Children--Attitudes

Children nominated same-sex, same-grade peers on aggression, victimization, friendship, and behavioral characteristics. Results showed that aggressive children did not have fewer friends, but did have more enemies than nonaggressive children. Victimized children had fewer friends and more enemies than nonvictimized children. It was also shown that aggressive children's friends are also aggressive and victimized children's friends are other victims. Children who were both aggressive and victimized were perceived as the most disruptive and least liked of all children. It was found that children's friends are indeed similar to them while their enemies are dissimilar.

This thesis explored relationships between aggression
in elementary school children and two classes of social
cognitions that might influence children's decisions about
whether to behave aggressively. A first study compared
aggressive and nonaggressive children's perceptions of
their abilities to perform aggression and related behaviors
(or their "perceptions of self-efficacy" for the.:se behaviors).
Compared to nonaggressive children, aggressive subjects
reported that it is easier to perform aggression and more
difficult to inhibit aggression, but they did not differ in
reported ease of performing prosocial behavior or engaging
in verbal persuasion. A second study compared aggressive
and nonaggressive children's beliefs about the reinforcing
and punishing consequences of aggression (or their "response-outcome
expectations"). Aggressive children were more
confident that aggression would produce tangible rewards
and reduce aversive treatment. It was suggested that cognitive
models of aggression, such as that proposed by Dodge, may
profit from inclusion of concepts from cognitive social
learning theory.