Abstract:
Children’s aggression at early ages is indicative of concurrent and future
adjustment problems. The aggressive behaviors may be due to, for example,
developmental delays, lack of experience in social situations, or the inability to
understand social norms. Aggression in preschool is related to concurrent and later peer
rejection, which tends to remain stable throughout elementary school, and feed into a
cycle of aggressive behaviors and social impairment. Examining the development of
aggression in preschool children is valuable to the understanding of how children view
their own behaviors and how they believe others will respond to their behaviors. Data
was collected from 364 preschool students from Northern Virginia via teacher-report,
self-report, and behavioral observations. Results found that observed negative affect and
negative reactions to frustration were significant predictors of teacher-rated
anger/aggression. However, gender interacted with these variables and boys that were
rated higher on anger/aggression showed more negative affect than boys rater lower on
anger/aggression. This effect was not seen for females. Positive reactions to frustration
was also found to be a small, yet significant predictor of teacher-rated anger/aggression.
Teacher-rated anger/aggression was not found to be related to child reported feelings or
behaviors in a challenging situation. Children who chose that they would react
aggressively in a challenging situation tended to predict that their peer would feel sad in
response to their aggression. Following avoidant behaviors, children most likely
expected their peer to feel happy. Analyses revealed that girls who chose to cry or
manipulate in a stressful situation most frequently predicted their peer to feel happy in
response to their crying. Children who chose to respond prosocially tended to expect
their peer to feel happy as a result of their behavior. The results of this study show that
aggressive children may be able to understand that their aggressive behaviors will have
negative social consequences. These aggressive behaviors may not be because of a lack
of emotion knowledge, but related more to impulse control.
