Empathy and Effortful Control Effects on Early Adolescents' Aggression: When Do Students' Perceptions of Their School Climate Matter?

Guided by the social emotional learning framework, this study examined whether early adolescents' social awareness (empathic concern, perspective taking) and self-management (effortful control) would uniquely contribute to early adolescents' subsequent forms of aggression, and whether perc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied developmental science 2016-04, Vol.20 (2), p.79-93
Main Authors: Batanova, Milena, Loukas, Alexandra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aggression
Child development
Child psychology
Correlation
Early Adolescents
Educational Environment
Empathy
Gender Differences
Grade 6
Grade 7
Inhibition
Interaction
Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis)
Interpersonal Relationship
Middle School Students
My Class Inventory (Fisher and Fraser)
Perceptions
Perspective Taking
Questionnaires
Regression (Statistics)
School environment
Self Management
Student Attitudes
Student Behavior
Student Surveys
Texas
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Summary:Guided by the social emotional learning framework, this study examined whether early adolescents' social awareness (empathic concern, perspective taking) and self-management (effortful control) would uniquely contribute to early adolescents' subsequent forms of aggression, and whether perceptions of their school climate (friction, cohesion, competition, satisfaction with classes) would moderate those associations. Participants were 479 10- to 14-year old students (54% female; 78% European American) who completed the first wave of a survey in sixth and seventh grades and the second wave 1 year later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that across gender, empathic concern was the only competency to reduce subsequent overt and relational aggression. None of the school climate perceptions made unique contributions to aggression, nor did they show protective functions. Rather, several instances of cumulative advantage were observed, whereby positive school climate perceptions only reduced aggression for students with high levels of empathic concern. Unexpectedly, boys' perceived cohesion contributed to overt aggression if they reported high levels of effortful control.
ISSN:1088-8691
1532-480X
DOI:10.1080/10888691.2015.1067145