Dr Lesley Cullen-Powell and Professor Julie Barlow are both chartered health psychologists and both work at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Health at Coventry University where Lesley Cullen-Powell is a research fellow and Julie Barlow is a director. In this article, they assess the benefits of a "self-discovery programme" for…

The purpose of the present research is to compare early adolescents beliefs about parental and friend jurisdiction over relational aggression to their beliefs about parental and friend jurisdiction over physical aggression and personal behaviors. One hundred three adolescents (X age = 12 years, 11 months; SD = 12.46 months) are individually…

Children often learn and apply behaviors in sibling interactions before they routinely use such behaviors in peer interactions. As part of a longitudinal study of relational aggression, 46 children were videotaped at home in semi-structured free play situations with siblings and with friends at age 4 and again at age 8. Observations revealed that…

In this article, the author responds to a teacher's request for advice on how to handle a child in her class who keeps on shoving and bopping other children, sometimes hitting them on the head with hard objects. The author offers support and suggestions on how to help children who use negative behavior to communicate their wants and needs. She…

Research suggests there is a link between trauma and violence, although the nature of the relationship is rather equivocal. This study explored this relationship by examining self-reported trauma as a predictor of self-reported violence in 93 jail inmates. Ninety-six percent of the sample reported experiencing a traumatic event, and 67% reported…

This study investigated both relational and physical aggression in preschool children, explored potential differences in informant reporting and child sex on these subtypes, and examined relationships between types of aggressive behaviors and other types of negative and positive social behaviors. Naturalistic observations of social behavior,…

This study examined childhood and adolescent risk factors for males' reports of getting someone pregnant during adolescence. These questions were examined in an urban sample of 335 African American males involved in a prospective, longitudinal study. Childhood aggression significantly predicted reported pregnancies during adolescence. Boys who…

A vast literature has examined the effects of marital disruption on child well-being, however medically attended childhood accidents/injuries have not been considered as an outcome. This article investigates this association as well as possible intervening pathways using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-linked mother-child file.…

Within a social learning model, family-of-origin violence places men at risk for developing negative communication in their adult relationships. Thirty young men exposed to family-of-origin violence (exposed group) and 30 unexposed young men were videotaped discussing a conflict topic with their female dating partners. Relative to the unexposed…

In this article, the author highlights her choice of the 10 most important recent findings from the intimate partner violence research literature, which include (a) the creation of the Conflict Tactics Scale; (b) the finding that violent acts are most often perpetrated by intimates; (c) a series of findings that indicate that women also engage in…

Describes the prevalence of psychological aggression in a nationally representative sample of 991 parents. Prevalence rates greater than 90% and the absence of differences according to child or family characteristics suggests that psychological aggression is a near universal disciplinary tactic of American parents. Discusses the implications of…

Little is known about what additional services youth receive while they reside in out-of-home treatment settings. However, such information may be crucial for explaining effectiveness and variation in outcomes for youth in such settings. Our research examines patterns of multi-sector service use for youth in two settings--Therapeutic Foster Care…

Background: A limited number of mostly cross-sectional studies have examined the possible effects of power sports on aggressive and antisocial involvement in children and youth. The majority of these studies have serious methodological limitations, and results are partly contradictory. Longitudinal studies with representative, reasonably large…

The current study examined the best friendships of aggressive and nonaggressive boys (N=96 boys, 48 dyads, mean age=10.6 years). Friends completed self-report measures of friendship quality, and their interactions were observed in situations that required conflict management and provided opportunities for rule-breaking behavior. Although there…

Two studies were conducted to test a theoretical model of the psychological and communicative links that mediate the impact of the chilling effect on the continued concealment of secrets in families. More specifically, we argued that individuals' continued concealment of a secret from aggressive family members would be mediated by the desire for…