersonal communication is relevant to the addressee) are fundamental to psychopathology. In this paper, we consider the implications of this hypothesis for understanding the role of aggression in conduct disorder and conduct problems more generally. Our main proposal is to view conduct problems not only as reflecting dysregulation, but as an adaptation that allows communication with others who are (or are perceived to be) unreliable. Our formulation hinges on two propositions. The first one is to view aggression as a modality of communication adapted to scenarios in which the communicator expects the audience to have low epistemic trust in the communicator. The second idea is to conceptualize the failed "unlearning of aggression" as reflecting a lack of interest in maintaining one's reputation as a communicator, which in turn stems from a lack of epistemic trust in other communicators. In this paper, we discuss these ideas and examine how they may account for the developmental pathways that lead young people to develop conduct problems.

Prosocial behavior as a protective factor against peers' acceptance of aggression in the development of aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence

INTRODUCTION

Although peers' acceptance of aggression is a major risk for the development of aggressive behavior, not all individuals who are situated within an aggression approving peer group engage in aggression. The present longitudinal study examined prosocial behavior as a moderator of the link between peers' acceptance of aggression and individual physical aggression.

METHODS

The study used two waves of data of a large longitudinal study conducted in Germany. Self-reports of 1663 male and female children and adolescents aged between 10 and 20 years were used as measures for physical aggression, peers' acceptance of aggression, and prosocial behavior.

RESULTS

Latent moderated structural equation modeling revealed significant main effects of peers' acceptance of aggression at T1 and prosocial behavior at T1 on aggressive behavior at T2. Most importantly, a significant interaction between both constructs indicated that the increase in individual aggression with peers' acceptance of aggression depended on participants' level of prosocial behavior. Applying the Johnson-Neyman technique, peers' acceptance of aggression was found to promote aggression only for participants with low levels of prosocial behavior, but not for moderately or highly prosocial individuals.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that prosocial behavior has the propensity to attenuate the negative effect of peers' acceptance of aggression in the etiology of physical aggression in childhood and adolescence.