Initial Validation of a Knowledge-Based Measure of Social Information Processing and Anger Management

Abstract

Over the past fifteen years many schools have utilized aggression prevention programs. Despite these apparent advances, many programs are not examined systematically to determine the areas in which they are most effective. One reason for this is that many programs, especially those in urban under-resourced areas, do not utilize outcome measures that are sensitive to the needs of ethnic minority students. The current study illustrates how a new knowledge-based measure of social information processing and anger management techniques was designed through a partnership-based process to ensure that it would be sensitive to the needs of urban, predominately African American youngsters, while also having broad potential applicability for use as an outcome assessment tool for aggression prevention programs focusing upon social information processing. The new measure was found to have strong psychometric properties within a sample of urban predominately African American youth, as item analyses suggested that almost all items discriminate well between more and less knowledgeable individuals, that the test-retest reliability of the measure is strong, and that the measure appears to be sensitive to treatment changes over time. In addition, the overall score of this new measure is moderately associated with attributions of hostility on two measures (negative correlations) and demonstrates a low to moderate negative association with peer and teacher report measures of overt and relational aggression. More research is needed to determine the measure's utility outside of the urban school context.

Preliminary Examination of a Cartoon‐Based Hostile Attributional Bias Measure for Urban African American Boys

“…However, the presumption that only girls display relationally aggressive behavior has been found to be too simplistic (Swearer, 2008). While it holds true that boys are more physically than relationally aggressive and that girls are more relationally than physically aggressive (see Crick et al, 2007), recent findings suggest that boys do indeed utilize relational forms of aggression (Card et al, 2008; Leff, Waasdorp et al, 2010; Swearer, 2008). Thus, it may be more appropriate to consider that boys and girls participate in and experience both forms of aggression, with varying levels of importance placed on the type of aggressive act (Henington, Hughes, Cavell, & Johnson, 1998; Rys & Bear, 1997; Tomada & Schneider, 1997; Underwood, Galen, & Paquette, 2001).…”

Children’s Sympathy for Peers Who Are the Targets of Peer Aggression

“…A particular strength of the PSS is that it was developed using a participatory action approach so that it would be appropriate for use with urban African American youth. Although urban African American youth are at elevated risk for engaging in aggression and violence (see Leff et al 2011), relevant assessment tools have rarely been designed to be culturally sensitive to this population (see Leff et al 2010a). Incorporating feedback from urban African American boys and girls into the development of the PSS resulted in a measure that was easily understood by and relevant to these youth.…”

“…Several researchers have begun to advocate for the use of a participatory action-based approach to design culturally-sensitive measurement tools (e.g., Leff et al 2006; Leff et al 2010a; Nastasi et al 2000). Participatory action research (PAR) combines feedback from key stakeholders with theory and empirical findings to create measures that are both psychometrically sound and culturally sensitive.…”

“…Children were given a roster of all the children in their class and were told to circle the names of all of their classmates who met certain behavioral descriptors. The peer nomination items included in the current study were based upon similar peer nomination measures used widely in other research (Crick and Grotpeter 1995; Leff et al 2009; Leff et al 2010a). Three items were used to assess overt aggression (hits or pushes others, starts fights, and yells and calls others mean names).…”

Students’ conceptions of knowledge, information, and truth

“…Although PsycINFO revealed more than 1000 peer-reviewed works including the keywords "knowledge" and "information," a cursory search of these sources indicated the relation between knowledge and information was not specifically examined. Rather, the terms knowledge and information were often used interchangeably, used separately without explicit consideration of their relation, or in configurations such as knowledge and information-processing (e.g., Leff, Cassano, MacEvoy, & Costigan, 2010) or information in online knowledge repositories (e.g., Bock, Mahmood, Sharma, & Kang, 2010).…”