The Relationship Among Subtypes Of Aggression, Peer Status And Maladaptation In Childhood

There is a significant issue, which is the relationship among the aggressive behavior, the relevant factors and the adaptive results during the childhood, in research of the developmental psychology. Due to the detrimental results of the aggressive behavior for others and people themselves, a large number of psychological researchers have been engaging in the study about aggression. Along with the increasing understanding over the aggression, the investigators have held the complex and dynamic perspective to survey the association between the aggression and its related factors. Peer, which is one of the most important systems in children's life course, plays irreplaceable role for development of children. A great deal of theories and researches support cross-sectional and longitudinal connections among aggressive behavior, peer relationship and maladaptation, however, there are some different conclusions about the model of their relationship. Some researchers consider that there are incidental effects on the adaptive results by the aggressive behavior of children and the peer status, and others suggest that the aggressive behavior and the peer status influence the adaptive results through the interactional or transactional models. The present study analyzed the surveyed data, then built a mediating model among the children's aggressive behavior, peer status and externalizing problems. Moreover, many studies have found that there are some discrepancies between the physical aggression and relational aggression, therefore, the study chose the subtypes of aggression for analyses, respectively.The present study used a sample of more than 2600 children and their mothers and head teachers from 14 schools whom have been surveyed yearly to examine the longitudinal associations. The data includes the aggressive scores (physical and relational aggression) of children, peer status (peer rejected, peer accepted, social influence and social preference) and scores of internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. The main conclusions have been demonstrated in following part:1. The number of boys was more than the number of girls in physical aggression and in relational aggression, respectively. However, the sexual different degree of relational aggression was less than physical aggression's. The physical and relational aggression demonstrated a reduced tendencies in boys'group, but the situations of girls'group were opposite. Physical aggression and relational aggression indicated the high level of stability.2. The aggressive behaviors of children could influence the negative peer status, and vice versa. The aggressive behavior and the peer status could lead to the appearance of externalizing problem, and the externalizing problem could react up on the aggression and the peer status as well.3. The linkage was less significant between the internalizing problem behaviors and the aggression than between the externalizing problem behaviors and the aggression. But the linkage between the negative peer status and the internalizing behavior was relatively significant.4. The rejected and aggressive children had more possibilities to appear the externalizing problem than the aggressive children but not rejected by the peer. Moreover, the aggressive children who possessed the positive peer status could display the less externalizing problem behaviors than the ones who had the negative peer status.5. There were all relatively high degree of internal consistencies in each subtype of aggressive behavior by peer nomination, peer rating and teacher rating. The data from the peer nomination and the peer rating demonstrated the better consistency than with the teacher rating. And the peer rating has been considered the most effective evaluation in the study.