Temperament

A Dual-Mode Social-Information-Processing Model to Explain Individual Differences in Children’s Aggressive Behavior

“…The dual-mode SIP model incorporates several factors to explain which children will use which processing mode under which circumstances. We derived these factors from previous research on correlates of children's aggressive SIP and behavior (e.g., Bookhout et al, 2018;de Castro & Van Dijk, 2017;Jarret & Hilton, 2017;. As can be seen in Figure 1, we propose that whether children use the automatic or reflective processing mode is determined by an interplay between child-specific factors (i.e., children's emotional dispositions, motivational dispositions, and executive functioning) and dynamic factors (i.e., children's internal state and the type of situation).…”

“…There is much empirical research to suggest that children's capacities to consciously control thought and action, called executive functions (EFs; Zelazo & Müller, 2002), are associated with less aggressive SIP (e.g., M. L. Ellis et al, 2009;Goldweber et al, 2011; and less aggressive behavior (for reviews, see Jarret & Hilton, 2017;Morgan & Lilienfeld, 2000;Ogilvie et al, 2011). The dual-mode SIP model further proposes that children's EF capacities may help them regulate their arousal by facilitating reflective skills such as perspective-taking, problem-solving, and judgment and thereby affect whether they are prone to using the automatic or reflective mode.…”

“…Yet many children may act aggressively without such reflection: When they are in a state of high arousal, an apparently hostile gesture of a peer may trigger a direct automatic aggressive response while children have minimal cognitive control to guide this process reflectively. Distinct models have been developed that predict children's aggressive behavior on the basis of their emotional dispositions (e.g., temperament), motivational dispositions (e.g., punishment and reward insensitivity), executivefunctioning capacities, or database of social experiences (e.g., Dodge, 2006;Guo & Mrug, 2017;Jarret & Hilton, 2017;Matthys et al, 2013). However, none of these models explain how these factors then actually contribute to children's aggressive behavior through their automatic and reflective SIP.…”