The goal of this study was to assess longitudinal, predictive relationships between community violent crime and reactive and proactive aggression. Community violent crime data were gathered from local law enforcement agencies and combined with an existing dataset of at-risk youth. Aggression was assessed by parents using the Reactive and Proactive…

This work refined the complex associations between aggression (aggressive behavior and victimization) and school functioning in terms of school liking, interest, achievement, and social class climate. First, using longitudinal multilevel structural equation modeling, it was shown that aggressive behavior and victimization preceded lower school…

The article focuses on the contentious relation between cyberbullying and physical, verbal, and relational bullying. Drawing on items from the Olweus questionnaire, the study used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling, and latent factors of bullying were fitted to the data. Different background variables were related to…

The current study examines the association between risk behaviors and victimization and race-based victimization amongst U.S.-born and foreign-born Asian, Black, and Latinx adolescents. Data were derived from the U.S. subset of the 2009-2010 Health Behavior in School-aged Children study. Samples include 662 Asian, 2413 Black, and 3188 Latinx…

The purpose of the present study is to examine whether physical and relational victimization negatively impacts indicators of school climate--students' perceptions of school safety, their attachment to school, and their help-seeking behavior--and whether gender moderates these associations. Using a sample of 361 third through fifth-grade students…

Positive perceptions of school climate are associated with lower frequency of peer victimization and aggression in children. Understanding "how" school climate influences aggression and victimization is essential to guiding school-level interventions to enhance character strengths such as social responsibility. In this short-term…

This study addressed the moderating role of classroom descriptive norms for overt and relational aggression, social withdrawal, prosocial behavior, and academic reputation in the association of behavior with social preference and popularity in early adolescence. Participants were 1,492 fifth-grade students ([x-bar][subscript age] = 10.6 years,…

In the current study, associations between individual and friends' direct and indirect aggression and depressive problems were examined. It was expected that social status would moderate these associations such that low-status preadolescents would be more similar to their unilateral friends with regard to indirect, but not direct, aggression.…

Growing up in poverty increases youth risk for developing aggressive behavior problems which, in turn, are associated with a host of problematic outcomes, including school drop-out, substance use, mental health problems, and delinquency. In part, this may be due to exposure to adverse school contexts that create socialization influences supporting…

The effects of guilt, shame, and externalization of blame on aggressive behavior were investigated among a total of 307 Finnish fifth and sixth graders (M[subscript age] = 11.9 years). Self-reported proneness to feel guilt and shame was expected to reduce levels of peer-reported aggressive behavior, whereas self-reported externalization of blame…

As access to technology is increasing in children and adolescents, there are growing concerns over the dangers of cyber bullying. It remains unclear what cyber bullying looks like among young Canadian children and how common these experiences are. In this study, we examine the psychometric properties of a measure of cyber bullying behaviors and…

The authors investigated 8 specific forms of social aggression (SA) in terms of the functions they serve, the characteristics of the peers targeted by them, and the outcomes associated with using the behaviors. Two hundred and seventeen fifth- and seventh-grade boys and girls completed a structured daily diary for 5 consecutive days in their…

The construct of moral disengagement has increasingly been used by researchers to account for the asymmetry between children's moral reasoning and their moral behavior. According to this theory, moral disengagement occurs most aptly when children are motivated to violate their moral beliefs, such as when they hold antisocial goals during social…

Can aggressive children be popular with peers? Generally, sociometric popularity (liking nominations) has been shown to be negatively associated with aggression, and perceived popularity (popularity nominations) has been shown to be positively associated with aggression. The thesis of the present research was that being respected by peers…

Adolescents' perceptions of peers' relational characteristics (e.g., support, trustworthiness) were examined for subtypes of youth who evidenced chronic maladaptive behavior, chronic peer group rejection, or combinations of these risk factors. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify subgroups of participants within a normative…