Developmental trajectories of physical aggression and prosocial behavior in early childhood: Family antecedents and psychological correlates.

Abstract

Research has documented various family and individual risk factors associated with severe conduct problems, but little is known about the developmental origins of children who engage in both aggressive and prosocial interactions with others. The present study utilized growth-mixture modeling to identify distinct trajectories of physical aggression and prosocial behavior across the preschool years in a large (n ϭ 424), diverse (42% immigrant) Canadian sample. Parent ratings of aggression and prosocial behavior were assessed at ages 3, 4.5, and 6 years. Observed mother-child interactions and motherreported child exposure to interparental conflict were measured at 1.5 and 3 years. Children's psychological functioning (language ability, academic achievement, theory of mind understanding) was assessed at ages 3 and 4.5. Four trajectory classes emerged. Most children (74%) showed low/moderate-declining aggression and high/moderate-increasing prosocial behavior (prosocial and desisting classes), whereas a minority (7%) were highly aggressive and relatively low in prosocial behavior (chronic aggressive class). The remaining 19% of children exhibited low-increasing aggression and moderate-stable prosocial behavior (escalating class). Increased exposure to interparental conflict between 1.5 and 3 years uniquely predicted membership in the escalating compared with the prosocial group, whereas prosocial and escalating children did not differ in positive parent-child interactions in toddlerhood. Children in the escalating class demonstrated typical psychological functioning relative to prosocial children, and both outperformed chronically aggressive youth. These findings highlight the need to move beyond a singular deficit-model to consider alternative pathways by which socially skilled children may develop aggressive tendencies.

Predicting differentiated developmental trajectories of prosocial behavior: A 12-year longitudinal study of children facing early risks and vulnerabilities

“…Distinct growth trajectories in prosocial behavior have been documented during early to late childhood (e.g., from ages 4 to 13 years, see Barker et al, 2010; ages 6 to 12, see Cotè et al, 2002; ages 3 to 6, see Jambon et al, 2019; ages 6 to 12, see Kokko et al, 2006; and ages 2 to 11, see Nantel-Vivier et al, 2014), from childhood to preadolescence (i.e., ages 10-15, see Nantel-Vivier et al, 2009), during adolescence (i.e., ages 11-14, see Padilla-Walker et al, 2015;ages 11-18, see Bono et al, 2019;ages 12-16, see Carlo et al, 2015;ages 12-20, see Padilla-Walker et al, 2018;ages 13-18, see Van der Graaff et al, 2018), and from early adolescence to adulthood (i.e., ages 13-21, see Kanacri et al, 2014). Collectively, these studies have differentiated subgroups of children who exhibit stability (continuity) in prosocial behavior (i.e., high-and lowstable groups) from children who evidenced significant and systematic changes (discontinuity) over time (e.g., low/moderate increasing and high/moderate desisting) in both childhood and adolescence.…”

Co-occurring Trajectories of Direct Aggression and Prosocial Behaviors in Childhood: Longitudinal Associations With Peer Acceptance

“…That is, if children are using aggression and prosocial behaviors in planned and instrumental ways to advance their social positions and peer relationships, their aggressive behavioral styles are more likely to be functional and socially acceptable when aggression is used moderately, as opposed to excessively (Ettekal and Ladd, 2015a). In contrast, chronic (and highly frequent) aggression is more likely to reflect an impulsive, emotionally dysregulated, and reactive behavioral style, which aligns more closely with social-cognitive deficit perspectives of aggression (Ettekal and Ladd, 2015a;Olson et al, 2017;Jambon et al, 2019).…”

“…Indeed, investigators who have applied personcentered methods which do not rely on cut-off scores (e.g., latent class analysis, latent profile analysis, growth mixture modeling) have yielded somewhat different subgroups and insights. For instance, bistrategic children appear to exhibit moderate (and less severe) levels of aggression than children in the coercive group (Ciarrochi et al, 2019;Jambon et al, 2019;Hartl et al, 2020). Thus, these findings imply that the severity (or levels) of aggression should also be evaluated when (1) identifying children who are both aggressive and prosocial, and (2) examining how co-occurring aggressive and prosocial behaviors are associated with peer acceptance or other child adjustment outcomes.…”

“…Taken together, our findings and those of other investigators imply that there is considerable heterogeneity in the behavioral styles of children who act aggressively, such that some are more capable of balancing their use of direct aggression with prosocial behaviors. Moreover, children who engage in both behavioral styles exhibit a pattern in which they use these behaviors in moderation compared to peers (Ciarrochi et al, 2019;Jambon et al, 2019;Hartl et al, 2020).…”

The impact of family socioeconomic status and parenting styles on children's academic trajectories: A longitudinal study comparing migrant and urban children in China

“…In order to identify the optimal number of trajectories, models including different number of trajectories were examined, beginning with the initial model, in which only one class is assumed for the group. Then, the models with gradually increased number of classes are tested step by step until the replication process is terminated and the best‐fitting model is identified based on Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC; Akaike, 1987), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC; Schwarz, 1978), the Lo–Mendell–Rubin adjusted LRT test (i.e., LMR LRT or LMR), Bootstrap Likelihood Ratio test (i.e., BLRT) (Nylund, Asparouhov, & Muthén, 2007), entropy (L. Chen, Zhang, Ji, & Deater‐Deckard, 2019; Espinoza, Daljeet, & Meyer, 2020; Jambon, Madigan, Plamondon, & Jenkins, 2019; Liu, Luo, Zhang, & Zhang, 2013), as well as the percentage of participants in one latent class. After developmental trajectories of migrant and urban children's literacy and mathematics performance were determined, multinomial logistic regression (MLR) was adopted to examine the impact of family SES and parenting styles on those trajectories, including the mediation function of parenting styles.…”