The Effects Of Relational Aggression On Peer Relationship In Middle Childhood

More and more researches were focused on the influence of relational aggression on peer relationship. Western research has demonstrated that relational aggression and peer rejection are related. Some researches examined the difference of the number of friends and friendship quality between relationally aggressive children and nonrelationally aggressive children, but there were no consistent conclusion. Rarely has home researchers paied attention on the effects of relational aggression on peer relationship. What's more, it is not suitable to generalize the findings based on western samples to Chinese ones because of the difference between Chinese and western culture. Consequently, It is necessary to investigate the effects of relational aggression on peer relationship of Chinese children in middle childhood.Sociometric nomination, friend nomination, Friendship Quality Questionnaire, and Class Play were applied in this survey. 572 children in an elementary school, from the third grade to the sixth grade, completed peer nomination and scales in June 2003 and so did 553 children in the same school and grades in June 2004. Cross-section design and longitudinal design were employed to explore the effects of relational aggression on peer relationships.The findings indicate that:1. There was significant gender difference on scores of relational aggression, and girls were significantly more relationally aggressive than boys, when relatively extreme groups of aggressive and nonaggressive children were identified, girls were more likely than boys to be represented in the relationally aggressive group.2. We didn't find the grade difference on scores of relational aggression. But when we examined the developmental trend from the mid-grade to higher grade,we found that girls appear to increase their reliance on relational aggression ,whereas...