Emotions, conflicts, and aggressive behavior

Abstract

This study assessed the connections among preschoolers' affective displays and their conflictual behavior (aggressive and non-aggressive conflicts). Observers used standardized instruments to record several aspects of 37 preschoolers' emotional displays and conflictual behaviors during their freeplay sessions. Emotions were assessed in terms of the discrete emotion displayed (happy, mad, or sad displays), and the intensity of these displays on a 3-point scale (high, medium, and low). In addition, emotions were assessed separately depending on whether they occurred during children's conflict or aggression (conflictual emotions) or during other times (non-conflictual emotions). Conflicts were coded in terms of the following dimensions: the length of the conflict, the initiator vs. the recipient, whether the conflict was aggressive or not, and whether children continued playing following the conflict. Each child was observed for about 50 minutes over a six week period.;Overall, children who initiated more conflicts also initiated more aggressive episodes, and children who were recipients of aggression were somewhat more likely to be the recipients of conflicts. In addition, both non-conflictual and conflictual affective displays were connected with children's participation in conflictual interactions. Children who displayed a higher percentage of conflictual anger also displayed a higher percentage of baseline anger, and this angry disposition was related to initiating more conflictual interactions. In addition, children who displayed more intense affect were also more likely to initiate aggression and to be the focus of both aggression and conflict. Fewer links emerged, however, between children's emotions and their tendency to continue playing with one another following conflictual interactions.;Although limitations in sample size precluded most formal statistical analyses of gender differences, it is noteworthy that a combination of boys' percentage of non-conflictual anger and their percentage of aggression, happiness and anger predicted nearly 60% of their initiation of aggression, whereas these affective variables predicted less than 10% of girls' initiation of aggression (p {dollar}<{dollar}.10 for this gender difference).