Forms and Functions of Aggression during Early Childhood: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

Abstract. The school classroom and playground provide an important context for learning about young children's social interactions. A multimethod, multiinformant, short-term longitudinal study was conducted to investigate the utility of including school-based observational assessments of both form (i.e., physical and relational) and function (i.e., proactive and reactive) of aggressive behavior at school with a young sample during early childhood (132 children; M = 44.37 months; SD = 9.88). The study revealed low intercorrelations between observed proactive and reactive functions of aggression and low to moderate levels of stability. Based on 160 min of observation per child for an academic year, the findings revealed that boys are more physically aggressive to peers than are girls, whereas girls are more relationally aggressive than are boys. The results provide evidence for the differential association between aggression categories and future social-psychological adjustment constructs with particular relevancy for school contexts (i.e., peer rejection and student-teacher conflict). ********** Recently, school psychologists have called for more extensive research of young children's peer relationships and, in particular, relationally aggressive behavior at school (Cullerton-Sen & Crick, 2005; Leff & Lakin, 2005; Young, Boye, & Nelson, 2006). Aggressive behavior is defined as any behavior intended to hurt, harm, or injure another person (Coie & Dodge, 1998). More specifically, relational aggression, in which the relationship or friendship serves as the means of harm, is observed when malicious gossip, lies, or secrets are spread, as well as by intentionally ignoring (i.e., "silent treatment") or maliciously excluding a peer from an activity or group interaction (e.g., "You can't come to my birthday party" or "You are not my friend anymore"; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). Recent reviews emphasize that school counselors and psychologists are better equipped to address increasingly complex peer relationship and adjustment problems when they understand and assess for relationally aggressive behaviors (Young et al., 2006). In addition, to facilitate this assessment, a call for the use of ecologically valid observational systems for use in the classroom and on the playground has also been raised by school psychologists (Leff & Lakin, 2005). To date, though, school and developmental psychologists have neglected the important early school years. Theorists have postulated that subtypes of aggressive behavior (i.e., physical and relational aggression) are present and salient during all developmental periods, including early childhood (for a review, see Crick & Zahn-Waxler, 2003). The majority of past developmental theory, methods, and research designs have concerned physical (i.e., using physical force or the threat of physical force as the means of harm) or verbal (i.e., verbal insults and mean names) aggression, and these empirical traditions are not necessarily applicable to the study of relational aggression in school settings (Crick & Zahn-Waxler, 2003). The study of aggressive behavior during early childhood is an important endeavor given the salience of emerging peer relationships and friendships for the academic, social, emotional, and cognitive development of young children (Crick & Zahn-Waxler, 2003). The interest in early onset and the developmental course of aggression results in part from concerns about the stability of aggression across development (see (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2004) and the developmental significance of early onset aggressive behavior (Moffitt, 1993). In addition, physical aggression is common during early childhood when emotion regulation and language capacities are not fully developed (Coie & Dodge, 1998). Currently a great deal is known about physical aggression (e.g. …