AGGRESSIVE AND NONAGGRESSIVE BOYS' AND GIRLS' VALUATIONS OF THE OUTCOMES OF AGGRESSION

This research was designed to test the hypothesis that, compared to nonaggressive children and girls, aggressive children and boys would assign more value to the beneficial outcomes of aggression and less value to the detrimental outcomes of aggression. A secondary goal of the research was to orthogonally examine the effects of subject sex and target sex on children's cognitions about the outcomes of aggression, as these two factors have been confounded in previous studies by asking children to report cognitions about aggressing against a same-sex target. Eighty-eight subjects were selected from the third through sixth grades to represent equal numbers of aggressive and nonaggressive boys and girls. The valuation questionnaire to which children responded consisted of six domains of consequences presented in vignettes in which the child is asked to imagine that s/he has been provoked by a classmate and is thinking about aggressing against that peer. The outcome domains were derived from social learning theory and included tangible rewards, status concerns, retaliation concerns, victim suffering, peer disapproval, and negative self-evaluation. Results confirmed the hypotheses that, compared to nonaggressive children and girls, aggressive children and boys cared more about the beneficial status gains of aggression and less about retaliation, victim suffering, peer disapproval, and negative self-evaluations. In addition, subject sex effects were not diminished by the orthogonal manipulation of target sex, although male targets did elicit greater concerns about retaliation and tangible rewards. A subject sex by target sex interaction suggested, however, that concerns about aggressive outcomes were more pronounced with same-sex targets, especially for boys. Finally, a second, shorter questionnaire explored possible relationships between outcome valuations and expectations by asking children to rate both the importance and likelihood of each of the six domains of consequences in four additional vignettes. Results indicated some differences among aggressive and nonaggressive boys and girls in the extent to which the ratings were correlated, suggesting that a more complete understanding of the social cognitive mediators of aggression in children might be gained from independent assessment of both outcome valuations and expectations.