| Relational aggression is a behavior that is exhibited by many children and is especially pertinent to girls' relationships. Relationally aggressive behaviors are harmful to children because they are damaging to peer relationships (Crick, 1995). In addition, relational aggression is related to peer rejection and current and future social-psychological adjustment difficulties (e.g., Crick, 1996; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Grotpeter & Crick, 1996; Tomada & Schneider, 1997). Children associate relational aggression with feelings of anger, and ambiguous relational situations were related to feelings of distress for relationally aggressive girls (e.g., Crick, 1995). The social information-processing model has been widely studied and used with aggressive children as a way to understand how aggressive behaviors are developed and maintained. Empirical evidence has shown that there is a relationship between overt aggression in boys and social information-processing deficits. However, the relationship between relational aggression in girls, negative emotion, and the social information-processing model is not clear.;The objective of this investigation was to extend previous studies of social information-processing and experienced emotion in relationally aggressive girls. This study predicted that there would be a positive relationship between peer reported relational aggression and negative emotion, and that negative emotion would correlate positively with social information-processing variables: (a) intent attributions; (b) response decision; and (c) response evaluation. A total of 125 fourth and fifth grade girls completed peer nominations of relational aggression, read ambiguous relational provocation situations, and answered questions assessing negative emotion, intent attributions, response decisions and response evaluations.;Results indicated that negative emotion was a significant predictor of hostile intent attributions and relationally aggressive response decisions. Relational aggression was not a significant predictor of negative emotions. No relationship was found between negative emotion and response evaluation. Negative emotion did not moderate the relationship between relational aggression and social information-processing variables. These findings suggest that emotion is involved in the social information-processing model and experiencing high levels of negative emotion is linked to social information-processing difficulties. However the social information-processing model appears to be less relevant for relationally aggressive girls than for overtly aggressive boys. |
