Aggressive/rejected and nonaggressive/accepted children's attributions for prosocial behaviors

Abstract

Aggressive/rejected and nonaggressive/accepted boys' attributions concerning the intentions of peer protagonists in social situations with positive outcomes were compared under hypothetical and real-life conditions. Hypotheses were, first, that aggressive/rejected boys, in comparison to their nonaggressive peers, would demonstrate systematic tendencies to underattribute benevolent intentions to other children when their actions result in positive outcomes for peers. Also hypothesized was that aggressive/rejected boys would infer significantly fewer positive intentions to peers who instigated positive outcomes for them. Subjects were 54 boys in third and fourth grades in racially integrated, low- to middle-income schools. Twenty-seven aggressive/rejected and 27 nonaggressive/accepted subjects were identified on the basis of classroom sociometric measures and peer nominations for descriptions of aggressive behavior. All subjects were individually interviewed by the examiner. To test the first hypothesis, subjects were presented with a series of ten vignettes, each featuring different boys involved in social situations which end positively but in which the intentions of the protagonists are left unclear. At the conclusion of each vignette, children were asked to describe the intentions of the protagonist. Their responses were recorded verbatim. At the conclusion of the interview, the examiner offered each boy a prize and explained that another boy had left it for the subject. The subjects' attributions for the peer's intentions constituted the real-life measure. Subjects' responses to both measures were categorized as either positive, negative, or neutral. Relative to nonaggressive/accepted boys, aggressive/rejected boys displayed a bias toward underattributing positive intentions to peers who instigated positive outcomes for them. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and for therapeutic intervention with aggressive/rejected children.