The Science of Relational Aggression

TEST_YOURSELF · How well do you know this science?

1. 01 Who first named 'relational aggression' as a distinct form of aggression, and when?

   Albert Bandura, in the 1961 Bobo doll experimentsNicki Crick and Jennifer Grotpeter, in a 1995 Child Development studyKipling Williams, in his 2007 review of ostracismRosalind Wiseman, in the book Queen Bees and Wannabes

   Crick and Grotpeter's 1995 Child Development paper introduced relational aggression — harming others through damage to relationships, like exclusion and rumor-spreading — in a study of 491 third- through sixth-graders, and showed its targets were more rejected, lonelier and more depressed than peers. source ↗

2. 02 In the 2003 Science fMRI study, what happened in the brain when people were excluded from a virtual ball-tossing game?

   Nothing measurable — exclusion from a game is too trivial to registerThe visual cortex activated, showing exclusion is processed as a perception errorThe dorsal anterior cingulate cortex activated — a region tied to the distress of physical pain — tracking self-reported distressReward circuits activated, showing people secretly prefer being alone

   Eisenberger, Lieberman and Williams found the dACC more active during exclusion than inclusion, with activity correlating with self-reported distress — leading to their conclusion that social pain is analogous to physical pain, alerting us to injury to our social connections. source ↗

3. 03 What did Werner and Crick's 1999 college study find about relational aggression in adults?

   It essentially disappears after high schoolIt is common among young adults, and relationally aggressive men are just as much at risk for adjustment difficulties as womenIt only occurs in romantic relationships, never in friendshipsIt is harmless in adults because they have more coping resources

   Werner and Crick found relational aggression common in a college sample, and — despite average gender differences — relationally aggressive late-adolescent men were as likely as women to be at risk for adjustment difficulties. The behavior and its costs continue into adulthood. source ↗

4. 04 In the 2015 Organization Science studies, how did workplace ostracism compare with harassment?

   Harassment was worse on every measure — ostracism barely registeredBoth were seen as equally unacceptable and had identical effectsPeople rated ostracism as more acceptable and less harmful — but it was more damaging to belonging and well-being, and predicted turnover three years laterOstracism increased productivity because excluded employees worked harder to fit in

   Across three field studies, O'Reilly and colleagues found a perception-reality gap: employees saw ostracism as more socially acceptable and less harmful than harassment, yet ostracism was more strongly linked to lost belonging and worse well-being — and it, not harassment, predicted actual turnover three years after assessment. source ↗

5. 05 In the large 2010 adult study (N = 1,387), which pattern was uniquely associated with hostile attribution biases — reading deliberate attack into ambiguous relational situations?

   Proactive relational aggression — cold, calculated relationship movesReactive relational aggression — lashing out through relationships when feeling provokedPhysical aggression only — relational forms showed no cognitive correlatesNeither — hostile attribution biases were unrelated to any form of aggression

   Murray-Close and colleagues found reactive — but not proactive — relational aggression uniquely associated with hostile attribution biases and with distress over ambiguous relational provocations, and more common in adults with Intermittent Explosive Disorder. The trigger is often a biased reading of an unclear situation. source ↗