Social information processing (SIP) theory (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994) describes a set of cognitive-emotional mechanism that have be found to account, contained by part, for the contact between a host of risk factors and the subsequent nouns of aggression. According to this theory, the road that children interpret a particular event influences how they will respond to that situation. Within the pen of developmental psychopathology, social information processing theory have been the foremost theoretical framework for address the question of which proximal factor give rise to aggression contained by particular situations.
Dodge and his colleagues (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Dodge & Schwartz, 1997) own proposed several steps in a model of social information processing: encoding, making attributions, select a goal, generate responses, evaluating responses, and enacting responses. First, encoding is the process of taking in information from the environment. Second, making attributions involves decide what motivates the behavior of other people; on the justification of information children encode from a particular situation, they could wish that others acted with benign, hostile, or ambiguous intent. Third, select a goal involves choosing the most desired outcome in a given situation. Fourth, generate responses is the process of thinking of behavioral reactions to a given situation. Fifth, evaluating responses occur when children assess whether a response is a good one to use within a particular situation and whether that response will be associated beside desired outcomes. Finally, enacting responses is the posture in which a child in fact behaves. The following specific deficit in respectively of these six steps are related to aggressive behavior: (a) encoding problems involving either hypervigilence to hostile cues or neglect to take within relevant nonhostile cues (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990); (b) making hostile (rather than benign) attributions (Dodge, Price, Bachorowski, & Newman, 1990); (c) selecting instrumental (e.g., prizewinning a game) rather than interpersonal (e.g., maintain a friendship) goals (Slaby & Guerra, 1988); (d) generate fewer behavioral responses overall and a difficult proportion of aggressive responses to problems (Asarnow & Callan, 1985); (e) positively evaluating the likely interpersonal and instrumental outcomes of aggression (Crick & Ladd, 1990); and (f) skill in enact aggressive responses (Dodge, McClaskey, & Feldman, 1985).
In most of the SIP literature, these steps have be conceptualized as being discrete processes through which individuals progress, albeit nonconsciously, when they encounter social stimuli. The steps are not presumed to be dependent on one another. It is possible for a given individual to be characterized by the situation-specific stencil of making hostile attribution biases, for example, without have problems with encoding, generate responses, or evaluating responses. However, even if overall an individual is characterized by problems in some but not other steps of processing, at the level of a demanding event, processing during early steps may affect processing of then steps. Using sophisticated measurement and analytic technique, several studies have demonstrated that discrete SIP steps own discriminant validity and that models that include these multiple steps fit the information better than do models that propose fewer SIP steps (e.g., Dodge, Laird, Lochman, Zelli, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2002; Zelli, Dodge, Lochman, Laird, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 1999).
Despite the need of individual SIP steps, we believe there is also convenience in examining how these discrete steps may combine near one another to create distinct groups of children and adolescents who have different SIP profiles. There is precedent for this approach contained by work that examines all SIP steps in concert as indicators of an overall, maladaptive processing style (Weiss, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1992). However, to our knowledge, the current study represents the first person-centered, fairly than variable-centered, attempt of this kind. Other studies that own looked at patterns of SIP within relation to different types of problematic adjustment suggest that this will be a fruitful endeavor. For example, Quiggle, Garber, Panak, and Dodge (1992) examined SIP in relation to aggression and depression among children in grades 3-6. Although the analyses were variable-centered and focused on comparing miserable differences in discrete SIP steps between aggressive and nonaggressive and depressed and nondepressed children, it be possible to compare the SIP steps that distinguished aggressive and nonaggressive children with those that distinguished depressed and nondepressed children. Although both aggressive and depressed children be more likely to brand name hostile attributions than were their peers, aggressive and depressed children differed from respectively other in their equals and evaluation of responses to hypothetical situations. Aggressive children were credible to report that behaving aggressively would be straightforward for them and would lead to positive outcomes, whereas depressed children generate fewer assertive responses, expected worse outcomes to be associated beside assertive responses, and expected better outcomes to be associated with deduction (Quiggle et al., 1992). Thus, one reason that caring how SIP steps act contained by conjunction with one another is considerable is that combinations of problems in different SIP steps may be related to specific behavioral problems.
Furthermore, although the proportion of variance in behavioral outcomes accounted for by any single SIP step is modest, SIP steps uniquely increment the prediction of outcomes such that the multiple correlation between the discrete steps and aggression is high (Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey, & Brown, 1986). What studies that adopt an incremental approach to SIP steps do not reveal, however, is whether within may be multiplicative as well as chemical addition effects of having SIP problems surrounded by more than one step. It is possible, for example, that an examination of the road SIP steps interact would reveal that having problems within one step may amplify the risk associated with have problems in another step or that incomplete problems in one step may stifle the risk associated with have problems in another step. Thus, although it is clearly crucial to demonstrate that discrete SIP steps are associated with behavioral outcomes, it is also earth-shattering to understand how these steps may feat in conjunction next to one another to shape these outcomes.
We were especially interested in comparing four types of children: (a) children next to no SIP problems; (b) children with SIP problems surrounded by early steps (encoding and making hostile attributions); (c) those near SIP problems in subsequent steps (selecting goals, generate responses, and evaluating responses); (d) children with pervasive SIP problems across hasty and later steps. Problems surrounded by early versus subsequently steps have be associated with different forms of aggression. Specifically, SIP problems within early steps (e.g., making improper hostile attributions in the facade of ambiguous or benign social stimuli) have be associated with reactive aggression (which have been characterized as an angry retaliatory response to perceived provocation; Dodge & Coie, 1987). In contrast, SIP problems surrounded by later steps such as evaluating aggression positively (Smithmyer, Hubbard, & Simons, 2000) and holding instrumental (e.g., obtain a toy) rather than relational (e.g., becoming friends) goal in social interactions enjoy been associated next to proactive aggression (which is unprovoked and goal-directed; Crick & Dodge, 1996). At a broader conceptual level, the rash SIP steps involve cognitions about input (i.e., taking in relevant cues from social stimuli and making attributions give or take a few others' intentions in those situations), whereas the later SIP steps involve cognitions in the order of output (i.e., desired outcomes, possible responses, and interpretations of behavioral responses in social situations). Thus, we focused on comparing children characterized by different profiles of SIP problems in early versus following steps.
Although internal consistencies ranging from .70 to .79 be found when measures of discrete SIP steps were combined across four years from kindergarten through position 3 (Dodge, Pettit, Bates, & Valente, 1995), the magnitude of these internal consistencies is credible influenced considerably by adjacent-year stability. Thus, a first developmental question is the extent to which SIP steps and profiles of SIP steps are stable over longer period of time and across developmental transitions. We hypothesized that profiles of SIP steps would demonstrate some stability over time.
A second developmental question is whether here are developmental changes contained by the links between SIP and aggressive behavior. Longitudinal studies and experimental manipulations that have examined the timing of SIP problems in relation to the timing of externalizing behavior own revealed that SIP deficits and biases enjoy an impact on subsequent externalizing behavior problems (e.g., Rabiner & Coie, 1989). Interventions designed to prevent or reduce aggressive behaviors own sometimes capitalized on these temporal relations by implementing program components that attempt to alter children's processing of social information. There is evidence that altering children's SIP can indeed organize to reductions within antisocial behavior (Guerra & Slaby, 1990; Hudley & Graham, 1993). This temporal evidence indicates that changes surrounded by discrete SIP steps are related to changes surrounded by externalizing behaviors over time.
The present study takes this work a step further by examining how SIP profiles that copy multiple SIP steps are related to externalizing behavior problems over time. There are three main possibilities for the form these associations may filch. First, it is possible that problems in precipitate or later SIP steps alone relate to concurrent or subsequent externalizing behavior. Second, it is possible that problems in both hasty and later SIP steps relate independently to concurrent or subsequent externalizing behaviors, suggesting stabilizer effects wherein having problems contained by both early and following steps is related to more externalizing problems but that the effects of problems in either precipitate or later steps do not depend on problems surrounded by the other steps. Third, it is possible that problems in untimely and later steps feat multiplicatively such that the effects of problems in following steps depend on the level of impulsive step problems or vice versa.
Furthermore, there are academic and empirical reasons to expect that SIP will become a stronger predictor of subsequent externalizing behavior as children develop. Using notes from six longitudinal studies (including the one used in the present study), Davis-Kean et al. (2005) found that prior to 8 years of age beliefs do not predict future behaviors, whereas after 8 years of age, beliefs do predict adjectives behaviors. Huesmann and Guerra (1997) also found that beliefs about aggression be more strongly linked near aggressive behavior in the latter grade conservatory years than in the untimely grade institution years and that behavior seemed to be connected more strongly with change in beliefs, to some extent than vice versa, until the later category school years, when beliefs begin to be associated with change in aggression. In adjunct to examining whether there is stability contained by SIP across development, the present study is motivated by the objective of examining developmental changes surrounded by links between SIP and externalizing behaviors. We hypothesized that SIP would be a better predictor of externalizing behaviors in adolescence than during the elementary academy years.
Method
Participants
The families within the current investigation were participant in an ongoing, multisite longitudinal study of child nouns (see Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 1997). Participants were recruit when the children entered kindergarten in 1987 or 1988 at three sites: Knoxville and Nashville, TN and Bloomington, IN. Parents be approached at random during kindergarten preregistration and asked if they would contribute in a longitudinal study of child nouns. About 15% of children at the targeted schools did not pre-register. These participant were recruit on the first day of institution or by subsequent contact. Of those asked, approximately 75% agreed to participate. The taste consisted of 585 families at the first assessment. Males comprised 52% of the token. Eightyone percent (81%) of the sample be European American, 17% were African American, and 2% be from other ethnic groups. Follow-up assessments were conducted annually through title 11. Seventy-four percent (74%) of the original 585 family provided grade 11 notes for the present analyses; these participants be of slightly higher SES contained by kindergarten (M = 40.31, SD = 14.32) than were those who did not provide position 11 data (M = 37.37, SD = 12.91), F(1,568) = 4.88, p < .05, but these two groups did not differ significantly by see, gender, or mother-rated externalizing behavior problems in kindergarten. The analyses used pairwise deletion of missing information, so the number of participants involved in the analyses depended on how masses provided data on the measures included in a given analysis. The taste size for analyses ranges from 576 for analyses that use just kindergarten SIP profile to 342 for analyses that use both order 8 and grade 11 SIP profiles.
Procedures and measures
During the summer earlier children started kindergarten or within the first weeks of institution, in-depth interviews were conducted next to mothers and children in their homes. Mothers completed secondary interviews and questionnaires annually thereafter. Children completed auxiliary face-to-face interviews when they were within grades 1, 2, 3, 8, and 11; children's interviews from grades 1 and 2 are not considered in this report to simplify the presentation of results. Inter-rater agreement on adjectives open-ended SIP questions described below be good (kappa greater than .80 within all instances in kindergarten and class 3, see Weiss et al., 1992; r(96) = .86, .74, .80 for steps 1-3, respectively, in status 8; step 4 in position 8 and all steps surrounded by grade 11 be assessed with close-ended questions).
Social information processing. In kindergarten and echelon 3, children were presented next to 24 video vignettes that depicted situations in which child protagonists attempted unsuccessfully to enter peer groups or encounter provocations from peers. In each vignette, children be told to imagine person the protagonist and were asked a series of question after watching each vignette. Children also be presented with a series of sketch pictures and brief verbal descriptions of the animatronics events and were asked question to assess their processing of the cartoon stimuli.
Encoding be assessed by asking children to describe what happened contained by each of the 24 video vignettes. Responses be coded according to how much relevant information the child encoded (1 = a fully relevant response with clear attention to appropriate cues, 2 = a to a degree relevant response, 3 = a non-relevant response). Responses were averaged across vignettes to create a single encoding rack up ([alpha] = .79 and .61 in kindergarten and position 3, respectively). Attributions were assessed by asking children why they thought the peers in 8 picture stories behaved as they did within ambiguous situations. Each attribution was coded as hostile or non-hostile, and a composite attributions mark was created by taking the proportion of the stories where children interpreted the peers' intentions as hostile ([alpha] = .73 and .71 in kindergarten and grade 3, respectively). Response colleagues was assessed by asking children how they would respond if respectively of the 24 video situations had happen to them. Each response was coded as man aggressive, withdrawn or inept, or assertive and competent. Children were separately presented beside 8 cartoon stimuli and asked to generate solutions to the problems depicted within the cartoons. The proportions of aggressive responses generate for the video vignettes and cartoon stimuli be calculated, and scores be standardized and combined to create a single variable reflecting aggressive response classmates ([alpha] = .66 and .61 in kindergarten and position 3, respectively). After each video vignette, children be shown alternative strategies (competent, aggressive, and inept) for dealing with the situation. Response evaluation be assessed by asking children to rate whether each alternative strategy be a good or doomed to failure thing to articulate or do (1 = very desperate, 2 = bad, 3 = upright, 4 = very good). Aggressive response evaluation be scored as the average of this item following the aggressive response across the 24 vignettes ([alpha] = .56 and .55 in kindergarten and position 3, respectively). Each of the 4 SIP variables (i.e., encoding, attributions, response generation, response evaluation) be created separately for kindergarten and grade 3 assessments, and complex scores indicated more SIP problems (for spare details see Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Dodge et al., 1995).
In grades 8 and 11 the participants be shown 6 video vignettes that started with a social interaction and culminated in an ambiguous provocation by peers or adults directed toward a protagonist young. Participants were asked to envisage being the protagonist. Three vignettes depicted provocations that be relevant to both boys and girls and were presented to adjectives participants; the remaining 3 vignettes be gender-specific. Each provocation segment was followed by two segment that presented an aggressive and a non-aggressive response to the provocation, respectively. After each of the video segment, questions be asked to assess SIP; the questions differed within format for grades 8 and 11, but the constructs assessed were similar. In title 8, adolescents were also shown 9 drawings and presented near brief verbal descriptions of the drawn events and be asked questions to assess their processing of these stimuli. In category 11, after the video presentations were completed, participant were shown 6 illustration one at a time as an audio-recorded narrator read a related story something like a hypothetical provocation directed toward the participant. After each story, the storyteller read several questions as the article of the questions appeared on the eyeshade. Participants were asked to follow along surrounded by a printed version of the question and circle their answers.
In grade 8, encoding be assessed by asking adolescents to tell the interviewer the defining things that happened contained by each video story. As next to the kindergarten and grade 3 assessments, responses be coded according to how much relevant information the adolescent encoded (1 = fully relevant, 2 = to a certain extent relevant, 3 = non-relevant). Responses were averaged across vignettes to create a single encoding gain ([alpha] = .66). Hostile attributions were assessed by asking why respectively of the events depicted in the video vignettes and drawn stories occur ([alpha] = .54). Response generation be assessed by asking what the adolescent would do if respectively of the events depicted in the video vignettes and drawn stories happen to them ([alpha] = .71). Response evaluation was assessed by asking adolescents whether aggressive responses to the video vignettes would front to desired instrumental outcomes, how they would feel in the region of themselves if they acted aggressively, and how much other people would similar to them if they acted aggressively ([alpha] = .83). Higher scores on respectively of the 4 composite SIP variables reflected more SIP problems (see Burks, Laird, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1999; Fontaine, Burks, & Dodge, 2002, for second details).
In grade 11, SIP be assessed after each of the video vignettes and vocally presented stories. Hostile attributions were assessed through question regarding the perceived intent of the provocateurs in the video and stories (whether the actor intended to be mean) and how angry the participant would be if the depicted provocation happened to them ([alpha] = .86). Although encoding be not assessed in level 11, we included a variable that reflect goal clarification instead. This determine was base on a question that asked participant to choose between an instrumental (want the other person to respect me) and an interpersonal (want the other person to approaching me) goal contained by response to the provocations depicted in the video and stories. This score reflect the proportion of times that participants chose instrumental goal across the 6 video provocations and 6 illustrated stories ([alpha] = .80). Instead of open-ended response classmates questions used surrounded by the earlier assessments, within grade 11 participant were asked to choose between an aggressive and non-aggressive behavioral response to the provocations depicted within the videos and stories. This win reflected the proportion of times that participant chose aggressive responses to the video provocations and illustrated stories ([alpha] = .75). Response evaluation be assessed through 4 questions that followed the video depicting aggressive responses to the provocations. The questions concerned how righteous or bad the aggressive response be, how well one could do interpersonal goals by responding this bearing, how well one could undertake instrumental goals by acting this track, and how the participants would quality about themselves if they acted this route. These 4 variables were averaged across vignettes to create the response evaluation weigh up ([alpha] = .88).
For each SIP adjustable, higher score indicated more SIP problems. A cut-off of one standard deviation above the mean on respectively SIP step was used to distinguish children beside problems in that step from children lacking problems in that step.
Externalizing behaviors. Children's mothers completed the 113-item Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991a) when the children be in kindergarten and grades 3, 8, and 11. Mothers reported whether respectively item was not true (0), somewhat or sometimes true (1), or intensely or often true (2) of the child. Items reflecting delinquency (e.g., steals, lies or cheats) and aggression (e.g., get in tons fights, have a hot temper) were summed to create a 33-item level reflecting externalizing behavior problems in each year. Children's kindergarten, position 3, and grade 8 teacher completed the Teacher Report Form (Achenbach, 1991b), and youth themselves completed the Youth Self Report (Achenbach, 1991c) in level 11. Comparable externalizing behavior problem scales were created for lecturer and youth reports.
Results
Analysis plan
We conducted our analyses in three steps. First, we created mutually exclusive profiles that copy four groups of youth in respectively year: (a) no SIP problems; (b) SIP problems in untimely steps (encoding or making attributions); (c) SIP problems in later steps (goal screening, response generation, or response evaluation); and (d) SIP problems contained by both early and then steps. Second, we conducted chi-square analyses to determine whether profile membership within one year predicted profile membership within subsequent years and whether profile membership be significantly related to gender or ethnicity. Third, we conducted multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) to investigate whether profile political leanings predicted externalizing behavior problems concurrently and subsequently.
Social information processing profiles
We began by creating SIP profiles on the idea of the combination of scores youth have across SIP steps within a given year. The proportion of youth contained by each profile group within each year is shown contained by Table 1. As shown, the majority of youth had no SIP problems. Depending on the year, 4% to 22% of the youth have problems in at lowest possible one of the early SIP steps (encoding and making attributions); the small proportion of youth next to early SIP problems contained by grade 11 reflect the absence of information in the order of encoding in the grade 11 assessment and for this reason reflects merely problems in making attributions. Again depending on the year, 14% to 29% of the youth have problems in at tiniest one of the later SIP steps (selecting goal, generating responses, and evaluating responses); the full-size proportion of youth with next SIP problems in category 11 reflects the presence of information roughly goal inspection in calculation to information about generate and evaluating responses in grade 11 singular. Finally, between 7% and 12% of youth had SIP problems within both early and subsequent steps.
We conducted chi-square analyses to examine whether SIP profile membership surrounded by each year be related to SIP profile membership within each other year; entry, however, that the different number of steps considered as evidence of problems in category 11 compared to the earlier grades make cross-year comparisons more difficult to interpret. As shown in Table 2, grade 8 profile devotion was significantly related to title 11 SIP profile membership, [chi square](9, N = 337) = 19.40, p < .05; profile sponsorship comparisons between other years did not reveal significant associations. Youth in respectively profile in title 8 were overrepresented within the analogous profile in echelon 11. Notably, 124 of 184 eighth graders who showed no deviant SIP continued to show no deviant SIP in grade 11 (i.e., 67% continued in the no SIP problem category); 73 of 158 eighth graders who showed any type of SIP problem still showed at least one SIP problem within grade 11 (i.e., 46% continued in an SIP problem category).
We conducted spare chi-square analyses to test the association between SIP profiles and sexual category and ethnicity. Gender was significantly associated next to SIP profile in kindergarten, [chi square](3, N = 576) = 9.93, p < .05, and order 11, [chi square](3, N = 410) = 9.94, p < .05. In kindergarten, girls (48% of the total sample) comprised 55%, 41%, 43%, and 40% of the no problems, early problems, after that problems, and pervasive problems profile groups, respectively. In grade 11, girls (48% of the total sample) comprised 54%, 28%, 42%, and 35% of the no problems, untimely problems, later problems, and pervasive problems profile groups, respectively. Thus, girls be relatively less possible to display SIP problems than were boys.
Ethnicity be significantly associated with SIP profiles within kindergarten, [chi square](3,N = 565) = 10.68, p < .05; grade 3, [chi square](3, N = 469) = 14.83, p < .01; and position 8, [chi square](3, N = 388) = 7.82, p < .05. African Americans (17% of the total sample) comprised 12%, 25%, 18%, and 22% of the no problems, early problems, after that problems, and pervasive problems profile groups, respectively, in kindergarten; 11%, 24%, 23%, and 27% of the no problems, untimely problems, later problems, and pervasive problems profile groups, respectively, within grade 3; and 14%, 18%, 15%, and 32% of the no problems, impulsive problems, later problems, and pervasive problems profile groups, respectively, within grade 8. Thus, overall, European American children be less feasible to display SIP problems than were African American children.
Social information processing and concurrent externalizing behavior
We subsequent tested the association between SIP profile membership and concurrent externalizing behavior problems. We conducted separate 2 (early step SIP problems or not) x 2 (late step SIP problems or not) MANCOVAs for SIP pattern in respectively grade, near concurrent externalizing problems as the outcome. We controlled for gender, ethnicity, and prior externalizing problems. Results of these analyses are shown in Table 3.
In kindergarten, in attendance were significant chief effects of both early step and following step SIP problems on concurrent teacher and mother reported externalizing. When children be in echelon 3, there be significant main effects of latter step SIP problems on both teacher and mother reported concurrent externalizing. There be no significant interactions between early and following step SIP problems in kindergarten or status 3.
In grade 8, significant chief effects of both early and subsequently step SIP problems were found for both mother-reported and teacher-reported externalizing problems. In calculation, a significant interaction between early and then step SIP problems indicated a synergistic effect that exacerbated teacher-reported externalizing problems. Youth with no SIP problems have the lowest levels of teacher-reported externalizing in position 8, and youth with any early or after that step SIP problems had slightly greater levels of teacher-reported externalizing problems. However, youth beside SIP problems in both precipitate and later steps have considerably higher level of teacher-reported externalizing problems than did the other three profile groups, suggesting multiplicative rather than stabilizer effects of having SIP problems within both early and following steps.
In grade 11, a significant effect of precipitate step SIP problems was found for mother-reported externalizing problems, and a significant effect of after that step SIP problems was found for youth-reported externalizing problems.
Social information processing and subsequent title 11 externalizing behavior
Similar analyses were repeated beside SIP profiles as the independent variables and grade 11 externalizing problems as the outcomes, controlling for sexual category, ethnicity, and prior externalizing problems that were assessed within the same year as the SIP predictors (see Table 4). There be a significant main effect of impulsive step SIP problems in kindergarten on mother reported externalizing problems in status 11. Grade 3 SIP problems did not predict grade 11 externalizing problems.
Both rash step and later step echelon 8 SIP problems predicted grade 11 youth-reported externalizing problems. Furthermore, the interaction between rash and later step SIP problems be significant, indicating a synergistic effect. Consistent with the interaction effect found in the prediction of teacher-reported externalizing in category 8 from grade 8 SIP profiles, youth near no SIP problems in title 8 had the lowest level of youth-reported externalizing in grade 11, and youth near either rash or later step SIP problems within grade 8 have slightly higher level of youth-reported externalizing problems in grade 11. Youth near SIP problems in both untimely and later steps within grade 8 have considerably higher level of youth-reported externalizing problems in grade 11 than did the other three profile groups. This interaction effect also suggested multiplicative effects of have SIP problems in both rash and later steps.
Discussion
Our overarching goal were to examine whether different SIP profiles characterize distinct groups of children and adolescents, whether SIP profiles in one year are related to SIP profiles in subsequent years, and how pattern of SIP that reflect multiple SIP steps are related to concurrent and subsequent externalizing behavior problems. Although variable-centered approaches that own been adjectives in previous research of investigating individual SIP steps in relation to behavioral outcomes are high-status, we believed there would also be attraction in taking a person-centered approach to investigate how SIP steps accomplishment in conjunction next to one another.
We did not find that SIP profile membership within elementary school be related to SIP profile membership contained by grade 8 or 11, but it is unformed whether that reflects a need of comparability in the track SIP was measured at those times or a more substantive redefining of SIP profiles as children develop. We did, however, find that SIP profile devotion in grades 8 and 11 be significantly related, despite the different measurement at those two times. Although our conclusions must be adjectives because of the measurement limitations, the findings are consistent beside Lochman and Dodge's (1994) cross-sectional finding of a shift in expectations regarding aggression between preadolescence and adolescence. In picky, Lochman and Dodge (1994) found that compared to preadolescent aggressive boys, adolescent aggressive boys were more plausible to believe that aggression could effectively solve social problems. It is, therefore, possible that we did not find stability between SIP profile strong views in elementary college and later grades because children experience a cognitive restructuring in beliefs nearly aggression over time. Reasoning from a group-level mean shift at different stages of nouns (in the case of Lochman & Dodge, 1994) to the current individual-level reorganization of cognition is complicated, though. Such reasoning would assume that pattern found at the population level would be found during the course of an individual's nouns as well.
Relative to boys, girls be overrepresented in the profile characterized by no SIP problems, and relative to African Americans, European Americans be overrepresented in the no SIP problems group. In the literature, externalizing behavior problems are recurrently reported to be more prevalent for boys than girls and for African American than European American youth (see Coie & Dodge, 1997). The differences between these groups in SIP profiles suggests one proximal machine that would account for the demographic differences within externalizing problems.
Our next set of findings revealed differences in externalizing behaviors by pattern of SIP problems in six of the seven MANCOVAs. That is not surprising given findings showing that more problems next to individual SIP steps are related to higher level of externalizing behavior (e.g., Asarnow & Callan, 1985; Crick & Ladd, 1990; Slaby & Guerra, 1988). What is more novel is the pattern of SIP problems that were related to better levels of externalizing behaviors, and how this differed depending on the year SIP be assessed and the outcome. With one exception, patterns of SIP problems during elementary institution did not predict externalizing behaviors in grade 11. However, pattern of SIP problems in level 8 predicted two of the four measures of externalizing in grade 11. This template of findings is consistent with previous research showing that as children develop, social cognition become more strongly connected with actual behavior (Davis-Kean et al., 2005) and that beliefs give or take a few aggression begin to predict aggressive behavior after the age of eight years (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997). Thus, although pattern of SIP problems were related to concurrent externalizing during elementary academy, the consistency between cognition and future behavior be not as strong as it was at an elder age. A different possibility is that developmentally more recent experiences and characteristics have a greater impact on externalizing behaviors than do developmentally more distant characteristics. (1)
Although the results be consistent across reporters in 11 of the 14 MANCOVAs, we did find differences across reporters in 3 of these analyses. Specifically, in status 11 early step SIP problems predicted concurrent mother-reported externalizing, whereas subsequently step SIP problems predicted concurrent youth-reported externalizing. In the prospective analyses, early step SIP problems surrounded by kindergarten predicted mother-reported but not youth-reported externalizing in grade 11, whereas both rash and later step SIP problems surrounded by grade 8 predicted youth-reported but not mother-reported externalizing in class 11. Overall, it may be that by grade 11 youth are more aware of their own behavior problems that are related to SIP problems surrounded by adolescence but that mothers still sanction externalizing that is related to rash step SIP problems in kindergarten.
When significant interactions be found between early and then step SIP problems (in 2 of the 14 tested interactions), the results showed that youth characterized by the co-occurrence of problems in early and next SIP steps had far better externalizing scores than did youth characterized by problems surrounded by one or the other (or neither). This provides some evidence that having problems surrounded by early or next steps amplifies the risk of having problems contained by the other set of steps. In those cases when the interactions were significant, have pervasive SIP problems conferred risk for externalizing problems multiplicatively, not just additively. One possibility is that problems surrounded by one SIP step can be offset by competence surrounded by another SIP step. For example, even if children make hostile attributions contained by the face of ambiguous social stimuli, if they are competent to generate non-aggressive responses and evaluate those non-aggressive responses positively, they may be able to avoid behave aggressively. Similarly, if children generate aggressive responses and evaluate aggressive responses positively but accurately encode information in social situations and do not mis-attribute hostile intent to others, they may not behave aggressively because they would not believe it was defensible in benign situations. Thus, problems within early steps (i.e., next to cognitions about input) or problems in following steps (i.e., with cognitions roughly output) may result in individual slightly elevated levels of externalizing problems compared next to having no SIP problems. However, if children hold biased cognitions regarding social input as powerfully as deficits surrounded by cognition about behavioral output, here would be no cognitive buffers against behaving aggressively. These possibilities must be considered adjectives because only a small proportion of the interaction effects be significant. Overall, we found more support for additive effects of have SIP problems in both hasty and later steps than for multiplicative effects.
Our study have a number of strengths, including the availability of long-term longitudinal information, data from multiple reporters, and the flair to control for prior externalizing behaviors in predicting subsequent externalizing behaviors. However, some limitations suggest directions for future research. The alpha coefficients for 3 of the 16 SIP measures be low (.56 and .55 for response evaluation in kindergarten and echelon 3, respectively, and .54 for hostile attributions in title 8), suggesting the need for replication of the findings. Furthermore, because social information processing have been found to be specific to extraordinary social situations (e.g., Dodge et al., 2002; Zelli & Dodge, 1999), an important direction for adjectives research will be to examine SIP profiles that reflect processing of social information and to the types assessed here. For example, as the adolescents in the present taster take on brand new roles of spouse and parent in middle age, examining profiles of SIP in marital and parent-offspring relationships will become crucial. The present findings apply to social information processing in relation to provocative situations involving peers and authority figures. In turn, SIP problems contained by distinct domains have be found to relate to aggressive behavior in situations specifically associated next to those domains (Dodge et al., 1986). Future research will also be needed to determine how profiles of SIP in different domains relate to externalizing behaviors.
Overall, our findings suggest the value of adopt a person-centered approach to understanding children's social information processing and externalizing behaviors. Our study is innovative in explicating how different SIP steps combine to create profiles of social cognitive adjustment in individual children as resourcefully as how externalizing behaviors relate to these profiles (that consider multiple SIP steps simultaneously rather than purely one step at a time, as is the approach in variable-centered analyses). We found profiles of children who be similar to one another in their pattern of SIP, and youth with different pattern of SIP problems often differed from one another contained by externalizing behavior problems, both concurrently and subsequently and even controlling for gender, ethnicity, and previous externalizing problems. Thus, it is not with the sole purpose problems in individual aspects of social information processing that are related to externalizing behaviors but the combination of SIP problems across different steps as all right.
Acknowledgments The Child Development Project has be funded by grants MH42498, MH56961, MH57024, and MH57095 from the National Institute of Mental Health and HD30572 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We are grateful to the parents, children, and teacher who participated within this research.
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J. E. Lansford * P. S. Malone * K. A. Dodge * J. C. Crozier
Center for Child and Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
G. S. Pettit
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
J. E. Bates
Department of Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
J. E. Lansford ([mailing address])
Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Box 90545, Durham, NC 27708, USA
e-mail: lansford@duke.edu
(1) We investigated this possibility by conducting three MANCOVAs, controlling for gender, ethnicity, and prior externalizing. In the first MANCOVA, untimely and later step SIP problems surrounded by kindergarten were examined as predictors of echelon 3 externalizing; early step SIP problems significantly predicted level 3 externalizing. In the second MANCOVA, early and next step SIP problems in order 3were examined as predictors of grade 8 externalizing; precipitate step SIP problems significantly predicted grade 8 externalizing. In the third MANCOVA, precipitate and later step SIP problems within kindergarten were examined as predictors of class 8 externalizing; neither early nor next step SIP problems in kindergarten significantly predicted title 8 externalizing. These findings lend support to the speculation that developmentally more recent characteristics have a greater impact on externalizing than do developmentally more distant characteristics.
Table 1 Social information processing profiles
No SIP Early SIP Later SIP Pervasive SIP
SIP problems problems problems problems
Kindergarten .53 .19 .16 .12
Grade 3 .55 .15 .21 .09
Grade 8 .53 .22 .14 .11
Grade 11 .60 .04 .29 .07
Note. Tabled values are proportions of youth near each profile within a
given year.
Table 2 Cross tabulations of significantly associated SIP profiles
across years
Grade 8 Profile
Early SIP Later SIP
Grade 11 Profile No SIP problems problems problems
No SIP problems 124 (60.1; 69.6) 45 (21.1; 57.7) 22 (10.3; 48.9)
Early SIP problems 7 (43.8; 3.8) 5 (31.3; 6.4) 2 (12.5; 4.4)
Later SIP problems 43 (47.8; 23.4) 23 (25.6; 29.5) 15 (17.8; 35.6)
Pervasive SIP 6 (26.1; 3.3) 5 (21.7; 6.4) 5 (21.7; 11.1)
problems
Total 184 (53.8; 100) 78 (22.8; 100) 45 (13.2; 100)
Grade 8 Profile
Grade 11 Profile Pervasive SIP problems Total
No SIP problems 18 (8.5; 51.4) 213 (100; 62.3)
Early SIP problems 2 (12.5; 5.7) 16 (100; 4.7)
Later SIP problems 8 (8.9; 22.9) 90 (100; 26.3)
Pervasive SIP 7 (30.4; 20.0) 23 (100; 6.7)
problems
Total 35 (10.2; 100) 342 (100; 100)
Note. Tabled values are numbers and (in parentheses) row and column
percents, respectively, in each cell of the cross tabulations.
Table 3 MANCOVAs Examining differences in concurrent externalizing
behaviors by rash and later step SIP problems
No SIP Early SIP
problems problems
SIP (M, SD) (M, SD)
Kindergarten SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 10.78 (6.73) 11.73 (6.93)
Teacher-reported externalizing 4.31 (6.72) 6.62 (8.97)
Grade 3 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 8.52 (6.90) 8.76 (7.75)
Teacher-reported externalizing 5.30 (9.13) 6.17 (11.21)
Grade 8 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 7.37 (6.34) 10.39 (7.68)
Teacher-reported externalizing 6.44 (10.33) 7.64 (10.92)
Grade 11 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 7.04 (6.75) 10.00 (6.71)
Youth-reported externalizing 10.05 (6.24) 12.69 (8.24)
Later SIP Pervasive SIP
problems problems (M,
SIP (M, SD) SD)
Kindergarten SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 11.72 (6.81) 14.03 (7.70)
Teacher-reported externalizing 6.82 (9.60) 10.14 (13.22)
Grade 3 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 11.53 (8.65) 10.37 (7.64)
Teacher-reported externalizing 8.56 (11.63) 9.39 (11.17)
Grade 8 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 10.33 (7.32) 11.68 (7.84)
Teacher-reported externalizing 7.44 (9.25) 15.19 (16.03)
Grade 11 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 7.70 (6.52) 12.79 (12.65)
Youth-reported externalizing 12.96 (8.00) 15.53 (9.48)
Main
Main effect: effect: Interaction
SIP Early (F) Later (F) (F)
Kindergarten SIP (Pillai's F) 5.98** 7.07** .64
Mother-reported externalizing 5.76* 5.44* .88
Teacher-reported externalizing 8.88** 11.64** .68
Grade 3 SIP (Pillai's F) .29 4.84** .36
Mother-reported externalizing .01 7.51** .01
Teacher-reported externalizing .51 4.36* .63
Grade 8 SIP (Pillai's F) 4.24* 4.07* 4.46*
Mother-reported externalizing 4.19* 5.19* 1.17
Teacher-reported externalizing 6.55* 5.21* 5.70*
Grade 11 SIP (Pillai's F) 3.44** 2.66* .99
Mother-reported externalizing 4.66* 3.00 .96
Youth-reported externalizing 1.53 5.26* .00
Note. Analyses control for femininity (significant in the k, order 3, and
grade 8 analyses), ethnicity (significant surrounded by the grade 3 and 8
analyses), and prior externalizing behavior (significant in the status
3, 8, and 11 analyses; not controlled in the k analyses because no prior
externalizing be assessed).
*p<.05.**p<.01.***p< .001.
Table 4 MANCOVAs examining differences in grade 11 externalizing
behaviors by rash and later step SIP problems
No SIP Early SIP
problems problems
SIP (M, SD) (M, SD)
Kindergarten SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 7.57 (7.14) 8.85 (7.45)
Youth-reported externalizing 11.01 (6.58) 12.54 (9.13)
Grade 3 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 7.52 (6.76) 9.30 (8.63)
Youth-reported externalizing 11.53 (7.17) 11.40 (8.20)
Grade 8 SIP (Pillai's F)
Mother-reported externalizing 6.74 (6.07) 8.77 (8.14)
Youth-reported externalizing 10.62 (6.77) 11.23 (6.05)
Later SIP Pervasive SIP Main
problems problems (M, effect:
SIP (M, SD) SD) Early (F)
Kindergarten SIP (Pillai's F) 3.86*
Mother-reported externalizing 7.73 (7.58) 12.24 (9.16) 7.42**
Youth-reported externalizing 11.69 (7.51) 11.64 (8.09) .31
Grade 3 SIP (Pillai's F) 1.22
Mother-reported externalizing 8.54 (8.05) 9.45 (9.05) 1.94
Youth-reported externalizing 11.20 (7.35) 10.84 (7.57) .03
Grade 8 SIP (Pillai's F) 2.41*
Mother-reported externalizing 8.71 (8.51) 9.38 (8.90) .40
Youth-reported externalizing 11.34 (7.30) 16.52 (9.96) 4.76*
Main effect: Interaction
SIP Later (F) (F)
Kindergarten SIP (Pillai's F) 1.32 3.23*
Mother-reported externalizing 1.45 2.63
Youth-reported externalizing .27 1.34
Grade 3 SIP (Pillai's F) .49 .01
Mother-reported externalizing .21 .01
Youth-reported externalizing .96 .00
Grade 8 SIP (Pillai's F) 3.25** 4.46***
Mother-reported externalizing .02 .39
Youth-reported externalizing 6.63* 7.23**
Note. Analyses control for sexual category (not significant), ethnicity
(significant in adjectives 3 MANCOVAs), and prior externalizing (significant in
all 3 MANCOVAs). *p<.05.**p<.01.***p<.001.
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