CHILDRENS NORMATIVE BELIEFS ABOUT AGGRESSION AND AGGRESSIVE-BEHAVIOR

Normative beliefs have been defined as self-regulating beliefs about t he appropriateness of social behaviors. In 2 studies the authors revis ed their scale for assessing normative beliefs about aggression, found that it is reliable and valid for use with elementary school children , and investigated the longitudinal relation between normative beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior in a large sample of element ary school children living in poor urban neighborhoods. Using data obt ained in 2 waves of observations 1 year apart, the authors found that children tended to approve more of aggression as they grew older and t hat this increase appeared to be correlated with increases in aggressi ve behavior. More important, although individual differences in aggres sive behavior predicted subsequent differences in normative beliefs in younger children, individual differences in aggressive behavior were predicted by preceding differences in normative beliefs in older child ren.