To examine whether bullying is strategic behavior aimed at obtaining or maintaining social dominance, 1129 9- to 12-year-old Dutch children were classified in terms of their role in bullying and in terms of their use of dominance oriented coercive and prosocial social strategies. Multi-informant measures of participants' acquired and desired…

Students in general and special education experience bullying. However, few empirical investigations have examined involvement in bullying along the bully/victim continuum (i.e., as a bully, victim, or bully-victim) among students with disabilities. A total of 816 students, ages 9 to 16, participated in the present study. From this total sample…

This study explores the pathways through which school-based mentoring relationships are associated with improvements in elementary and high school students' socio-emotional, academic, and behavioral outcomes. Participants in the study (N = 526) were part of a national evaluation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring programs, all…

The primary aim of this investigation was to evaluate a model in which children's social behaviors, including prosocial behavior, setting limits, and social withdrawal, were hypothesized to mediate the links between local language competence (LLC) and peer acceptance and victimization. Longitudinal data were collected via teacher and peer reports…

Peer nominations and demographic information were collected from a diverse sample of 1493 elementary school participants to examine behavior (overt and relational aggression, impulsivity, and prosociality), context (peer status), and demographic characteristics (race and gender) as predictors of teacher and administrator decisions about…

This study examined aggressive and pro-social classroom descriptive norms as predictors of change in aggression and victimization during middle childhood. Participants included 948 children in third through fifth grade. Measures of teacher-reported aggressive and peer-reported pro-social descriptive norms were completed at the onset of the study.…

Two studies employing a mixed experimental design were conducted to determine if perceptions of bullying, attitudes towards victims, and students' sense of safety at school were influenced by bystanders' reactions to different types of bullying. In Study 1, 217 middle-school children were randomly assigned to read a hypothetical scenario…

Recent studies have found distinct subtypes of aggressive youth, marked by either high social status or social marginalization, and that various measures of status differentially associate with aggression. The majority of these studies, however, focused on boys, adolescents, and/or relational aggression in girls. The current research examined how…

Several lines of theory and research suggest that power (e.g., social dominance) and status (e.g., social prominence and positive peer regard) are enjoyed by those blessed with good looks. The present work addresses the relations among physical attractiveness, power, status, and aggression from a resource control theoretic perspective that…

The contributions of temperamental styles and emotional coping strategies to the development of preschoolers' social competence and behavior problems were investigated. The ability to cope with emotion was found to be more important than temperament alone in the development of prosocial behavior. Our results indicate that the use of passive coping…

Investigated the effects of self-perceptions on the donating behavior of 43 fourth-grade students who had two opportunities to donate gum to another class. Students who received feedback after the first donation period indicating that they were particularly generous subsequently gave more than children in the control group. (JAC)

In effort to reduce disruptive classroom behavior, five students attending school for behavior-disordered youth were shown videotapes depicting themselves or peer appropriately engaged in classroom activities. Effects were idiosyncratic across students, the most significant effects occurring for the self-observation procedure. (Author)

Attempted to increase the occurrence of sexual-social interactions of emotionally disturbed adolescents. Results indicate that, regardless of sex, group contingencies are more effective than individual contingencies in increasing positive sexual-social interactions. Results inferred that emotionally disturbed adolescents' social interactions…

Examines first- and second-grade children's judgments of aggressive, withdrawn, and prosocial behavior by means of fictional scenarios. Results reveal that aggressive children were perceived as more responsible for their behavior and elicited more feelings of anger, while withdrawn children were more likely to be chosen as a friend and elicited…

Tested the effectiveness of a skill-training method, Structured Learning Therapy (SLT), and identified variables that will promote transfer of training. Disruptive male adolescents (N=43) were assigned to three experimental and two control conditions. Found groups receiving the SLT performed significantly better than groups not receiving SLT.…