This study assessed college men's (n=85) and women's (n=215) courtship persistence behaviors (approach, surveillance, intimidation, mild aggression), which have been linked to stalking, and examined their relations to initial courtship interest, relationship development, and future violence and persistence, while also exploring the role of gender…

Drawing on social ecological theory and empirical studies on the role of school context in aggression, the authors argue that school adversity is an important consideration in choosing selective interventions for aggressive children. The moderating role of school adversity on intervention effectiveness is illustrated with data from a randomized…

The association between teachers' identification of children who use threats and children's self-identification as threateners was explored. The role of age, gender, and various student characteristics in influencing teachers' identification of threateners was examined. Participants were 3,201 children in Grades 3 through 6. Results indicated…

In this 3-year prospective study (N = 458) spanning a transition to middle school, bidirectional associations between children's relations with schoolmates (social preference and impact) and behaviors (physical and relational aggression, prosocial behavior) were examined using structural equation modeling. Gender moderation of all estimated paths…

Physical and verbal aggression is an increasing problem in both middle and high schools across the United States. While physical forms of aggression are targeted in traditional "bullying" programs, relational aggression (RA), or the use of relationships to hurt another, is often not detected or addressed. For girls in the stage of identity…

Women arrested for intimate partner violence raise challenges for those working in domestic violence programs. Theoretically, there is no agreement about whether women are aggressive for the same reasons as men or merely victims fighting back in an abusive relationship. Practically, there is very little research to guide treatment of this…

Although juvenile sex offenders (JSOs) account for a significant percentage of sex crimes committed in this country, researchers have only recently begun to study this population. One line of inquiry has been to investigate sub-types of offenders, in order to determine whether different types of offenders have different personality profiles and…

The purpose of this article is to synthesize recent work on aggression and victimization in educational settings from an ecological perspective. Four questions directed towards school psychologists and bullying researchers guide this review: (a) How do bullies fit into their peer ecologies? (b) How do victims fit into their peer ecologies? (c) How…

Teacher assessments of interpersonal characteristics were used to identify subtypes of rural African American early adolescents (161 boys and 258 girls). Teacher ratings of interpersonal characteristics were used to identify popular and unpopular aggressive subtypes for both boys and girls. Unpopular aggressive youths did not have elevated levels…

Little prior research has examined children's interpersonal perceptions of peers from a social relations model framework. This study examines the degree of actor and partner variances, as well as generalised and dyadic reciprocities, in a sample of 351 sixth graders' peer nominations of different forms and functions of aggression and aspects of…

This exploratory study investigated Mainland Chinese children's social networks and peer group affiliations with a particular emphasis on their aggressive behaviour. The participants were 294 elementary school students in Tianjin, P. R. China (mean age 11.5 years; 161 boys). Social network analysis identified relatively large and gender-specific…

Dr. Deanna Pledge is a licensed psychologist and professional counselor. She has worked in public and private settings for over a decade. She has been working with teens, children, and adults around abuse issues for the past ten years, and has written "When Something Feels Wrong: A Survival Guide About Abuse." In this interview she answers a…

This study compared the long-term predictive validity of person-centered personality types and variable-centered personality dimensions assessed between ages 4-6 years in a population sample of 154 children. Results indicated that the predictive power of both approaches was remarkably robust between age 17 and 22, and even increased in the case of…

A daily war is waged in schools all over the United States over wall space. Adolescents are using school walls to convey messages, create name recognition, slander each other, or for claiming territorial space. On the other side is the school administration, which paints over and erases these unsanctioned claims to space, power and identity, as it…

In this article, the author states how these days, school students from low-income strata of the population in Russia spend hours sitting in computer rooms and Internet clubs, where, for a relatively small fee, they can play interactive video games. And to determine what games they prefer the author conducted a content analysis of eighty-seven…