Copyright Malvin Porter, Jr. 2010 - acumen - The University of ...

Wardrop, 2001). It is important to identify children who are victims of peer aggression and those
who engage in bully behavior in order to understand how they reason about this form of
aggression. Social learning research shows that development can be altered by early exposure to
aggression, thus, increasing the likelihood that child will have greater access to aggressive
behavioral responses. Previous studies found that children acquire knowledge of novel
aggressive behavior by observing aggressive models and emulating effective strategies with
positive consequences for aggressing (Bandura, 1973, 1977, 1983; Melzoff & Moore, 1977).
Aggressive models teach general constructs (e.g., scripts, schemas, strategies, likely
consequences) for aggressing (Collins, 1982; Huesmann, 1988; Rule & Ferguson, 1986; Shank
& Ableson, 1977). Aggressors learn to consider positive cost/benefit ratios of aggression (e.g.,
peer approval, goal attainment, gain dominance; legal punishment, parental disapproval) that
generate positive thinking about aggressive acts (Becker, 1974; Clarke & Cornish, 1983; Crick &
Dodge, 1994). One implication is that by teaching children prosocial social skills and coping
strategies they will learn to more frequently engage prosocial assessments of behavior in the
context of bully victimization.
Research has found that assisting children who are victims of aggression to develop
coping strategies had a positive effect on social adjustment (Kochenderfer Ladd & Skinner,
2002). For example, girls benefit from garnering appropriate social support. Boys benefit from
enhancing appropriate problem-solving and conflict resolution skills. Boys benefit by ways to
enhance their social support skills in severe situations that are outside their control, such as peer
abuse. Additionally, children benefit by developing coping strategies that moderate their
emotional responses to peer aggression, such as fear, embarrassment and anger (Kochenderfer-
Ladd, 2004; Kochenderfer Ladd & Pelletier, 2008).
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