Relational aggression and peer relations: Gender and developmental issues

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Jan 1997 by Gail S Rys, George G Bear

It is not known if the cited findings on aggression and friendship hold true among children who are relationally aggressive, especially girls. If Crick and Grotpeter (1995) are correct in asserting that relational aggression among girls results in the same social outcomes as does overt aggression among boys, one should expect that relationally aggressive girls are rejected by their larger peer group but might continue to maintain one or more friendships.

However, it seems plausible that the relation between overt aggression and peer rejection among boys differs from the association between relational aggression and rejection among girls. Reasonable arguments can be made for both a stronger association among boys, and for a stronger association among girls. On the one hand, because only overt aggression includes bodily harm, it seems likely that peers would view overt aggression as being more deviant and unacceptable than relational aggression. Indeed, studies have shown that whereas children, especially girls, find aggressive/defiant behaviors to be most disturbing (Safran, Safran, & Rich, 1994), they find verbal aggression to be an acceptable means of resolving peer conflicts (Lancelotta & Vaughn, 1989). Thus, one would predict that, compared to relational aggression among girls, overt aggression among boys would be more detrimental to overall social status. Overt aggression may not be related to friendships, however. As found by Cairns et al. (1988), even overtly aggressive girls manage to have a few close friendships with similar others.

On the other hand, as recently shown by Bukowski et al. (1993), the aggressive and disruptive behaviors of girls are more strongly linked to indexes of popularity (both high rejection and low acceptance) than are the same behaviors of boys.' This was found to be true regardless of whether the peer relations of the girls were assessed by girls or by boys. Unfortunately, as in other previously mentioned studies, the distinction was not made between overt and relational types of aggression. If both types of aggression lead to the same social outcomes, as argued by Crick and Grotpeter (1995), then Bukowski et al.'s (1993) findings would lead one to predict that the relational aggression of girls is more strongly linked to popularity than is the overt aggression of boys.

Furthermore, studies investigating the nature of children's friendships have found that both boys and girls believe that boys' friendship networks differ qualitatively from girls' friendship networks (Bukowski & Kramer, 1986) and that girls expect and receive more empathy, loyalty, and commitment from their friends than do boys (Clark & Bittle, 1992). Increases in the level of intimacy and empathic understanding afforded friends from middle childhood through adolescence also have been found for both boys and girls (Bukowski & Kramer, 1986; Clark & Bittle, 1992; Jones & Dembo, 1989). Thus, because relational aggression is likely to preclude intimacy and betray trust, one could argue that children high in relational aggression probably have fewer reciprocal friendships. Moreover, developmental differences in this relationship are likely because older children place more importance on relational aspects of friendship.