A social identity approach to explaining children's aggressive intentions

a r t i c l e i n f o This study explored the effects of group norms, intra-group position, and age on the direct and indirect aggressive intentions of 247 children (aged 5.50 to 11.83 years). Participants were assigned to a team, with team norms (aggression vs. helping) and the child's position within the team (prototypical vs. peripheral– prototypical vs. peripheral) manipulated. Results showed that children in the aggressive norm condition reported greater aggressive intentions than those in the helping norm condition, although, when age was considered, this effect remained evident for younger, but not older, children. Similarly, intra-group position influenced the aggressive intentions of younger children only. For these children, when group norms supported aggression, prototypical members and peripheral members who anticipated a future prototypical position reported greater aggressive intentions than peripheral members who were given no information about their future position. The implications of these findings for understanding childhood aggression, and for intervention , are discussed. The question as to why children engage in aggression has received widespread attention over the years. Studies that have focused on this issue have frequently explored the individual characteristics of ag-As children progress through middle childhood, they spend an increasing amount of time with their peers (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). Typically, children form friendships with peers who are similar to them in terms of demographic characteristics such as age, sex and Similarities in behaviors such as aggression also occur from an early age. Farver (1996), for example, studied the friendship groups of 4-year-olds and found that, for 9 of the 12 groups examined, significant within-group similarity in aggression occurred (i.e., intraclass correlations ranged from .73 to .98 for these nine groups). Such behavioral similarity has also been observed within friendships during middle childhood Attempts to explain why aggressive children are friends with similarly aggressive others must consider both selection and socialization processes. Initially, children tend to select friends who are similar to themselves in terms of their aggressive behavior (Poulin & Boivin, 2000; Werner & Crick, 2004). However, evidence also indicates that friends have a continuing influence on aggression. Boivin and Vitaro (1995), for instance, found that elementary school-aged boys who were initially less aggressive than the others in their peer network became significantly more aggressive over a 1-year period. In another longitudinal study, Werner and Crick (2004) examined whether the initial level of aggressive behavior displayed by friends …