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Open Access 01-12-2012 | Original Article

Cognitive Distortions and Self-Regulatory Personality Traits Associated with Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Early Adolescence

Authors: Sophieke Koolen, Astrid Poorthuis, Marcel A. G. van Aken

Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Issue 6/2012

Abstract

This study investigated mechanisms behind proactive and reactive aggression, by examining whether four types of self-serving cognitive distortions and the personality traits agreeableness and conscientiousness differently predicted proactive and reactive aggression. Self-report questionnaires and a peer nominations method were administered to 173 sixth grade children (age 10–13) of regular elementary schools in the Netherlands. Negative binomial regression analyses showed that proactive aggression was predicted by self-centered and disagreeable tendencies, whereas reactive aggression was predicted by the misattribution of blame to others and the self-regulatory aspects of agreeableness and conscientiousness. Findings emphasize the need to differentiate proactive and reactive aggression in order to accurately predict, prevent and treat aggressive behaviors in childhood.

The questionnaire contained an additional scale to measure social desirability. The scale consisted of seven items, for instance ‘I have sometimes said something bad about a friend’ (Cronbach’s α = .75), where higher scores indicated lower levels of social desirability. To account for possible effects of social desirability on the results, two data files were composed; one with all participants and one without participants with a score on the anomalous response scale of the HIT-Q below the cut-off value 2.75. All analyses were conducted with both data files. Since no differences in results were found, it was decided to use the complete data file, in order to obtain optimal power.

Although a Poisson regression is the standard method to model rate data, the present data showed overdispersion, indicating that the observed variances were larger than the means (M = 5.08, σ² = 72.88 for proactive aggression and M = .50, σ² = 1.03 for reactive aggression). Because Poisson’s assumption of equidispersion (the variance being equal to its mean) was violated, a negative binomial model was chosen, which models overdispersed Poisson data. Since the possibility of being nominated depended upon of number of children in the class, the differences in class size (differences in the exposure to the nominations) needed to be controlled for. In negative binomial regression this is handled as an offset (the natural logarithm of class size-1). The offset was included as a predictor variable in the model, but was differentiated from other variables by being analyzed as a constant (forced to have a coefficient 1) and therefore being independent of scores of other predictor variables (Agresti 2002).

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Title: Cognitive Distortions and Self-Regulatory Personality Traits Associated with Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Early Adolescence
Authors: Sophieke Koolen
Astrid Poorthuis
Marcel A. G. van Aken
Publication date: 01-12-2012
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Issue 6/2012
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-011-9407-6

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Cognitive Distortions and Self-Regulatory Personality Traits Associated with Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Early Adolescence

Abstract

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Abstract

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