Children's Normative Beliefs About Aggression and Aggressive Behavior

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology Vol. 72; no. 2; pp. 408 - 419
• Main Authors: Huesmann, L. Rowell, Guerra, Nancy G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-02-1997
• Subjects: Aggression; Aggression - psychology; Aggressive Behavior; Aggressiveness; Attitude; Behaviour; Beliefs; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child Attitudes; Child development; Children; Children & youth; Developmental psychology; Ethnic Groups - psychology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Low income neighbourhoods; Male; Normative data; Personality Development; Personality Inventory; Poverty; Psychological aspects; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reference Values; Relationship; Socialization; Sociometric Techniques; Studies; Urban Environments; USA; Values; Human; Belief; Social norm; Social perception; Evaluation scale; Revised drafting; Test reliability; Test validation; Social development; School age; Social behavior; Follow up study; Interindividual comparison; Child; Aggressiveness
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.408

Normative beliefs have been defined as self-regulating beliefs about the appropriateness of social behaviors. In 2 studies the authors revised their scale for assessing normative beliefs about aggression, found that it is reliable and valid for use with elementary school children, and investigated the longitudinal relation between normative beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior in a large sample of elementary school children living in poor urban neighborhoods. Using data obtained in 2 waves of observations 1 year apart, the authors found that children tended to approve more of aggression as they grew older and that this increase appeared to be correlated with increases in aggressive behavior. More important, although individual differences in aggressive behavior predicted subsequent differences in normative beliefs in younger children, individual differences in aggressive behavior were predicted by preceding differences in normative beliefs in older children.