How could these consistently aggressive boys register so low on testosterone? Tremblay admits to having been puzzled. The mistake, he realized, is all those direct extrapolations from animal studies of dominance in which testosterone equals aggression. He has come to believe that testosterone does not reflect brute force but is a barometer of social success. "Physical aggression that is not accompanied by social well-being and social success—being designated a leader by peers—is not associated with high testicular activity."
Among humans, he says, physical aggression leads increasingly to rejection by peers, parents, even the school system. By the end of elementary school, half of bullies are not in their age-appropriate grade.
"They are losers," he states emphatically. "Their testosterone status at puberty reflects the fact that they are not dominating their environment. The human behaviors of dominance are not the same as animal ones," he insists. In humans, even in beefy boys, social dominance has less and less to do with physical aggression—and more and more with language. "While aggression is important for attaining high social status," says Tremblay, "it is not the only strategy. And when sustained, it is not decisive at all." And that is precisely where bullies are weak. Their general intelligence starts out about on a par with that of other kids, but their verbal intelligence is low.
Tremblay pauses to register his bemusement. "I started out studying aggression in adult criminals. Then I found I had to look at adolescents. Now I'm looking at young children. If you had told me I was going to be studying two-year-olds, I would have said that you were crazy."
But he has come to believe that the lifestyle of aggression is pretty much a done deal by age two. And with that, the Terrible Twos just got a lot worse. "Physical aggression is normal at that age. It builds up from nine months and reaches its highest frequency at age two. And then you learn that it hurts when aggressed. Adults intervene and indicate that it is the wrong behavior. Language skills increase, and physical aggression decreases. If you don't get it by age two, then you become aggressive. There's something about language." It may be that language skills are socially acquired in the caregiver-child interaction. And some kids get more of that than others.
Hey — What About the Girls?
Bullying has been studied largely in boys because they are so much more overtly aggressive. The problem, contends psychologist Nicki R. Crick, Ph.D., is that aggression has always been defined strictly in terms of what boys do that's mean. And that's just one more instance of male bias distorting the way things really are. She and her colleagues now know that "girls are just as capable of being mean as boys are."
"The research shows that boys engage in physical aggression such as kicking, hitting, pushing, shoving, and verbal aggression like name-calling and making fun of kids more than girls do," notes Crick. "The interpretation is that boys are just a lot more aggressive than girls are. But if you go back to the textbook definition of aggression, it's 'the intent to hurt or harm.' "
"For the past three years we've been looking at the ways girls try to harm others. We've identified a form of aggression unique to females, what we call relational aggression, hurting others through damaging or manipulating their relationships in aversive ways." Like:
- Spreading vicious rumors in the peer group to get even with someone so that other people will reject that person.
- Telling others to stop liking someone in order to get even with him or her.
- Trying to control or dominate a person by using social exclusion as a form of retaliation: "You can't come to my birthday party if you don't do x, y, and z."
- Threatening to withdraw friendship in order to get one's way, control another's behavior, or hurt someone: "I won't be your friend if... "
- Giving someone the silent treatment and making sure that they know they're being excluded as a form of retaliation.
It makes intuitive sense to Crick. "If you want to hurt someone and you want it to be effective, shouldn't it be something they really value? Numerous studies have shown that women and girls really value relationships, establishing intimacy and dyadic relations with other girls. That led us to looking at the use of relationships as the vehicle for harm, because if you take that away from a girl, you're really getting at her." Similarly, boys' aggression, plays into goals shown to be important to boys in the face of their peers—physical dominance and having things, or instrumentality.
In studies of children ranging from three years of age to 12, she has determined that parents, teachers, and kids themselves see these behaviors as problematic. They regard them as mean and manipulative. "This behavior cuts across all socioeconomic and all age groups. Adults do these things too." In fact, Crick's studies show that relational aggression becomes a more normative angry behavior for girls the older they get. Particularly as girls move into adolescence, themes of social exclusion increase in frequency in girls's conflicts with their peers.
While Crick's studies show that 27 percent of aggressive kids, mostly boys, engage in both overt and relational aggression, the majority of aggressive kids—73 percent—engage in one or the other, not both. Relational aggression is far more characteristic of girls, at least throughout the school years. Taking relational aggression into account leads to a startling conclusion: Girls (22 percent) and boys (27 percent) are aggressive in almost equal numbers.
Tags:
aggression,
beloved books,
bob greene,
boys being boys,
broken ankle,
bully,
burlington iowa,
cacophony,
cherokee county georgia,
children,
chocolate milk,
classmates,
curtis taylor,
denouement,
family bedroom,
first day of spring,
gender,
georgia death,
grade classroom,
hallways,
school counselor,
television cameras,
violence
