Editors: Cynthia Erdley will be available at 207-581-2040 after June 28 or [email protected]. See www.asap.um.maine.edu/psy/ for the UMaine Department of Psychology and Erdley's home page.
ORONO, Maine -- Childhood aggression has taken a more dangerous turn in recent years, but its roots have been a concern of psychologists for decades. Schools, playgrounds and neighborhood streets have long seen the push and pull of the bullies and the meek. In a series of studies over the past decade with school children in Maine and Illinois, Cynthia Erdley, associate professor of psychology at the University of Maine, has taken a close look at why some children use force to get their way while others shrink from such behavior.
She has already demonstrated that a child's goal priorities, such as winning games, having fun or developing personal relationships, are good predictors of whether or not a child will behave aggressively. The results of her and her colleagues' studies, she says, could help teachers, guidance counselors and even parents to understand and address childhood aggression.
Erdley's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Development, Developmental Psychology, and Child Development. She also has authored a book chapter on childhood aggression in the context of peer relationships.
"I'm looking at social-cognitive factors such as goal priorities. Some kids give high priority to retaliation goals. I also look at self-efficacy perceptions," she says. These perceptions include beliefs about how good a child is at being aggressive. Another factor is whether or not a child thinks that aggression is a legitimate response.
"Then there are familial factors. How much conflict is there in the family? What lessons is a family teaching? I also want to understand better the differences between male and female aggression," she adds.
"I think psychologists understand a lot about what factors are related to aggression, but even so, I don't think you can predict something like which adolescent is going to pull a gun at school. My ultimate goal is to better understand what underlies aggression so we can design better interventions."
Erdley began studying childhood aggression during graduate school at the University of Illinois in the late 1980s. She came to the subject with a fascination about children's behavior. "I did a lot of babysitting as a teenager. I think that was where some of my inspiration comes from," she says.
In 1986, she graduated from Gettysburg College Summa Cum Laude with a bachelor's degree in psychology. At Illinois, she worked closely with Steven R. Asher and Carol S. Dweck, developmental psychologists who have since co-authored some of Erdley's published papers.
It was also at Illinois that Erdley began conducting research in public school classrooms. The university had hired a former school superintendent to make arrangements for graduate students to work directly with teachers and their students.
"I didn't know how good I had it," she says. Now, Erdley and her students make such arrangements themselves with superintendents, principals, teachers and sometimes school boards. Parental permission and the assent of the children are also obtained in all cases.
Difficulties arise because fewer schools agree to participate in such studies than when she first came to Maine in 1992. As a result, she and her students sometimes struggle with smaller than ideal sample sizes.
Nevertheless, she finds students to be intrigued by her studies. "We have a great time with the kids. A lot of times they're very interested to know that we're from the university.
"One time I was in a classroom that had just been studying the scientific method. They knew what a hypothesis was and about the methods used to do a study. They were asking me all about that, and I told them that they are the subjects in my study. I didn't tell them my exact hypothesis, but I told them one that could make sense.
"It was really fun that they could make the connection. We always do some rapport building before we start. At the end we thank them for helping out and ask if they have any questions. Some just want to know if they can go to lunch, but with others, we've had some interesting discussions."
Although Erdley makes efforts to maintain confidentiality, students often ask their friends how they answered the questions. "We give our little speech about privacy, but they're kids and they'll whisper, 'what did you write?' to their friends."
At UMaine, in addition to pursuing her work on factors underlying children's behavioral choices, Erdley is currently collaborating with Douglas Nangle on research examining how children's friendship experiences relate to loneliness and depression.
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