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Social-Cognitive Processes Related to Risk for Aggression in Adolescents

1. Kenneth A. Dodge, Gregory S. Petit & John E. Bates, How the Experience of Early Physical Abuse Leads Children to Become Chronically Aggressive, in DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES IN TRAUMA: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND INTERVENTION: ROCHESTER SYMPOSIUM ON DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 263-288 (Dante Cicchetti & Sheree L. Toth eds., 1997); Carolyn Smith & Terence P. Thornberry, The Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment and Adolescent Involvement in Delinquency, 33 CRIMINOLOGY 451 (1995); Cathy S. Widom, Does Violence Beget Violence? A Critical Examination of the Literature, 106 PSYCHOL. BULL. 3 (1989); Cathy S. Widom, Child Victims: Searching for Opportunities to Break the Cycle of Violence, 7 APPLIED & PREVENTATIVE PSYCHOL. 225 (1998). 2. Ariana E. Wall & Richard P. Barth, Aggressive and Delinquent Behavior of Maltreated Adolescents: Risk Factors and Gender Differences, 8 STRESS, TRAUMA, & CRISIS 1 (2005). 3. Geraldine Downey, Scott Feldman & Ozlem Ayduk, Rejection Sensitivity and Male Violence in Romantic Relationships, 7 PERS. RELATIONSHIPS 45 (2000). 4. Geraldine Downey, Vivian Mougios, Ozlem Ayduk, Bonita E. London & Yuichi Shoda, Rejection Sensitivity and the Defensive Motivational System, 15 PSYCHOL. SCI. 668 (2004). 5. Bonita London, Geraldine Downey, Cheryl Bonica & Iris Paltin, Social Causes and Consequences of Rejection Sensitivity, 17 J. RES. ON ADOLESCENCE 481 (2007). 6. Ozlem Ayduk, Anett Gyurak & Anna Luerssen, Individual Differences in the Rejection-Aggression Link in the Hot Sauce Paradigm: The Case of Rejection Sensitivity, 44 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCHOL. 775 (2008). 7. Ozlem Ayduk, Geraldine Downey, Alessandra Testa, Ying Yen & Yuichi Shoda, Does Rejection Elicit Hostility in Rejection Sensitive Women? 17 SOC. COGNITION 245 (1999). 8. Downey, Feldman & Ayduk, supra note 3. 9. Valerie Purdie & Geraldine Downey, Rejection Sensitivity and Adolescent Girls’ Vulnerability to Relationship-Centered Difficulties, 5 CHILD MALTREATMENT 338 (2000). The relationship between childhood maltreatment and the development of aggression and delinquency is well established,1 with a large proportion of those experiencing physical abuse in childhood showing increased rates of aggression during childhood and involvement in violent crime during adolescence, which persists into adulthood.2 Despite the well established relationship between child maltreatment and the emergence of aggressive and violent behaviors in children and youth, the mechanisms underlying this effect are not well understood. In part this reflects the focus of research over the past several decades on documenting specific forms of maltreatment, timing of maltreatment, and specific emotional and behavioral outcomes in children and youth. Understanding the social-cognitive processes that underlie aggressive behavior is critical in designing prevention and risk reduction programs. In this paper we summarize findings from the Gender and Aggression Project (GAP) on two social-cognitive processes that are central to the development of aggressive and violent behavior: rejection sensitivity and anger rumination. Each risk factor will be defined in detail, previous research will be briefly summarized, and key findings from our research will be presented. The relevance of these constructs to the judicial system is also discussed with special reference to how understanding social-cognitive processes that underlie aggression can assist in guiding sentencing and rehabilitation decisions. Gaps in the current research are noted as well as areas for future research. REJECTION SENSITIVITY AND RUMINATION WHAT IS REJECTION SENSITIVITY? Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to defensively expect, readily perceive, and overreact to perceived rejection by others.3 The RS model proposes that severe and prolonged rejection in early childhood leads to the development of expectations of rejection from others. When even minimal cues of rejection are encountered in individuals high in RS they activate what has been referred to as a “defensive motivational system.”4 In this state of threat, such individuals will interpret ambiguous or even slightly negative information as highly rejecting. This bias to expect and perceive rejection results in a range of maladaptive behaviors, which negatively affect the individual’s interpersonal functioning. Perceived rejection has been found to result in two different (but not mutually exclusive) responses—anxiety and anger. It has been proposed that angry expectations of rejection result in externalizing behaviors such as aggression, hostility, and delinquent acts in response to mild or ambiguous threat. Anxious expectations of rejection, in contrast, result in internalizing symptoms such as depression and social withdrawal.5 Of most interest to our current discussion, however, is the association between RS and aggressive and delinquent behavior. Previous research has shown that individuals high in RS respond to rejection with increased aggression,6 hostile thoughts and actions7 as well as violence against romantic partners.8 What is most problematic is that while those high in RS use these behaviors as a means to protect against or avoid possible rejection,9 they instead elicit and exacerbate Social-Cognitive Processes Related to Risk for Aggression in Adolescents