This research seeks to examine relational aggression from the perspective of the aggressor. Children and adolescents who use relational aggression are often strongly disliked by their peers, and they sometimes show other troubling behaviors or symptoms, such as loneliness and acting out. On the other hand, some youth who use relational aggression experience more positive experiences, such as social prominence and high-quality friendships. Most of the previous research on relational aggression has studied relationally aggressive behavior as a ?type? or ?category? of behaviors. Behaviors such as gossip, social exclusion, friendship manipulation, and rumor-spreading have all been considered to be a category of similar behaviors with similar goals. Yet, the current investigator argues that it is unlikely that different relationally aggressive behaviors serve the same purposes and are used in the same ways by youth. Instead, they are likely to be chosen for use against certain targets, and they may have very different outcomes. In order to determine the veracity of this claim, 5th and 8th graders will be asked to report their own experiences with using relational aggression. Each day for 15 days, participants will indicate in which of a set of 15 relationally aggressive behaviors they have engaged. They will then answer a number of questions about each act of aggression. The questions they respond to assess the function of each behavior (to make someone else look bad, to make themselves feel better, etc.), the characteristics of the target of their aggression, and what happened as a result of their act of aggression. The implications of these findings for intervening in, preventing, and repairing the damage from relationally aggressive acts are significant. The data that result from this project will help us to understand why some youth who use these behaviors have so much trouble getting along with their peers, while others who use the same behaviors may actually attain greater social power.
