Gender Differences In The Developmental Trajectories Of Aggressive Behaviors In Middle And Late Childhood And The Impacts On Peer Relationship

Middle and late childhood is an important stage of socialization for children,social behavior and peer relationships are important development content in this period.In particular,children’s aggressive behavior because of its universality and harm has always been an important research topic in developmental psychology.Although a large number of longitudinal studies have described the developmental characteristics of aggressive behavior,and the relationship between aggression and peer adjustment also has accumulated a wealth of results,there are still some limitations.First of all,most of the studies described the developmental characteristics of different subtypes of aggression separately(such as physical and relational aggression),in fact,the children’s subtypes of aggression are highly correlated and may have a certain degree of joint development.Additionally,most of the longitudinal studies only described the general development trend of the aggression on the whole level,while the developmental heterogeneity of aggression(i.e.the developmental characteristics of different subgroups)is not concerned enough.Yet the aggressive behavior of different subgroups may produce different outcomes of peer relationship.Thirdly,children’s aggressive behavior always occurs in the context of peer interaction,however,there is a lack of attention about the obvious phenomenon in child’s peer interaction——"gender segregation",and its role in the peer relationship.Finally,most existing researches have focused on the western cultural environment,still few attention has been given for the development patterns of the children’s aggression in Chinese cultural background.In view of the background,this study used multi-group longitudinal study design to investigate children’s aggressive behavior and peer relationships(including same-sex and opposite-sex peer acceptance and rejection).Participants were 936 children in grade 3(average age = 9 years),who were followed for 3 years at four time points.Latent growth model(LGM)and latent growth mixture model(GMM)were used to describe the general developmental trend and heterogeneous developmental trajectory of children’s aggressive behavior,the joint developmental trajectory of different types of aggression,and the influence of children’s aggression trajectories on the development of relationships among same-sex and opposite-sex peers.The main findings are as follows:1.The developmental trajectory and gender differences of children’s aggressive behavior in the middle and late childhood(1)There were significant gender differences in the level of aggressive behavior,that overt aggression were only gender-typical in male groups,and relational aggression were typical in both male and female groups.There was a significant gender difference in the development of aggressive behavior,that there was no significant change in the overt aggression of boys,and the overt aggression of girls showed an upward trend;the relational aggression of boys showed a significant descending trend,while relational aggression of girls showed a significant ascending trend.(2)There is heterogeneity in the developmental trajectory of aggressive behavior,that is,there are significant individual differences.In particular,there were two different developmental trajectories in boys’ overt and relational aggression,low overt aggression-descending group(92.8%)and high overt aggression-ascending group(7.2%),and low relational aggression-descending group(94.6%)and high relational aggression-stable group(5.4%),respectively.While there were three different developmental trajectories of girls’ overt aggression,which were divided into low overt aggression-ascending group(91.3%),moderate overt aggression-ascending group(8.2%)and high overt aggression-descending group(0.5%).And there were two different development trajectories of girls’ relational aggression,which were divided into low relational aggression-ascending group(97.1%)and high relational aggression-descending group(2.9%).(3)The joint development of children’s overt and relational aggression existed.On the whole,children with high initial level of overt aggression had high initial level of relational aggression;children with rapid change of overt aggression had rapid change of relational aggression.From the heterogeneity level,there were two kinds of joint developmental trajectory of children’s overt and relational aggression,which were the joint development trajectory and non-joint development trajectory.Importantly,there are gender differences in the joint development trajectory.For boys,there were two joint trajectories,low overt aggression-low relational aggression group(91.6%)and high overt aggression-high relational aggression group(4.3%);and there were two non-joint trajectories,low overt aggression-high relational aggression group(1.1%)and the high overt aggression-low relational aggression group(3%).For girls,there were three joint trajectories,high overt aggression-high relational aggression group(0.5%),moderate overt aggression-high relational aggression group(1.6%),low overt aggression-low relational aggression group(90.5%);and there were also 2 non-joint trajectories,moderate overt aggression-low relational aggression group(6.6%)and low overt aggression-high relational aggression group(0.8%).2.Gender segregation,development trends and gender differences in peer relationships in the middle and late childhood(1)From grade 3 to 6,the same-sex peer acceptance was significantly higher than that of the opposite-sex,and peer rejection was significantly lower than that of the opposite-sex.And,compared to the boys’ attitude on the opposite-sex peers,girls’ attitude on the opposite-sex peers were more negative.(2)From grade 3 to 6,the development trend of same-sex and opposite-sex relationship in children was different.The acceptance of same-sex peers is ascending,while the acceptance of opposite-sex peers is descending;the rejection of same-sex and opposite-sex peers were descending,but the rate of descent for same-sex rejection is higher than that of opposite-sex,which indicated that the same-sex preference becomes more and more obvious,and the effect of gender segregation was increasing.3.Aggressive behavior on the development trend of peer relationship:Based on the variable-centered perspectiveChildren’s overt and relational aggression significantly negatively predicted trends in peer acceptance,and significantly positively predicted trends in peer rejection.And this effect was different in gender and age.For boys,overt aggression significantly negatively predicted same-sex peer acceptance from grade 3 to 6,but only negatively predicted opposite-sex peer acceptance from grade 3 to 5;relational aggression significantly negatively predicted opposite-sex peer acceptance from grade 3 to 6,but only negatively predicted same-sex peer acceptance in grade 5 and 6.While overt and relational aggression significantly positively predicted both same-sex and opposite-sex peer rejection from grade 3 to 6.For girls,overt aggression significantly negatively predicted same-sex peer acceptance from grade 4 to 6,but only negatively predicted opposite-sex peer acceptance in grade 4 and 5;relational aggression insignificantly predicted both same-sex and opposite-sex peer acceptance.While overt aggression significantly positively predicted same-sex and opposite-sex peer rejection from grade 3 to 6;relational aggression only predicted opposite-sex peer rejection,in particular,it significantly negatively predicted opposite-sex peer rejection in grade 3 and positively predicted opposite-sex peer rejection in grade 5.4.The impact of the joint developmental trajectory of aggression on the development of peer relationship:Based on person-centered perspective(1)The relationship between the joint developmental trajectory of overt and relational aggression and the development of peer relationship was heterogeneous,that the peer relationships of different trajectory groups showed different trends.(2)Same-sex relationships and opposite-sex relationships in different developmental trajectory groups showed similar trends.(3)Under certain conditions,children who exhibit aggressive behavior can also obtain good peer relationships.Firstly,aggression form,not aggressive level,is more closely to be associated with positive peer relationships,and relational aggression is more likely to benefit better peer relationships than overt aggression.Secondly,girls with high relational aggression are more likely to get better peer relationships than girls with low relational aggression.Thirdly,girls with high relational aggression can win more opposite-sex peer acceptance.In summary,this study identified subgroups in the development of aggressive behavior,and indicated that aggression has both adaptive(benefits)outcomes and non-adaptive outcomes(costs)in the development of peer relationships.Exploring the heterogeneity of developmental trajectory,on the one hand,is helpful to understand the multi-effect and diversity of individual development,so as to provide more meaningful evidence for the construction of children’s social development;on the other hand,the results also help teachers or parents to accurately and timely identify aggressive children with high adaptive risk and provide targeted intervention or help.