The Use of Indirect Aggression among Boys and Girls with and without Conduct Problems: Trajectories from Childhood to Ad
- PDF / 870,318 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 80 Downloads / 155 Views
The Use of Indirect Aggression among Boys and Girls with and without Conduct Problems: Trajectories from Childhood to Adolescence Stéphanie Boutin 1
&
Caroline E. Temcheff 1 & Michèle Déry 2
Accepted: 16 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Though conceptually distinct from other behavior problems, indirect aggression (IA) is correlated with physical aggression and is linked to oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder from childhood to adolescence. Thus, IA could be part of the clinical picture of children with identified conduct problems (CP). However, trajectories of IA have not been studied in children with CP. In the present study, we evaluated and compared the mean trajectory of IA from 7 to 14 years of age in children with (n = 328; 47.6% girls) and without (n = 320; 51.3% girls) early clinically significant CP using both parent and teacher ratings. We then examined if sub-groups of children distinguished themselves by their use of IA over time and tested for sex differences. Latent growth models showed that children with CP used IA at higher rates over time than children without CP. Regardless of this higher frequency, the use of IA in both groups of children was best described by down-turned curvilinear trajectories peaking at 10 years of age. Growth mixture models showed that children without CP, according to parent and teacher ratings, and children with CP, according to parent ratings, both followed two trajectories of IA over time, with, respectively, 10% to 14% of them following a high trajectory. As for sex differences, the use of IA of boys and girls without CP did not differ, but differences emerged for children with CP, with girls using IA more frequently. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed. Keywords Indirect aggression . Trajectories . Conduct problems . Sex differences
Speaking about others behind their backs or gossiping are frequent examples of indirect aggression (IA). Despite the increase in scientific interest in IA over the last two decades, parents and teachers still perceive this form of aggression as less serious than physical aggression (Swit, 2019; Yoon et al., 2016). They are also less likely to intervene in a conflict involving IA in comparison to one involving physical aggression (Swit, 2019). Yet, IA may have deleterious repercussions on the development of children, such as the emergence or aggravation of internalizing problems and externalizing problems (Card et al., 2008). These consequences are most often seen in children frequently or persistently using IA over time
(Cleverley et al., 2012), which concerns from 5% to 35% of children (e.g., Boutin et al., 2017; Vaillancourt et al., 2007). Such an elevated use of IA was reported to be mostly observable among children already presenting a high level of oppositional and conduct problems (CP) (Keenan et al., 2008). However, to our knowledge, no study to date has looked at how IA develops from childhood to adolescence in children with CP, neit
Data Loading...
