Children's competitive peer aggression during reward and punishment

Behavior-disordered children (N = 65) competed with a presumed unknown peer on consecutive administrations of an analogue aggression task of instrumen tal aggression (blocking the opponent's game) and hostile aggression (sendi ng the opponent a noise). The first administration as a reward-only, nonpun ishment condition. The second administration contained both reward and puni shment conditions. Results indicated clear differences on aggressive respon ding during conditions of reward and punishment. Significant correlations w ere found between instrumental aggression during reward across the two admi nistrations, whereas correlations between aggression during reward and aggr ession during punishment were nonsignificant, Teacher ratings of Covert-Pro active Aggression correlated with analogue task instrumental aggression but not with hostile aggression on both administrations. Aggression during pun ishment was significantly correlated with Continuous Performance Test inatt ention and impulsivity scores, suggesting that impulsivity and inattention may play an important role in children's ability to inhibit aggression duri ng cues for punishment. These data indicate the utility of a laboratory ana logue procedure to assess conditions associated with childhood aggression a nd to further our understanding of childhood aggression subtypes. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.