PEER AND SELF-ESTIMATED AGGRESSION AND VICTIMIZATION IN 8-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN FROM 5 ETHNIC-GROUPS

The Direct & Indirect Aggression Scales (DIAS) (Bjorkqvist et al. [199 2b] Finland: Abo Akademi University) were applied in order to investig ate the perception of aggression among 8-year-old children (n=404, gir ls 200, boys 204) in a cross-cultural comparison. Two samples from Fin land (Finnish and Swedish-speaking children), two from Chicago, IL (Af rican Americans and Caucasians), and one from Warsaw; Poland, were inc luded in the study. These types of aggressive behavior and victimizati on of aggression (physical, verbal, and indirect) were measured using both peer and self estimations. Peer estimations were internally more consistent than self estimations. Children rated themselves as signifi cantly less aggressive than their peers rated them. The opposite was t rue of victimization. An attributional discrepancy index (ADI) was cal culated as the difference between self and peer estimated aggression s c ores. The index may be seen as an indicator of norms pertaining to a ggression in different ethnic groups. ADI stores of girls, but not for boys, showed significant variance over culture on all three types of aggression. This indicates greater cultural variation in norms pertain ing to aggression for girls than for boys. Cultural variation and sex differences in the patterning of aggressive behavior were analysed usi ng multidimensional scaling (ALSCAL). Cultural variation appeared as d istribution along the x-axis (dimension 1) in a two-dimensional soluti on, and sex differences along the y-axis (dimension 2), indicating tha t patterns of aggressive behavior are dependent on both culture and se x. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.