Prevention of Aggressive Behavior in Adolescents by Means of an Intervention Based on Implicit Theories of Personality
Phase: NA
Conditions: Dating Violence
Sponsor: University of Deusto

 
 
STUDY TITLE: 
THE EFFECT OF AN INTERVENTION BASED ON IMPLICIT THEORIES OF PERSONALITY ON 
THE PREVENTION OF ADOLESCENT DATING VIOLENCE 
 
 
PROJECT NUMBER: 
PI_2016_1_0023  
(Basque Government –Department of education, linguistic policy and culture; 
Scientific Policy Administration) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OCTOBER, 2016 
 
 
 
 
 

 
I. BACKGROUND 
Aggressive behavior during adolescence and specifically dating violence are 
psychosocial problems of crucial clinical and social relevance (Leen et al., 2013; 
Wincentak, Connolly, & Card, 2017). As children enter adolescence aggressions 
towards peers give way to other modalities such as dating violence. From a 
developmental perspective, the first adolescent dating relationships play a relevant 
role in shaping the general course of development during adolescence, influencing a 
variety of socioemotional processes and psychological health at this stage, as well as 
providing an initial platform for the establishment of adult healthy partner 
relationships (Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009; Furman & Shaffer, 2003). Therefore, 
preventing the development of aggressive behavior towards the partner in 
adolescence is invaluable. Unfortunately, although there are adequate interventions 
for preventing dating violence, results for the majority of the previous universal 
interventions have been poor in terms of behavioral change (Shorey et al., 2012; 
Whitaker et al., 2006).  
The current study will test the efficacy of an Implicit Theory of Personality (ITP) 
intervention, which has provided excellent results in US both for externalizing 
problems such as aggressive behavior. Therefore, this study aims to extend this 
intervention to Spanish adolescents to explore its effect on the prevention of 
adolescent dating violence. The project includes multiple sources of information: self-
reports, parent-reports, and biological data. Thus, the project will contribute from a 
biopsychosocial and interdisciplinary perspective to the development of universal 
preventive interventions for intimate partner violence, an important psychological 
problem in modern societies. 
I.1. Development of aggressive behavior and dating violence 
In the last years the rates of aggressive and antisocial behavior have increased in 
frequency and severity among children and adolescents (Connor, 2012). Although 
aggressive behavior decreases from childhood to adolescence, more serious forms of 
violence and deviant behavior tend to peak during this period (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 
2006). Therefore, adolescence is a period with increased danger of violence and 
deviant behavior. Furthermore, new forms of aggression (e.g., through new 
technologies) have emerged and have generated a great deal of attention. Besides, 
aggressive behavior is persistent over time and predicts later antisocial behavior 
(Farrington, 2007), thus it is very important to implement preventive interventions at 
childhood and adolescence.  
In particular, dating violence is an important and prevalent problem in 
adolescence worldwide (Leen et al., 2013; Wincentak et al.,  2017). The recent meta-
analytic review of teen dating violence prevalence rates by Wincentak and colleagues 
(2017) showed an overall rate of 20% and 9% for physical and sexual aggression, 

 
respectively. It has been proposed that this high prevalence of adolescent DV is related 
to the very nature of the developmental period of adolescence, which is characterized 
by a general pattern of breaking rules and engaging in different types of behaviors that 
are potentially hazardous to one’s health (Fernández-González, O’Leary, & Muñoz-
Rivas, 2014; Jessor, 1987; Zweig, Lindberg, & McGinley, 2001). Research on the 
trajectory of DV throughout adolescence has found that physical partner aggression 
peaks around the ages of 16 and 17 years (Foshee et al., 2009; Nocentini, Menesini, & 
Pastorelli, 2010). This peak age of DV during middle-to-late adolescence was also 
found in Spanish adolescents (Fernández-González et al., 2014). Teen dating 
relationships are characterized by a lesser level of commitment and a shorter length 
than romantic relationships in later stages (Wekerle & Wolfe, 1999). However, 
although at a lower level than in adult life, partner violence may be a moderately 
steady behavior during adolescence according to the findings of the few longitudinal 
studies that have examined partner aggression stability in teens (Choi & Temple, 2016; 
Fritz & Slep, 2009; O’Leary & Slep, 2003). Moreover, adolescents who are involved in 
violent dating relationships are at a higher risk for a number of psychological, social, 
academic and physical problems (Chiodo et al., 2012; Choi, Weston, & Temple, 2017; 
O’Leary, Slep, Avery-Leaf, & Cascardi, 2008). 
I.2. Preventive approaches to aggressive behavior and dating violence 
Several aggressive behavior multicomponent interventions with elements 
directed towards children and adolescents as well as towards their parents and 
teachers have been developed and have been found to be effective. Some noteworthy 
examples are the Coping Power (Lochman & Wells, 2002), the Fast Track (Conduct 
Problems Prevention Research Group, 2002), the Montreal Preventive Treatment 
Program (Tremblay, Masse, Pagani, & Vitaro, 1996) and the Incredible Years programs 
(Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008).  
Since the 90s, they have also been developed some programs specifically in the 
field of dating violence prevention (see for a revision Shorey et al., 2012; Whitaker et 
al., 2006). Some of the programs are aimed at at-risk populations, as for instance, 
adolescents that have been victims of child abuse. A noteworthy program in this area 
is the Youth Relationships Project (YRP; Wolfe et al., 2003). The YRP is a program 
composed of 18 sessions of 120 minutes that uses a health-promotion approach to 
prevent violence in dating relationships by focusing on positive alternatives to 
aggression. The intervention was intended for 14–16-year-olds who were considered 
at-risk of developing abusive dating relationships because of their history of child 
maltreatment (Wolfe et al., 2003). Universal preventive interventions aimed at the 
general population of adolescents have also been developed and assessed. Among 
these prevention programs, some deserve special attention because of their positive 
results. For instance, the Safe Dates Project (Foshee et al., 1998; Foshee et al., 2005) 

 
has been implemented and assessed in a large sample of adolecents in the United 
States, showing promising results in the prevention of dating violence. However, most 
of the programs developed until date have shown efficacy in modifying cognitions and 
attitudes related to dating violence, although behavioral changes have been reported 
in very few cases. In addition, although these programs have demonstrated to be 
useful, they are expensive in terms of duration and involvement of various actors 
(parents, schools, students).  
Need of universal brief interventions 
In recent years numerous short-term psychosocial interventions have been 
developed in educational settings with striking effects on several outcomes such as 
student performance, social integration, and psychological wellbeing (see for a revision 
Yeager & Walton, 2011). Rigorous field experiments have shown that the effects of 
such interventions persist for months or even years later. For example, Blackwell, 
Trzesniewski, and Dweek (2007) got to substantially improve school skills through an 
intervention based on implicit theories of intelligence, which consisted of showing that 
intelligence is modifiable and grows when the individual works with effort in 
challenging tasks. In another intervention, Walton and Cohen (2007, 2011) found that 
leading students to attribute worries about social integration to the difficulty of the 
transition to college rather than to students’ personal or racial identity can strengthen 
ethnic minority students’ sense of social belonging in school and increase motivation 
and performance. Furthermore, students who received the intervention reported 
being happier and healthier in a 3 years posttreatment follow up. 
These psychosocial interventions in school can be brief yet impactful because 
they rely on a rich tradition of research on persuasion and attitude change to 
powerfully convey psychological ideas (Yeager & Walton, 2011). The crucial elements 
that contribute to the success of these interventions are the focus on students’ 
experience in school from the students’ perspective and the use of impactful delivery 
mechanisms (Yeager & Walton, 2011). Some of these mechanisms are the following: a) 
Active role of students, which facilitates deeper message processing; b) Interventions 
are stealthy. For example, interventions are not presented to the students with the 
intent to improve performance or other attributes. Thus, students do not feel they are 
being manipulated so that resistance to intervention is reduced. This approach 
contributes also to avoid the stigmatization of students. Moreover, the brevity of the 
interventions also helps to be stealthy. c)  Psychosocial interventions have effects over 
long periods due to recursive processes affecting effects that accumulate over time. 
Students usually forget the message and the details of the intervention, but this 
recursive nature triggers other social, psychological and cognitive mechanisms over 
time. 

 
Implicit theory of personality (ITP) interventions for emotional and behavioral 
problems 
Recently, Yeager and colleagues have extended this type of brief interventions to 
prevent emotional and behavioral problems such as depression and aggressive 
behavior in adolescents.  Their approach is based on implicit theories of personality, 
which refer to the beliefs that people endorse about the malleability of people’s 
socially-relevant traits.  An entity theory of personality involves the belief that personal 
characteristics are fixed and cannot be changed whereas an incremental theory of 
personality involves the belief that people can change. Past research has found that 
when adolescents or adults believe that people’s traits are fixed and unchangeable, 
they are more likely to attribute a negative social event (e.g., peer victimization) to 
their negative traits. They also will tend to infer that the same negative events and 
other adversities will repeat in the future. Therefore, an entity theory of personality 
predicts greater shame and negative emotions in adolescents when they cope with 
stressors such as peer conflicts (Yeager, Trzesniewski, Tirri, Nokelainen, & Dweck, 
2011). By the contrary, if adolescents believe that traits can be changed, then their 
own traits can be improved so that it is unlikely that they become recipients of the 
same negative events in the future. Furthermore, other people’ traits, including those 
of bullies, can also change. Therefore, the beliefs involved in an incremental theory of 
personality can be helpful not only for victims but also for perpetrators of bullying. As 
additional support to this, Rudolph (2010) found that holding an entity theory of peer 
relationships was associated with a greater tendency to evaluate oneself negatively in 
the face of peer disapproval and display depressive and aggressive symptoms when 
victimized. 
Yeager and colleagues have developed brief interventions aimed to change 
entity theories by means of efficient and persuasive intervention tactics that are based 
on the above mentioned mechanisms. For instance, in one of these interventions, a 
six-session high school classroom intervention teaching an incremental theory reduced 
aggressive behavior by 40%, improved depressive symptoms two weeks post-
intervention, and increased school attendance (Yeager, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2013). 
Later, they tested the effects of a shorter intervention consisting of only one session. 
This single session touch an incremental theory via computers. In this session 9th grade 
students read a scientific article about the possibility of personality change, then they 
read quotes from older students transmitting the same message. Finally, the students 
wrote a brief essay where they defended the same idea with the aim of transmitting 
the message to other students in the future. Despite the brevity of this intervention, 
the results obtained by means of a double-blind randomized experiment showed that 
it reduced levels of self-reported clinically relevant depression (Miu & Yeager, 2014) 
and stress levels (Yeager et al., 2014).  

 
II. AIMS AND HYPOTHESES 
The principal aim is to evaluate the effect of an intervention based on Implicit 
Theories of Personality (ITP) on dating violence in a sample of Spanish adolescents. 
Grounded on the previous findings obtained in US samples, we will test the efficacy of 
the ITP intervention by comparing changes in dating violence and from pretreatment 
to posttreatment and at a six-month and one-year follow up between the group 
receiving the ITP intervention and a control group that will receive a control 
educational condition.  
Hypothesis: Those adolescents receiving the ITP intervention will show lower 
frequency of aggressive behavior than the control group after the intervention and at 
six-month and one-year follow-up.  
A second aim of this project is to examine whether gender moderates the effects 
of the intervention in changes in dating violence. 
The hypothesis is that the intervention will reduce dating violence involvement in 
girls than in boys. 
III. METHODS 
This study will use a randomized controlled trial study design with pretest, 
posttest, six-month follow-up, and one-year follow-up. Group 1 (experimental 
condition) will receive the ITP intervention and Group 2 (control condition) will receive 
an educational intervention. 
Study design and participants 
We will conduct a double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two 
parallel groups in a sample of volunteer adolescents (approximately n=400), and their 
parents, from several high school centers (ages from 13 to 18 years).  The schools will 
be randomly selected from the Basque Country. Participants will be randomly assigned 
to the experimental vs control conditions. Group assignation will be done at the 
individual level within each classroom. Participants were randomized in a 1:1 ratio 
blocked by gender to one of two groups (experimental versus control condition). They 
were assigned to their allocated group in class by the researchers.  
Measures  
Dating violence will be assessed by means of a self-report questionnaire 
developed by the research team. Participants who reported having had a dating 
relationship in the last 6 months (or in the last week at the posttest) will complete a 
questionnaire to examine dating violence perpetration and victimization. In the first 
part participants rate the frequency of 25 listed dating aggressive behaviors 
(perpetration and victimization) in a scale from 0 (never) to 3 (often). Fourteen of the 
items refer to traditional (face-to-face) dating aggressive acts and 11 items assess acts 

 
of online dating abuse. Specifically, traditional psychological, physical and sexual dating 
violence included: (1) insulting, (2) threatening to hurt, (3) throwing something at the 
partner, (4) criticizing the partner in public or private, (5) controlling or trying to 
prevent with my comments from doing something that I did not want she or he did, (6) 
attempting to isolate the partner from her or his friends, (7) blaming the partner for 
problems that were happening or when I got angry, (8) hitting or pulling my partner’s 
hair, (9)  discouraging the partner so that he or she does not have hobbies that I do not 
share, (10) despising or criticizing something that the partner liked, (11) making the 
partner feel bad for doing something I did not want her or him to do, (12)  somehow 
making it difficult for the partner to go somewhere or talk to someone, (13) kissing or 
touching the partner against her or his will, and (14) shoving the partner. Items 
assessing online dating abuse were taken from the Cyber Dating Abuse Questionnaire 
(Borrajo, Gámez-Guadix, Pereda, & Calvete, 2015) and included: (1) threatening the 
partner through new technologies to physically harm, (2) creating a fake profile of my 
partner on a social network to cause problems, (3) using my partner’s passwords 
(phone, social networking, email) to browse, (4) messages and/or contacts without 
permission, (5) spreading secrets and/or compromised information using new 
technologies, (6) threatening to spread secrets or embarrassing information using new 
technologies, (7) using new technologies to pretend to be my partner and create 
problems for her or him, (8) sending insulting and/or demeaning messages using new 
technologies, (9) sending and/or posting photos, images and/or videos of my partner 
with sexual content to other people without permission, (10) using new technologies 
to control where my partner has been and with whom, (11) spreading rumors, gossip 
and/or jokes through new technologies with the intention of ridiculing the partner 
calling excessively to control where the partner was and with whom. Then, only those 
participants who answer positively any of the previous questions complete a second 
part of the questionnaire in which they rate the motives and context of the aggression 
(7 items) and its consequences (5 items). The response choices for each item were 
defined with the same 4-point scale from 0 (never) to 3 (often). 
Parent reports: Parents will be invited to participate by responding measures 
about their children temperament by means of the revised version of the Early 
Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ-R; Ellis & Rothbart, 2001) and the Big 
Five Questionnaire for children (BFQ-C; Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 
2003) for parents and depressive symptoms through the CBCL 6/18 (Achenbach, 1991; 
Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983). These data will be used in analyses in case that the 
response rate is enough. 
Preventive Intervention 
The ITP intervention lasts one session (of approximately one hour) and has three 
main parts: (1) scientific information; (2) normative stories from upperclassmen; and 

 
(3) self-persuasive writing exercise. In the first part, students read a scientific article 
that provides evidence that individuals have the potential to change. Participants read 
about actual neurological and behavioral studies showing that behaviors are controlled 
by “thoughts and feelings in brains,” and that pathways in the brain have the potential 
to be changed under the right circumstances. In the second part, participants read 
several normative quotes purportedly written by upperclassmen that previously read 
the same article and endorsed its conclusions. These quotes are obtained from 
previous interventions and edited by the team. These testimonials are provided to 
bring credibility to the incremental theory. Finally, in the last part, participants will be 
asked to write their own version of such a narrative to share with future students, This 
activity has been shown to facilitate the internalization of the intervention message, 
building on a long line of research on cognitive dissonance (Walton & Cohen, 2011). 
For a more complete description of the ITP intervention see Yeager et al. (2013). The 
intervention will be adapted to the developmental characteristics of the participants. 
The educational intervention involves scientific information about the human 
brain. It was designed to be parallel to the experimental intervention and, hence, it has 
also three main parts. First, participants are asked to read scientific information about 
the different areas of the brain and their specialties. Second, participants read several 
testimonials written by upperclassmen about their transition to high school and how 
their brains help them to adapt to the new space and all the physical differences of the 
building and the classes. Finally, participants are asked to write a letter to another 
student explaining the main things he or she has learned about the brain and thinks 
are important for adapting to the new physical environment in high school. Hence it 
will control for the possibility that simple optimism about the potential for growth 
might account for our results. This is a conservative control group. An entity theory 
control group would be unethical in a longitudinal field experiment because it could 
teach the belief that personality cannot be changed, which has been associated to 
negative consequences.  
Procedure 
Parental informed consent forms will be sent to parents and adolescents. Those 
who accept to participate in the study will complete report measures at four waves: (1) 
one-week before intervention; (2) one-week after intervention; (3) six-months follow-
up; and (3) one-year follow-up. Saliva samples will be collected at the same time 
points. Parents’ participants will complete report measures at three waves: (1) one-
week before intervention; (2) six-months follow-up; and (3) one-year follow-up. 
Intervention will be applied one week after the first survey. All the measures will be 
anonymous and participants will be asked to provide certain data (her/his birth date, 
first initial of mother’s name, and first initial of father’s name) to match their 
questionnaires and intervention tasks over time. Both interventions and assessment 

 
measures will be administered by research assistants during normal class time and last 
around 50 minutes.  
Ethical considerations 
This study aims to develop and implement interventions that will be beneficial 
for the participating adolescents and other people in the future, by helping to increase 
their psychological wellbeing. Through randomization, the principle of justice will be 
respected, allowing all participants to have similar opportunities to receive the 
intervention. Gender will be considered and similar number of male and female 
participants will be included in the studies.  
The risks are minimal and limited to answering psychological tests on stressors, 
psychological symptoms and cognitive styles. Previous experience with the same 
questionnaires indicates that the risk is minimal. Adolescents can also decide to end 
their participation at any moment. Researchers collecting data will be trained to attend 
to any difficulty that could emerge while participants are responding to 
questionnaires. The researchers will give an alternative task (e.g., educational 
readings) to those participants who decide to end their participation. 
Informed consent forms will be sent to parents or legal guardians to complete. 
Adolescents will also receive written information. The active consent of parents or 
legal guardians and of adolescents will be necessary for participation in the project. 
We will incentive adolescents for bringing parent forms, even when decision is 
negative. 
After completing measures, adolescents will be provided with information on 
services for adolescents (e.g., phone number of attention to adolescents). From an 
ethical perspective, the most important care aspect is the protection of information. 
We will follow the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament, Ley Orgánica 15/99 
de 13 de diciembre de Protección de datos de Carácter Personal, and of the Council of 
24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of 
personal data and the free movement of such data. No identification data, such as 
names or surnames, will be used; instead, we will use a numeric code to match 
measures across times and sources (parents, and adolescents). Thus, each adolescent, 
and only he/she, will know his/her code. We will also follow the procedure for data 
protection that the University of Deusto has registered in the National Data Protection 
Agency. The project has been approved by the Ethics in Research committee of 
University of Deusto. 
 
IV. STATISTICAL ANALYSES PLAN 
Descriptive statistics of sociodemographic and study variables will be provided 
and several statistical strategies will be used to test the hypotheses. These will include 

 
mixed analyses of variance (ANOVA) and regression analyses. We will employ 
moderation analyses to test whether sex moderates the effects of the ITV intervention.  
 
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