AGGRESSIVE BOYS HOSTILE PERCEPTUAL AND RESPONSE BIASES - THE ROLE OF ATTENTION AND IMPULSIVITY

The present study addressed whether (1) aggressive boys show hostile b iases or general deficits in social perception, (2) aggressive boys' s ocial perceptual difficulties also characterize isolate and isolate-ag gressive children, (3) aggressive, isolate, and isolate-aggressive boy s' social perceptual difficulties are attributable to inattention and impulsivity, and (4) aggressive and nonaggressive boys differ in the l inks between social perception and proposed behavioral responses. Aggr essive boys demonstrated hostile biases, but not general deficits, in intention-cue detection relative to average-status boys. Isolate-aggre ssive boys resembled aggressive boys in social perception, whereas iso late boys showed mild deficits relative to average-status boys. Althou gh isolates' general deficits were predominantly accounted for by inat tention and impulsivity, aggressives' and isolate-aggressives' hostile biases remained after these problems were statistically controlled. T he aggressive groups proposed aggressive responses much more frequentl y than the nonaggressive groups following intentions perceived as nonh ostile. Measures corresponding to several stages of Dodge's social inf ormation processing model discriminated the aggressive from nonaggress ive groups, thus providing support for this model.