CHILDRENS REASONING ABOUT RESPONSES TO PEER AGGRESSION - VICTIMS AND WITNESSS EXPECTED AND PRESCRIBED BEHAVIORS

This research examined children's reasoning about expected (i.e., what a peer would do) and prescribed (i.e., what a peer should do) respons es to unprovoked, intentional aggressive actions in two contexts: as a victim of such a transgression and as a witness to the incident, Phys ical harm and property damage items were used in a structured intervie w format, There were 90 subjects drawn from three elementary school gr ades (2nd, 4th, and 6th), Children differentiated between the expected and prescribed responses of peers and significant developmental diffe rences in children's evaluations were found, Although the majority of the subjects in all grades denounced retaliation on the basis of conce rns about others' welfare, older children stated that peers were likel y to retaliate against the perpetrator nonetheless, Across different c ontexts, older children's responses appeared to reveal a greater indep endence from authority in negotiating peer interactions, In evaluating the witness's responses to aggressive acts, younger children's expect ed and prescribed responses were less disparate than that of the older children, The utility of including different vantage points of the ch ild in examining children's social reasoning about aggression and the application of the present findings to social information-processing m odels are discussed. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.