Common Misconceptions About Research, Part I

By: Lara on July 30, 2008
Under: aggression, ethics in research, research methods
No Comments Yet

Maybe it’s because I’ve collected more data than usual over the past year, or maybe it’s because I’ve met with more teachers and school administrators than usual lately–or maybe I’ve just been unusually chatty about my work. For whatever reason, I’ve found myself having a lot of conversations about developmental research in general and my own research in particular—and I’m noticing some trends in the questions and comments I get. So I would hereby like to initiate a new series of short posts on Mayeux Research—the FAQ’s and Common Misconceptions Series! Without further ado….

FAQ #1: When you ask kids to answer questions about negative behaviors (like aggression), aren’t you giving them ideas about bad things they can do—things they never thought of before?

A: No, and here’s why. There’s a multi-level process involved in creating a study like this, and part of the work at each level involves making sure that the study isn’t going to give anybody any ideas. First, using our expert knowledge of child development, we make our questions age-appropriate. We typically don’t ask young children questions about sexual behaviors, for example. Second, all university-sponsored research studies are reviewed by a committee of faculty and other experts on campus (the Institutional Review Board) to screen for potential concerns. Third, we consult with experts in the field (parents, principals) to make sure that our research methods are a good fit for the kids we’re studying. For example, my students and I recently asked 5th- and 7th-graders to tell us about their acts of relational aggression. We gave them a list of behaviors, and they answered questions about the ones they had recently engaged in. The principal of the middle school felt comfortable with all of the behaviors in our survey, but the elementary school principal did not—at her request, we removed two or three items from the list. Her concern? That most of her 5th-graders had not heard of those particular methods of aggressing before, and that some children might be inspired to give them a try. We trusted her judgment, and she in turn felt more comfortable partnering with our lab for the study.

Many researchers conduct focus groups with children or adolescents before they design a study—to make sure that their surveys capture the typical experiences of their participants, and to prevent the inclusion of material that’s inappropriate.

Beyond all that, I’ve learned that I don’t have a whole lot to teach teenagers about bad behaviors.

» Add Your Feedback No Comments |

But will there be a rose ceremony? “Mean Girls” goes reality TV.

By: Lara on June 24, 2008
Under: aggression, peer status
No Comments Yet

I like reality TV as much as the next person. But I can’t decide if I love this or hate this: It’s a “reality with morality” show (their words, not mine) called Queen Bees. The premise is that “mean girls”—young women in their late teens who have been nominated by friends or family—vie for the title of “most reformed mean girl” in a presumably life-changing eight-episode experience. The girls are coached by a psychologist; the contestant who shows the most improvement wins $25,000.

The reality-TV-lover in me can’t wait to set the DVR. The aggression researcher in me is less enthusiastic. Are we really to believe that these young women, who have been using mean behaviors effectively for years (everything from self-centeredness to downright nastiness, according to the press release), will suddenly see the damage they’re doing and vow to redeem themselves? Will any change we see be real change, or clever positioning for the cash? Are the producers truly shining a light on meanness in the hopes that viewers will reconsider their bad behaviors, or are they celebrating it by featuring attractive, socially prominent women who may have gotten that way to begin with by being, well, mean?

Can true change even happen for these girls, or are their behaviors too deeply ingrained? Many of the behaviors we think of as “mean girl” behavior peak in adolescence, middle school in particular. Such behaviors don’t disappear, of course, and occur regularly even among adult women, as most people can tell you. But for most young women, there is a decrease in these behaviors across adolescence and into adulthood. (The film “Mean Girls” – which I really liked, by the way – depicts high school aggression among girls who don’t show the typical trajectory. Well, that or they were “Really Mean Girls” in middle school.) Given their levels of meanness and how long they’ve gotten away with it, I wonder how effective a short-term intervention would be, even one led by a famous TV psychologist. These girls have been getting their way for a long time.

Still, I’ll probably tune in, just to see.

» Add Your Feedback No Comments |

Does your status need a boost? Beat someone up on YouTube.

By: Lara on April 10, 2008
Under: aggression, peer status
Comments: 5

When colleagues and I study aggression among girls, it’s often of the social/relational kind—gossip, exclusion, the cold shoulder—not because relational aggression is solely the domain of girls, but because rates of more physical kinds of aggression among girls are comparatively very low. (There is plenty of research on physical aggression and violence among girls; some of it is presented in this excellent book edited by Martha Putallaz and Karen Bierman). But researchers (among others) are documenting increasing rates of physical violence perpetrated by girls, and girls, while not exactly closing in on boys’ levels of aggression, are definitely narrowing the gap.

So when I hear a story like this, which was reported on CBS and has been heating up the blogosphere over the past couple of days (like this post on Jezebel), I’m not particularly surprised by the girls’ actions. Girls whaling on each other just isn’t as rare as it used to be. But this case is unusual in its violence, and it’s extremely creepy in that the girls reportedly lured their victim to the scene of the beating with the express purpose of videotaping it and posting it on YouTube.

The thing that struck me as most interesting about this story was who the perpetrators were—cheerleaders, presumably popular girls. Plenty of recent research on adolescent popularity has shown that the most popular students can also be the most aggressive. Beyond that, Toon Cillessen and I will publish a study later this year showing that the combination of being popular and knowing that you’re popular predicts the very highest levels of physical and relational aggression in a given high school grade. It may be that being popular and knowing it (or caring enough about popularity to rate yourself really highly on it) means that you’re also extremely protective of your status—protective enough to hurt other kids who challenge or threaten that status. That’s pure conjecture; we really don’t know why kids who are popular and know it can be so mean. It could be simpler than status maintenance. Maybe popular kids who know their power just feel entitled to kicking people around a little when they feel like it. Maybe they know they won’t really get into trouble for it. Maybe they figure other kids will like them even more when they act like jerks.

But popular kids’ aggression doesn’t usually go as far as it did in this story—in fact, one common assumption about popular-aggressive kids is that they use aggression in savvy, hard-to-detect ways that allow them to manipulate or threaten without being discovered (and punished). The girls in this incident clearly wanted to be discovered: They wanted to create a YouTube sensation! I’m fascinated by this. Do some popular teens feel that they have to show such extreme expressions of physical dominance in order to gain or maintain their status (and if so, why?)? Or is it even bigger than that—Are kids using social media like Facebook and YouTube as vehicles for gaining respect or power, by promoting their mean behaviors on a worldwide scale? I’ll admit it, this scares me a little. The potential for one-upsmanship seems enormous.

I may be overthinking this entire thing; it’s possible that these are just some dumb kids who didn’t think their plan through very well. The six girls involved in the incident (and two male accomplices who acted as lookouts during the assault) have been charged with third-degree felonies. Something tells me this story is being told and retold among their high school peers with a level of awe and respect that would make us cringe.

» Add Your Feedback (5) Comments |

Bullying, Part II

By: Lara on March 27, 2008
Under: aggression
Comments: 2

Bully stories abound these days; here’s a heartbreaking one written by Dan Barry for the NYT.

It’s about a high school kid named Billy who is the target of bullying among his high school peers. Not just a target; Barry suggests that he’s the target, at least where physical assault is concerned. He’s assaulted regularly. There was even a Facebook group devoted to hating him for a while, until Billy’s parents alerted school officials and the group’s page was taken down.

Barry, in addition to laundry-listing the many ways in which Billy has been victimized over the last few years, suggests a couple of questions: Why him? And how can the bullies be punished in a way that prevents this from continuing to happen?

Why Billy? Who knows. Really. He was probably the wrong kid at the wrong place at the wrong time. Why is his experience so extreme? (And it is extreme—I’ve never heard of bullying like this, and I ask kids about this stuff for a living.) Something tells me that Billy just doesn’t break. When he gets hit, he probably just shakes it off, gives the little jerk who hit him a level stare, and walks away. The author never mentions retaliation, he never says that Billy cries. Or goes to the principal. Or does anything other than walk away. Billy’s steeliness must infuriate some kids.

Billy seems to have become the school punching bag. If you need to blow off steam, find Billy. If you want to do a little chest-beating to show everyone who’s boss, find Billy. You can hit Billy all you want—nobody’s going to intervene, the punishment is never worse than a few days’ suspension, and girls will still like you. (In fact, girls may like you more. Research by Anthony Pellegrini and his colleagues have shown that teen boys who engage in displays of physical dominance—including bullying and other instances of aggression—are seen as highly desirable dating partners. Our infatuation with The Bad Boy apparently starts pretty early.)

Sigh.

So is there any hope for Billy and kids like him? I think so. And while I agree with Billy’s parents that his bullying peers should be punished, even charged with assault, I don’t think that’s the whole answer. When it comes to adolescents, the peer group is a much more powerful agent of change than angry parents or teachers or even the legal system. It’s up to Billy’s peers to put a stop to the punches.

Research by Wendy Craig and Debra Pepler has shown that when peers intervene in episodes of bullying, about half of the time the bully will stop his (or her) mean behavior within 10 seconds. That’s pretty powerful. But the problem, I think, is that kids don’t realize their own power. They think they have to be “cool” or popular or physically dominant themselves in order to stand up to the bullies on behalf of a peer. And sure, sometimes the bully’s going to look at them like they’re crazy and growl “Get lost” when they do stand up for someone. But if Craig and Pepler’s research tells us anything, it’s that peers are the best chance a guy like Billy has. We need to remind kids of this as often as we can.

» Add Your Feedback (2) Comments |

Girls never cornered the market on “mean.”

By: Lara on March 14, 2008
Under: aggression
1 Comment

I’ve spent a lot of time the last few weeks gearing up for a new research study that I’m really excited about. It’s a study of what we call “relational aggression” or “social aggression,” and it refers to those hurtful behaviors like rumor-mongering and social exclusion that are usually thought of as the hallmark of the 13-year-old girl.

There’s something of a controversy in the field as to whether relational aggression really is “girl aggression,” though—some researchers find reliable gender differences favoring girls, while others don’t (or even find that boys are more socially aggressive). I happen to fall into the latter camp. The research some colleagues and I have done shows inconsistent gender differences in relational aggression, especially once you get into the adolescent years. Beyond about 9th grade, there don’t seem to be any differences at all.

I mention all that as background. So here’s the story I can’t stop thinking about.

I was recently told by a school principal that she is seeing more and more boys engaging in acts of social bullying severe enough to warrant a talk with her or the school counselor. This principal explained that it used to be “a girl thing”—but now the boys seem to be catching up. Boys who used to solve their disagreements by duking it out or exchanging some hostile words are now using social bullying, instead.

As a researcher, I’m not surprised that boys are using relational aggression. There’s a lot of research out there that tells us they do. What’s interesting to me is that this particular school is experiencing such a rapid change in the kinds of trouble boys are causing for each other. Why the sudden shift? Are zero-tolerance protocols in the schools forcing boys to become less physically violent and more covert in their attempts to do harm? Are anti-bullying programs, which so often teach empathy and perspective-taking, actually teaching boys how to hurt each other in more emotionally damaging ways? And if that’s the case, what can we actually do to stop kids from hurting each other? Kids are going to get into arguments. They’re going to have enemies, peers they dislike. It seems impossible—maybe even unwise—to remove all potential means of conflict. If you outlaw fistfights, you get mean rumors and the cold shoulder. How do you outlaw that? And should we? I wonder how emotionally sterile we’re making our children’s classrooms, and about the long-term consequences on the kids themselves.

Hmm, I have more to say about this. I think this blog needs a Part Two. More to follow.

» Add Your Feedback 1 Comment |

When popularity is more important than anything else

By: Lara on March 3, 2008
Under: aggression, peer status
1 Comment

I study peer popularity among children and adolescents. Some of my research has shown that being popular isn’t always associated with good things. Meaning, sometimes popular kids are mean to other kids, and sometimes they do things that their parents would probably rather they not do (drink, have sex). Popular youth are more likely than other kids to do stuff like this. I’m not the only one coming to these conclusions; there are lots of us doing similar work.

Despite findings like this, I have always been quick to end discussions of popularity with a comment like “…but of course not all popular kids are mean. Some popular kids are kind, cooperative, friendly, trustworthy kids.” And I mean it—our data show a lot of variability in aggression, alcohol use, etc., among the “in” crowd. It’s simply unfair not to acknowledge that.

But then I read something like this, and I just want to tear my hair out. Go on, have a look. (Thanks for the link, Sophie.)

Scary, isn’t it? And doesn’t it make you angry?

Stories like this are exactly why I study popularity. Popularity comes with social power—the power to influence others in good ways or bad, the power to make peers happy or make them miserable. There are lots of theories as to why some popular kids act the way the girls in the advice column acted (maybe we’ll tackle those in another post).

But here’s my question: Why is it that other kids are so willing to walk into the trap? Experience being a teenager and experience studying teenagers tells me that if a group of popular kids is mean to other kids, people probably know about it. Is the lure of being part of the “in” crowd so enticing that kids will risk the kind of humiliation that this poor girl experienced?

So while I usually come at this issue from the perspective of the popular kids, this story has me thinking hard about the perspective of their peers. We make a lot of assumptions about the way popular kids are perceived–like, they are sometimes disliked, they are envied, they are seen as competition for romantic partners–but we don’t test these assumptions very often.

If we are to truly understand the dynamics of popularity, we must go beyond studying popular kids themselves. We have to understand how they fit into the larger peer group, how their peers feel about them, and what it is about being popular that is so alluring to some kids that they’re willing to be victimized in order to fit in.

And for what it’s worth, I like Amy’s advice in this column. But I doubt the young girl who wrote her will follow it. If she was willing to submit to hazing in order to hang out with those girls in the first place, something tells me she won’t be willing to make a (possibly very public) issue out of her experience with them. Yet another indicator of just how much power these kids have.

» Add Your Feedback 1 Comment |

It’s working, folks.

By: Lara on February 26, 2008
Under: aggression
No Comments Yet

A bully prevention program implemented in the Denver public school system was effective at reducing self-reported victimization by 20 percent among students who participated in the program.

The program, called Youth Matters, teaches social skills that reduce the likelihood of being victimized by peers (things like learning to stand up for oneself and others, how to effectively ask for help from teachers, how to cope with bullying). Perhaps more importantly, the program promotes a  shift in attitudes toward bullying and aims to build a school climate in which bullying is clearly not acceptable to students.

This is the kind of thing that makes me stand up and cheer.  25-30% of children and adolescents report that they have either been a victim of a bully, or a bully themselves. Programs like this have the potential to improve the day-to-day life of so many kids.

Not all of the study findings were as promising as the decrease in self-reported victimization–for example, self-reported bullying did not change after the implementation of the program–and a 20% decrease in perceived victimization isn’t huge. But for researchers, teachers and other school officials who are devoted to reducing bullying, to parents who worry daily about their children’s traumatic experiences at school, and of course to the kids themselves, a 20% decrease is a good place to start.

The full text of the study (which describes the program and the study of its efficacy) can be found here. Thanks to my friend Sophie (whose wonderful website and blog can be found here) for the tip!

» Add Your Feedback No Comments |