African American youth are more likely to experience racial discrimination, which contributes to greater sensitivity to disrespect and aggressive behavior. However, little is known about possible reciprocal relationships among discrimination, disrespect sensitivity, and aggression. This study investigated these reciprocal relationships and whether…

Women are at greater risk of exposure to interpersonal violence during pregnancy. The influence prenatal violence has on children's behavioral adjustment is generally understood to stem from its impact on mothers, but there is a dearth of prospective research to test these models. The current study evaluated the influence of interpersonal violence…

Research abounds on adolescent poverty and on gifted education, but these fields are seldom considered together. This study explores trajectories of aggressive behavior (i.e., weapon carrying) of impoverished, gifted youth. Results indicate that gifted students engage in lower levels of weapon carrying than non-gifted students. Gifted and…

Bullying is a serious problem among students. Research linking school climate and trust as to bullying is minimal. This study examined elements of school climate and trust in relation to bullying and protection using Hoy and Smith's (2004) climate study and Smith and Birney's (2005) trust study. Trust was found to be the significant predictor of…

Two aspects of young children's cognitive representations of peer relationships-peer affiliative motivation and feelings and beliefs about the self and peers-were assessed among a sample of 75 children (37 girls), who ranged in age from 32 to 76 months (M = 58.2 months). Measures of three aspects of discrete social cognition, encoding of social…

This study proposes a model of associations between young children's social cognition and their social behavior with peers. In this model, two latent structures -children's representations of peer relationships and emotion regulation -- predict children's competent, prosocial, withdrawn, and aggressive behavior. Moreover, the model proposes that…