ESCALATION AND REINFORCEMENT IN MOTHER-CHILD CONFLICT - SOCIAL PROCESSES ASSOCIATED WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL AGGRESSION

The objective of this study was to test a social interactional model o f physical aggression. Specifically, this model hypothesizes that the performance of physical aggression has its roots in socialization sett ings that are characterized by high densities of aversive stimuli and that provide frequent reinforcement for escalation to high intensity a versive behavior during social conflict. Social conflicts were observe d during 10 hr of interaction of each of 20 mothers and their 5-year-o ld sons; half of the sons were selected based on evidence of frequent aggression in home and school settings. Simple descriptive and sequent ial analyses indicated that aggressive relative to nonaggressive dyad members were more likely to engage in conflict, engaged in longer conf licts, were more likely to escalate to higher levels of aversiveness, and were less likely to de-escalate the intensity of conflict. In aggr essive and nonaggressive dyads, the cessation of conflict contingent o n the escalation of one dyad member was reliably associated with an in creased likelihood of escalation and with escalation to higher levels of aversiveness by that member in the subsequent conflict. However, es calation occurred more frequently and was more likely to result in ces sation of conflicts in aggressive than nonaggressive dyads.