Relational Aggression In High-school Students And Its Predictive Factors

Relational aggression is an indirect aggressive behavior. Relational aggression is different from overt aggression which meant to harm a peer physically, relational aggression includes behaviors that inflict harm on others by manipulating their peer relationships, as away of inflicting social harm, such as giving a peer the silent treatment, purposefully excluding a peer from social activities, threatening to withdraw one' s friendship, maliciously spreading lies and rumors or gossip about a peer to damage the peer' s group status. These kinds of aggression strategies maximize the effects of the intended method while minimizing personal danger. The concept of relational aggression originated from studies about sex difference in aggression behavior. Along with deep studies in aggression behavior, now more and more psychologists realized the harm of relational aggression. And sometimes victims of peer aggression may experience significant levels of psychology distress. So more and more west psychologists began to research the characteristics of relational aggression and its affective factors in recent years. Most studies found that relational aggression commonly exists in all age phases. And in contrast to physical aggression, relational aggression has the same harmful effects to victims. And researches also demonstrated that individuals who was used to employing this kind of aggressive behavior confronted with social-psychological maladjustment. This study was to research relational aggression in high-school students, aiming to find out whether relational aggression is common among high-school students. It can attribute to know more about the characters of interpersonal relationships among high-school students, leading to effective resolve peer conflicts, inducting students to develop good interpersonal relationships.A self-report assessment was used in this study to appropriately capture the characteristics of relational aggression in high-school students. Some affective factors, such as the normative beliefs about relational aggression, sympathy, perspective taking, gender-role orientation and social anxiety, were also tested in order to better understand the forming of relational aggression.540 high-school students participate in this study, 216 from a key high school (75 males, 141 females) and 324 from two professional high schools (170 males, 154 females).The results indicated:(1) The relational aggression levels between the students from key high school and professional high school were significant different.Relational aggression scores among key high-school students were significantly higher than professional high-school students. And this difference was related with ages, firstly decreasing with ages than increasing.(2) Normative beliefs about relational aggression could predict relational aggression. If an individual thought relational aggression was reasonable when confronted with conflicts, he or she would conduct more relational aggressive behaviors.(3) Social anxiety affected normative beliefs about relational aggression and relational aggressive behaviors. The higher social anxiety an individual had, the more reasonable beliefs about relational aggression he or she would hold. And in the face of conflicts with peers they would take more relational aggressive behaviors.(4) The assessment of gender-role orientation demonstrated that students who were categorized as femininity seemed to have higher normative beliefs about relational aggression, and more easily to conduct relational aggression. Students who were categorized as androgynous had lowest normative beliefs about relational aggression, and had the least relational aggressive behaviors.(5) Gender-role orientation was related with social anxiety significantly. Compared with the students who were categorized as androgynous and masculinity, students who were categorized as femininity and undifferentiated had higher social anxieties.