Summer Steely Proposes Thesis
Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis proposal!
Summer Boggs Defends Thesis
Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis defense!
Alison Poor Defends Dissertation
Ali found that the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression was partially mediated by anger rumination and hostile attribution bias and that normative beliefs about relational aggression moderated some of these relationships. Overall, her findings support the continued relevance of relational aggression among women through middle adulthood.
Congratulations to Ali on an impressive dissertation defense!
Summer Boggs Proposes Thesis
Congratulations to Summer on her successful thesis proposal!
Alison Poor Wins Research Award
The Peggy Jean Connor Research Award is given annually by the University of Southern Mississippi’s Committee on Services & Resources for Women to promote research on gender issues by faculty and graduate students and professional development activities for staff. As part of the award, Ali will present her research in March.
Congratulations, Ali!
Alison Poor Proposes Dissertation
Ali’s dissertation builds on her thesis work, which highlighted the role of anger rumination in relational aggression. She is adding a number of other variables that will allow her to test some proposed mediation and moderation relationships in one model, but we are most excited about her plans to conduct invariance testing across age groups. There has been relatively little research on relational aggression among adults, and we should learn more from Ali’s study.
Congratulations to Ali on her successful proposal!
Ali and Savannah Present Posters at Virtual MPA Convention
Congratulations to Savannah and Ali for disseminating their findings!
Merold, S., Dahlen, E. R., Madson, M. B., & Nicholson, B. C. (2020, September 24-October 9). Psychopathic traits as a moderator of the relationship between social intelligence and relational aggression [Poster session]. 71st Annual Convention of the Mississippi Psychological Association, Bay St. Louis, MS, United States.
Poor, A., Dahlen, E. R., Leuty, M. E., & Nicholson, B. C. (2020, September 24-October 9). Relational aggression and trait anger: The mediating role of anger rumination [Poster session]. 71st Annual Convention of the Mississippi Psychological Association, Bay St. Louis, MS, United States.
Lab Welcomes Hailee Buras
Congratulations to Hailee on her admission to the Counseling Psychology Master's Program! We are looking forward to continuing to work with you.
Alison Poor Defends Thesis
Ali examined two research questions separately due to the expected overlap between some of her variables and differences in the theoretical rationale for the models she tested. First, she found that anger rumination mediated the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression. Second, she found that vengeance did not mediate the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression, although both relational victimization and vengeance predicted relational aggression.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ali's thesis defense was conducted online through Microsoft Teams. Fortunately, everything worked well and the online format was not an issue.
Congratulations to Ali on a successful thesis defense!
Lab Welcomes Summer Boggs
Summer's research background includes work on self-esteem as a moderator of the relationship between perfectionism and demoralization. She is interested in risk factors for mental illness, including the identification of personality and individual difference variables that may contribute to an understanding relational aggression among emerging adults.
Congratulations to Summer on her admission to the doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi! We are looking forward to working with her.
Lab Represented at APA
Philip’s poster was based on his master’s thesis and described his finding that emotion regulation moderated the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and self-criticism. Hailee’s poster, which also utilized data collected as part of Philip’s thesis project but not used in his thesis, described her finding that anxiety moderated the relationship between peer exclusivity and relational aggression among college students.
Hailee is completing her honor’s thesis in the lab, and this was her first professional conference. She received a Discovery Scholar Research Grant from the Honors College at the University of Southern Mississippi, which supported her travel to Chicago.
Congratulations on a successful conference!
Skylar Hicks Defends Dissertation
Of note, Skylar found that both anxious and avoidant attachment were positively associated with relational aggression and that these associations were mediated by romantic jealousy. There was some evidence that mate value moderated some paths; however, it did not do so in the manner expected. On the other hand, there was no evidence that relationship investment moderated the mediated relationships.
Given that relational aggression in the context of intimate relationships may be a risk factor for intimate partner violence, we believe that research aimed at improving our understanding of this behavior is beneficial. Skylar’s findings suggest that attachment style is likely to be relevant to romantic relational aggression through its relationship with jealousy.
Congratulations to Skylar on her successful dissertation defense!
Skylar will soon begin her predoctoral internship at a Federal Bureau of Prisons site, the Federal Medical Center - Fort Worth in Fort Worth, TX. By completing her dissertation prior to her internship year, she will have more time to focus on the internship experience.
Alison Poor Proposes Thesis
Ali’s primary focus will be on trait anger, anger rumination, and relational aggression. We expect that anger rumination will mediate the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression, much as it has in previous studies with overt aggression. Although vengeance is being included on more of an exploratory basis to inform future studies of relational victimization, we expect that the relationship between relational victimization and relational aggression may be mediated by vengeful attitudes.
Congratulations to Ali on a successful thesis proposal!
Lab Welcomes Erica Van Overloop
Erica’s clinical work with children and families sparked an interest in trauma. She has some great ideas for how she might incorporate this interest in our work on relational aggression and victimization.
Congratulations to Erica on her admission to the doctoral program at the University of Southern Mississippi! We are looking forward to working with her.
Savannah Merold Defends Thesis
Social intelligence and psychopathic traits were related to the perpetration of relational aggression, with social intelligence having a negative relationship and psychopathic traits having a positive relationship. Psychopathic traits moderated the relationship between social intelligence and relational aggression so that it became stronger as psychopathic traits increased. Some of Savannah’s findings differed from what was predicted, but since she included some additional variables beyond what we used for her thesis, we hope to run some additional analyses to learn more about the possible role of social intelligence and psychopathic traits in relational aggression.
Congratulations to Savannah on the successful thesis defense!
Skylar Hicks Proposes Dissertation
Skylar completed her master’s thesis in the Spring and has been gaining clinical experience as she prepares to apply for internship this year.
Congratulations to Skylar on completing this important milestone!
Lab Welcomes Alison Poor
Alison is completing her B.S. in Psychology at Louisiana State University. During her undergraduate career, she was an ASPIRE Scholar and worked in Dr. Paul Frick's Developmental Psychopathology Lab. She is interested in juvenile corrections, working with mentally ill offenders, dark personalities, and relational aggression.
Congratulations to Alison on her admission to the doctoral program! We are looking forward to working with you.
Skylar Hicks Defends Thesis
She found that trait anger and difficulties in emotion regulation were positively related to peer relational aggression. That is, students with a higher propensity to experience angry feelings and difficulties regulating their emotions were more likely to report engaging in relationally aggressive behavior in their peer relationships. Contrary to what was expected, difficulties in emotion regulation did not moderate the relationship between trait anger and relational aggression. We will likely conduct additional analyses to determine why this might be the case and how best to incorporate emotion regulation in future studies.
Upcoming Paper on HEXACO, Dark Triad, and Relational Aggression
Here’s the abstract from the upcoming paper:
The citation is as follows:Relational aggression has been linked to many forms of psychological maladjustment. Identifying the personality traits associated with the perpetration of relational aggression offers promise in improving our ability to understand, prevent, and treat relationally aggressive behaviors. Much of the research to date has utilized the Five Factor Model; however, the HEXACO model of personality (Ashton et al., 2004) may offer some advantages in studying aggression. Moreover, the manipulative and often covert nature of relational aggression suggests that the Dark Triad personality traits are likely to be relevant. This study explored the utility of the HEXACO model and Dark Triad in predicting relational aggression in college students’ (N = 442) peer relationships. Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness predicted proactive and reactive relational aggression, and Emotionality also predicted reactive relational aggression. Pathological narcissism and psychopathy predicted proactive and reactive relational aggression while taking respondent gender and the full HEXACO model into account, with vulnerable narcissism and psychopathy serving as positive predictors and grandiose narcissism serving as a negative predictor. Findings support the utility of both the HEXACO and Dark Triad models in understanding peer relational aggression among emerging adults.
Knight, N. M., Dahlen, E. R., Bullock-Yowell, E., & Madson, M. B. (in press). The HEXACO model of personality and Dark Triad in relational aggression. Personality and Individual Differences.
Savannah Merold Proposes Thesis
There is reason to believe that social and emotional intelligence are positive predictors of relational aggression, and some have suggested that certain levels of these forms of intelligence might be necessary for relational aggression to occur (or at least to be successful). At the same time, there is no reason to think that social or emotional intelligence would be sufficient to produce relational aggression. Thus, we plan to examine the degree to which psychopathic traits might inform our understanding of this relationship.
Congratulations to Savannah on a successful thesis proposal!
Amber Dedeaux at the Mississippi State Research Symposium
Their work led to a poster presentation at Mississippi State University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium (poster available here as a .pdf file). Both Amber and Philip were able to attend the symposium at Mississippi State and found it to be a positive experience. Congratulations to both on their success.
Daniel Deason Accepts Job at Ole Miss
We are currently working on a paper based on Daniel’s master’s thesis that examines the contribution of social anxiety to the Five Factor Model (Costa & McCrae, 1992) of personality in understanding relational aggression in college students.
Congratulations to Daniel on the new job!
Lab Welcomes Morgan Lowe
Congratulations to Morgan on her admission to the master’s program! We are looking forward to working with you.
What is the Dark Triad?
The Dark Triad refers to three overlapping but distinct personality traits associated with a variety of antisocial and morally transgressive behaviors: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavelianism (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Considered together, these traits involve emotional coldness, a lack of empathy, the desire for personal advancement at the expense of healthy relationships, grandiosity, and a willingness to manipulate others (Jonason, Lyons, Bethell, & Ross, 2013). Although there are well-known clinical manifestations of psychopathy and narcissism, work on the Dark Triad has emphasized the goal of understanding the subclinical forms of these traits found throughout the population (Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013). That is, most of the Dark Triad research seeks to understand the dark personalities we encounter in our daily lives.
Psychopathy
Psychopathy describes a specific constellation of affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and behavioral characteristics. These include impulsivity; callous affect; poor reliability in performing various roles; a lack of remorse, empathy, or guilt; and a tendency toward rule violation (Hare, 2003; Jones & Paulhus, 2014). Although psychopathy is associated with criminality and violence (Hare & Neumann, 2009) and is considered to be the most dangerous of the Dark Triad traits, its utility is not restricted to criminal and forensic contexts. For example, subclinical psychopathy predicts a variety of behaviors that are not necessarily criminal (e.g., academic dishonesty, relational aggression, cyber aggression, substance misuse) but still likely to be of interest (Kokkinos, Antoniadou, & Markos, 2014; Williams, Paulhus, & Hare, 2007).
Narcissism
Much like the clinical version (i.e., Narcissistic Personality Disorder), subclinical narcissism involves grandiosity, as well as entitlement and a sense of superiority; however, this grandiose narcissism is only one part of the construct. Another important aspect involves narcissistic vulnerability, which refers to a vulnerable self-concept and efforts at self-enhancement (Morf & Rodenwalt, 2001). While grandiose narcissism tends to be emphasized in much of the Dark Triad literature, vulnerable narcissism appears to be relevant in many areas of emotional and interpersonal functioning. Subclinical narcissism has been linked to aggression (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998), online antisocial behavior (Carpenter, 2012), and a number of other variables of interest.
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism is probably the least understood of the Dark Triad traits. It refers to a manipulative interpersonal style named for Niccolò Machiavelli (Christie & Geis, 1970). In The Prince (1513), Machiavelli described several behaviors most of us would regard as immoral (e.g., lying, deceit, and even murder) as effective strategies for a ruler to maintain power. Machiavellianism is perhaps best characterized as the perspective that the ends justify the means. People high in Machiavellian traits are described as cynical on morality, focused on personal gain, and willing to manipulate and exploit others to achieve their goals (Jones & Paulhus, 2009). Machiavellian personality traits have been linked to online relational aggression (Abell & Brewer, 2014) and a number of other antisocial behaviors.
At the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab, our primary interest with regard to the Dark Triad traits involves their role in nonclinical populations (i.e., individuals in the community who are not currently receiving treatment for diagnosed personality disorders or other mental health problems) of emerging adults. That is, we are interested in how individual differences in scores on subclinical measures of Dark Triad traits relate to a variety of socially undesirable behaviors (e.g., overt and relational aggression, cyber aggression, dysfunctional anger expression, jealousy, academic dishonesty, aggressive driving) among young adults.
References
Abell, L., & Brewer, G. (2014). Machiavellianism, self-monitoring, self-promotion and relational aggression on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 258-262.
Bushman, B. J. & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229.
Carpenter, C. J. (2012). Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 482-486.
Christie R. & Geis F. L. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York: Academic Press.
Furnham, A., Richards, S. C., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). The dark triad of personality: A 10 year review. Social and Personality Compass, 7, 199-216.
Hare, R. D. (2003). Manual for the Revised Psychopathy Checklist (2nd Edition). Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi-Health Systems.
Hare, R. D., & Neumann, C. S. (2009). Psychopathy: Assessment and forensic implications. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 54, 791-802.
Jonason, P. K., Lyons, M., Bethell, E. J., & Ross, R. (2013). Different routes to limited empathy in the sexes: Examining the links between the Dark Triad and empathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 572-576.
Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment, 21, 28-41.
Jones, D.N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2009). Machiavellianism. In M.R. Leary & R.H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior. New York: Guilford.
Kokkinos, C. M., Antoniadou, N., & Markos, A. (2014). Cyber-bullying: An investigation of the psychological profile of university student participants. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 35, 204-214.
Morf, C. C. & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: a dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 4, 177-196.
Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556-568.
Williams, K. M., Paulhus, D. L. & Hare, R. D. (2007). Capturing the four-factor structure of psychopathy in college students via self-report. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 205-219.
Caitlin Clark Defends Dissertation
In spite of the increased interest received by relational aggression among emerging adults, the lack of psychometrically sound measures appropriate for this age range continues to be an important barrier. Caitlin’s dissertation, Validation of the Young Adult Relational Aggression Scale (YARAS), attempted to confirm the hypothesized factor structure of a new measure as well as assess its reliability and validity in a college student sample.
Although she was able to identify a suitable factor structure, doing so required her to correlate several items and meant that the predicted structure could not technically be confirmed (i.e., the confirmatory procedures became exploratory). Nevertheless, we learned a great deal about the construct and the new measure that should inform future work aimed at refining the measure.
Congratulations to Caitlin on completing this important milestone!
Caitlin is currently completing her predoctoral internship at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System in Florida and has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship next year at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston.
Dark Personality and Cyber Aggression Presentation Accepted for SEPA
One of the challenges in this area of research involves the lack of consensus in how electronic aggression (aka, cyber aggression, cyberbullying) should be defined and measured (Berne et al., 2013). Taylor is using what appears to be one of the better self-report measures available for emerging adults, the Cyberbullying Experiences Survey (Doane et al., 2013). We anticipate that her findings will provide useful information about the relationship between electronic aggression and offline relational aggression and between various dark personality traits and electronic aggression.
Congratulations, Taylor!
Daniel Deason Defends Dissertation
Although the literature on relational aggression among emerging adults has advanced considerably over the last couple decades, surprisingly little is known about the role of culture in general and the nature of relational aggression among LGBT persons in particular. Daniel's dissertation, Hypermasculine, antifeminine: The role of masculine identity in relational aggression among gay men, examined relational aggression and victimization among gay men using Exclusively Masculine Identity Theory (EMIT; Killanski, 2003). Daniel's study utilized structural equation modeling to test models derived from EMIT in an effort to learn more about the possible role of adherence to masculine ideology and sex stereotypically.
The men who participated in Daniel's study differed from those described in some of the previously published research in terms of the masculine and feminine traits they considered desirable. Contrary to what we expected, participants with an exclusively masculine identity (i.e., those who had a more masculine ideal self and a more feminine undesired self) reported lower rates of relational aggression. Thus, while EMIT was useful in predicting relational aggression, the direction of the relationship was not what was anticipated. Daniel's results also suggest that certain domains of masculine ideology may be more useful in predicting relational aggression and victimization than the full EMIT model.
Daniel is currently completing his predoctoral internship at the University of Memphis Counseling Center in Memphis, TN.
Congratulations, Daniel!
Skylar Hicks Proposes Thesis
If emotion regulation moderates the relationship between anger and relational aggression, this may have implications for the treatment of relationally aggressive individuals. For example, such findings might indicate that anger management and other interventions aimed at improving emotion regulation could be beneficial for relationally aggressive young adults.
Skylar is a second-year doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of New Orleans and entered the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Program in the Fall of 2015.
Congratulations to Skylar on the successful proposal!
Niki Knight Defends Master's Thesis
With regard to the HEXACO model, the factors of Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness were positively associated with proactive and reactive relational aggression in peer relationships. Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits were positively associated with reactive relational aggression; narcissistic and psychopathic but not Machiavellian traits were positively associated with proactive relational aggression. Taken together, Niki's results supported the utility of both the HEXACO model and the Dark Triad constructs in predicting peer relational aggression among college students.
Niki is a doctoral student in her third year of the program and will soon begin work on her dissertation.
Congratulations to Niki on a successful defense!
Caitlin Clark Proposes Dissertation
Many of the existing measures one finds in the adult relational aggression literature were adapted from measures developed with children and early adolescents. Others were developed for use in individual studies and have little evidence of reliability or validity. Still others are difficult to obtain because they were never published, have different versions without clear instructions for use, or do not distinguish between the proactive and reactive functions of relational aggression. Our hope is that the YARAS will be able to improve upon these and other limitations of existing instruments.
Caitlin is an advanced doctoral student working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab who is in the process of applying for a predoctoral internship this year. With her successful dissertation proposal, she will soon be able to begin data collection.
Congratulations to Caitlin on completing this important milestone!
Daniel Deason Proposes Dissertation
Despite evidence that relationally aggressive behaviors can cause problems for emerging adults, little is known about the nature of relational aggression among persons who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). Daniel's dissertation, Hypermasculine, antifeminine: The role of masculine identity in relational aggression among gay men, will examine relational aggression and victimization in the peer relationships of gay men using Exclusively Masculine Identity Theory (EMIT; Kilianski, 2003). Specifically, he aims to test a model derived from EMIT in which adherence to masculine ideology is examined as a potential moderator of the predicted relationship between an index of participants' sex stereotypically and their report of relational aggression and victimization.
Congratulations to Daniel on presenting a complex proposal so clearly!
Panel on Relational Aggression at MPA
Congratulations to Caitlin, Daniel, Niki, and Ashley on a job well done!
Lab Welcomes Skylar Hicks
Skylar completed her bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of New Orleans, where she worked in Dr. Monica Marsee's Youth Social and Emotional Development Lab. She has been working as a research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the LSU Health Sciences Center. Her interest and experience in overt and relational aggression make her an excellent fit for the lab.
Congratulations to Skylar on her admission! We are looking forward to working with you in Hattiesburg.
Paper on Parenting and Relational Aggression Published
Clark, C. M., Dahlen, E. R., & Nicholson, B. C. (2015). The role of parenting in relational aggression and prosocial behavior among emerging adults. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 24, 185-202. doi: 10.1080/10926771.2015.1002653
Developing a Measure of Relational Aggression
Our new measure aims to assess general/peer relational aggression and romantic relation aggression on separate scales and to permit each type of relational aggression to be divided into proactive and reactive functions. For example, a relational aggressive behavior like spreading a malicious rumor about a friend behind his or her back could be proactive (i.e., unprovoked, planned, done for gain) or reactive (i.e., done out of anger or in response to provocation, unplanned, impulsive). We also included items designed to measure electronic forms of relational aggression, a dimension important to college students but not found in existing measures.
Instrument development is usually a length and complex endeavor. We started by conducting a literature review in order to make sure we had a clear definition of relational aggression. We then developed an initial item set on the basis of focus groups with college students and a review of existing measures appropriate to either adolescents or adults. The focus groups were especially useful because they revealed some important limitations of existing measures and provided us with ideas for relevant content that had not occurred to us. After several rounds of revising items, we submitted our item set to several experts on relational aggression. We revised the item set again based on the input of the expert reviewers. Now we are close to completing the step of administering the new items along with a few existing measures of relational aggression and related constructs to a large sample of college students. This will allow us to examine the factor structure of the item set, reduce the number of items while maximizing reliability, and examine the concurrent and discriminant validity of the resulting measure.
While we hope to complete this phase of the project this semester, many additional steps will remain. In fact, we are planning for the next few steps to be carried out as Caitlin Clark's dissertation. We will be at this project for awhile, but we hope to end up with a measure that has some useful advantages over the option currently available.
Careless Responding in Online Survey Research
For those researchers just beginning to consider incorporating methods for identifying careless responders and reducing careless responding in online survey research, some of the procedures we have been using include:
- Modifying consent forms and survey instructions to inform potential participants that quality assurance checks are being used and that failing such checks will result in them not receiving incentives for participation
- Including validity items or bogus items that should be answered the same way by participants who are attending to item content
- Measuring survey completion and/or individual instrument completion time
We have noticed that it is becoming increasingly common for authors of studies using online surveys to address how they detected careless responders and what they did with these data. This suggests that the use of such procedures are rapidly becoming part of routine practice to promote data integrity.
Daniel Deason Defends Master's Thesis
In examining the zero-order correlations between the FFM constructs and relational aggression, both peer and romantic relational aggression were inversely related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (i.e., the inverse of neuroticism). Thus, more relationally aggressive students scored lower on agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.
When peer relational aggression and romantic relational aggression were each regressed on the five FFM constructs, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability emerged as significant predictors. Students reporting more relational aggression tended to be more extraverted, less agreeable, and have lower emotional stability.
Based on the literature, the strongest case could be made for the role of agreeableness and emotional stability. So, sequential regressions designed to take student gender and race into account were conducted. Agreeableness and emotional stability predicted peer relational aggression; emotional stability predicted romantic relational aggression.
Finally, the incremental validity of social anxiety and rejection sensitivity was tested over and above participant gender, race, and the full FFM. Social anxiety but not rejection sensitivity demonstrated evidence of incremental validity here. Interestingly, extraversion joined agreeableness and emotional stability as predictors of both peer and romantic relational aggression, suggesting that this variable may be more relevant than was previously thought.
Additional analyses will be needed to better evaluate the potential role of participant gender and race, so we will be sure to share them here once they are completed.
Dark Personalities and Relational Aggression
We recently started collecting data for a couple of studies examining the possible role of the Dark Triad constructs in relational aggression and how they fit into broader models of personality, such as the Five Factor Model and the HEXACO model of personality.
These studies fit our goal of learning more about relational aggression among emerging adults. In addition, it seems that the study of dark personality constructs may be beneficial in some of our other research areas (e.g., anger and traffic psychology).
Paper on Parenting and Relational Aggression Accepted for Publication
The paper, titled "The role of parenting in relational aggression and prosocial behavior among emerging adults," continues the lab's research on relational aggression in college students. Results indicated that students' retrospective ratings of how they were parented were related to both relational aggression and prosocial behavior. Authoritative parenting, permissive parenting, and parental psychological control predicted relational aggression. Authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting predicted prosocial behavior, and participant race moderated the relationship between psychological control and prosocial behavior (i.e., parental psychological control was inversely related to prosocial behavior for Black students but not for White students).
Niki Knight Proposes Master's Thesis
Niki's thesis will examine the relationships between the constructs represented by the HEXACO personality model and relational aggression in college students, focusing on the role of Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness. Additionally, she will assess the predictive utility of the Dark Triad constructs (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) in predicting proactive and reactive relational aggression.
Relational Aggression in College Students
Research conducted at the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab has focused on contributing to the growing literature on relational aggression in college students. Below is a summary of three recent studies conducted at the lab.
1. Czar, Dahlen, Bullock, and Nicholson (2011) explored the potential role of psychopathic personality traits in relational aggression among college students. Both primary and secondary psychopathic traits predicted relational aggression, and these relationships did not vary by gender. This suggests that psychopathic traits (e.g., a lack of empathy or remorse, dishonesty, impulsivity, antisocial behavior), known to predict overt aggression, may also be relevant to understanding relational aggression.
2. Prather, Dahlen, Nicholson, and Bullock-Yowell (2012) found that male and female college students reported engaging in similar levels of relational aggression in their dating relationships. Students with traditional (as opposed to egalitarian) sex role attitudes were more likely to engage in dating relational aggression, regardless of gender. In addition, the acceptance of couple violence predicted dating relational aggression over and above trait anger and sex role attitudes. Taken together, the results suggest that college students who experience more frequent and intense anger than their peers, hold traditional sex role attitudes, and are more accepting of intimate partner violence are more likely to commit acts of relational aggression in their dating relationships.
3. Dahlen, Czar, Prather, and Dyess (2013) found that college students who described themselves as more relationally aggression reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, academic burnout, and the misuse of alcohol. The correlates of relational victimization were similar, suggesting that both relational aggression and victimization can be disruptive to college students' social and emotional functioning. Dahlen and colleagues (2013) also found that anxiety, trait anger, and personal problems related to alcohol use predicted relational aggression in peer relationships while taking students' gender, race, and experiences with relational victimization into account.
Daniel Deason Proposes Thesis on Personality and Relational Aggression
Daniel's thesis, Personality and Relational Aggression in College Students: The Role of Social Anxiety and Rejection Sensitivity, will examine the utility of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, social anxiety, and rejection sensitivity in predicting relational aggression between peers and romantic partners. We expect that some of the Big Five personality factors will predict relational aggression but that social anxiety and rejection sensitivity will explain additional variance in relational aggression beyond the contribution of the FFM.
Presentation on Relational Aggression at Texas Psychological Association
Congratulations to Michelle on having the poster and presentation accepted!
Kate Defends Dissertation on Regional Differences in Relational Aggression
Congratulations to Kate on an excellent defense!
What is Relational Aggression?
Psychologists have been studying relational aggression since the mid-1990s, and it has long been recognized as a problem by many parents of school-aged children. However, it took the 2004 film Mean Girls to bring relational aggression to the attention of the larger public. Since then, the costs of relational aggression among children and early adolescents have become increasingly clear. Victims are more likely to suffer from a variety of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression; both victims and aggressors are more likely to misuse substances and engage in a number of delinquent behaviors (Archer & Coyne, 2005; Sullivan, Farrell, & Kliewer, 2006).
Surprisingly little is known about relational aggression among older adolescents and adults, but this is slowly starting to change. Research is underway to investigate the nature of relationally aggressive behaviors among college students. One of the interesting findings to emerge so far is that the gender difference observed among children and younger adolescents (i.e., relational aggression is more common among girls) does not appear to be present.
Congratulations to Two New Lab Alumni
Michelle's dissertation, "A Psychometric Investigation of the Young Adult Social Behavior Scale (YASB)," was a confirmatory factor analysis and validation of a self-report measure of relational aggression suitable for college students. Greg's dissertation, "Increasing Readiness to Change Anger: A Motivational Group Intervention," involved a treatment study in which a brief motivational enhancement group was compared with a no-treatment control.