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Direct and Indirect Aggression During Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta‐Analytic Review of Gender Differences, Intercorrelations, and Relations to Maladjustment
Author(s) -
Card Noel A.,
Stucky Brian D.,
Sawalani Gita M.,
Little Todd D.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01184.x
Subject(s) - aggression , psychology , moderation , prosocial behavior , developmental psychology , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , social psychology , medicine , environmental health
This meta‐analytic review of 148 studies on child and adolescent direct and indirect aggression examined the magnitude of gender differences, intercorrelations between forms, and associations with maladjustment. Results confirmed prior findings of gender differences (favoring boys) in direct aggression and trivial gender differences in indirect aggression. Results also indicated a substantial intercorrelation (= .76) between these forms. Despite this high intercorrelation, the 2 forms showed unique associations with maladjustment: Direct aggression is more strongly related to externalizing problems, poor peer relations, and low prosocial behavior, and indirect aggression is related to internalizing problems and higher prosocial behavior. Moderation of these effect sizes by method of assessment, age, gender, and several additional variables were systematically investigated.