Relational Aggression in Adolescence.
Negativity, Anger, and Aggression Children with externalizing problems often are negative, angry, and aggressive. Younger children may be stubborn and uncooperative, while adolescents may be hostile and physically injure others. In addition to the actions themselves, motivation is important. We chuckle at the innocent adventures of a Calvin, but we judge children harshly if their intent is selfish and they show little remorse. You might wonder about Jeremy W.’s private motivations and judge him differently based on whether he is an angry child who cares little about being “bad” or an impulsive child who wants to but just cannot consistently be “good.”
According to Oltmanns and Emery (2012), motivation also is a key to relational aggression, which involves actions designed to hurt others in more subtle ways, for example, put downs, gossip, and social exclusion. Relational aggression is more common among girls, and has been hypothesized to be a marker of girls’ conduct disorder (Crick, Ostrov, & Werner, 2006). Recent research indicates, however, that measures of relational aggression add little to the diagnosis of conduct disorder in girls (Keenan et al., 2010) (p. 423).
Reference
Oltmanns, T. F. & Emery, R. E. (2012). Abnormal psychology (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
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