“we're not friends anymore! unless…”: the frequency and harmfulness of indirect,...

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

Volume 32, pages 294–307 (2006)

‘‘We’re Not Friends Anymore! Unlessy’’:The Frequency and Harmfulness of Indirect,Relational, and Social AggressionSarah M. Coyne�, John Archer, and Mike Eslea

Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

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The frequency of items of indirect, relational, social, verbal, and physical aggression was assessed in the school environment of 422adolescents, using the Indirect/Social/Relational Aggression scale (ISRA), a measure that combined items from indirect,relational, and social aggression research. We also assessed the perceived harmfulness of each item. Comparing these findings withthe occurrence of aggression on television, we found that adolescents were exposed to nearly 10 times more indirect, relational, andsocial aggression on television than they are in school. Overall, there was no sex difference in the amount of aggression reported byboys and girls. However, when examining specific items, girls reported more gossiping and boys more hitting. Girls perceivedindirect, direct relational, and verbal aggression as more harmful than did boys. Limited evidence was found for a distinctionbetween indirect, relational, and social aggression, although it was clear that they were more similar than different. Aggr. Behav.32:294–307, 2006. r 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Keywords: indirect aggression; relational aggression; social aggression; television; sex differences

INTRODUCTION

‘‘Hey, did you hear the news about Alicia?’’

‘‘Ew! Don’t hang out with him! He’s so gross!’’

‘‘We’re not friends anymore! Unlessy’’

These quotes are all examples of manipulative andoften covert forms of behavior known as indirect,relational, or social aggression. These forms ofbehavior have been found to be very emotionallyharmful to victims. Victims of indirect, relational,and social aggression have been found to be moredepressed, anxious, lonely, and to have morenegative thoughts in a variety of categories, includingphysical appearance, romantic appeal, global self-worth, and close friendships [e.g., Craig, 1998; Eslea,2005; Henington et al., 1998; Paquette and Under-wood, 1999], although it should be noted that therelationship between victimization and these attri-butes may be bi-directional. These hurtful behaviorsoccur frequently, especially in adolescent girls’ socialgroups [e.g., Crick et al., 1999]. Although there maybe subtle differences between indirect, relational, andsocial aggression [Archer, 2001], in a review of the

relevant research [Archer and Coyne, 2005], weargued that they are much more similar than they aredifferent, and suggest ways in which the three termscan be integrated into one research area.

Indirect Aggression

One major feature of indirect aggression, accord-ing to the Finnish research team which originallyexamined it, is that ‘‘the aggressor may remainunidentified, thereby avoiding both counterattackfrom the target and disapproval by others’’ [Lager-spetz et al., 1988, p 404]. The defining feature ofindirect aggression is that harm is delivered circui-tously, in a covert manner [Bjorkqvist et al., 1992c].Examples of indirect aggression include gossiping,spreading rumors, writing nasty notes to others, andtrying to get others to exclude a group member.Indirect aggression may be verbal or physical

Published online 21 February 2006 in Wiley InterScience (www.

interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/ab.20126

Accepted 9 November 2004

�Correspondence to: S.M. Coyne, Department of Psychology,

University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2 HE, UK.

E-mail: [email protected]

r 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

[Buss, 1961], although the emphasis is usually on itsnon-physical forms. Verbal indirect aggression inclu-des the examples mentioned above. Examples ofphysical indirect aggression include covertly destroy-ing someone’s property or robbing them. In theearlier research on indirect aggression, researchersdid not make this distinction, but focused on verbalindirect aggression. A more recent definition, how-ever, takes the physical forms into account bydefining indirect aggression as ‘‘attempts to causepsychological, in rare cases even physical harm to thetarget person by social manipulation, often attackingthe target in circuitous ways through a third personin order to conceal the aggressive intent, or otherwisepretending that the attack was not aggressive at all’’[Bjorkqvist et al., 2001, p 112]. The covert nature ofthe behavior is nevertheless stressed.Indirect aggression is typically found to be more

common among girls than boys up to the age of18 years [e.g., Bjorkqvist et al., 1992b; Fesbach,1969; Kaukiainen et al., 2001; Salmivalli et al.,2000]. One of the most important aspects of anadolescent girl’s life is her standing in the socialworld. Indirect aggression that potentially couldharm a girl’s social standing in the group may be aparticularly effective way of hurting her at this age[Bjorkqvist et al., 1992b]. However, it should benoted that several studies of adults have found nosex difference in indirect aggression [e.g., Greenet al., 1996; Richardson and Green, 1999; seeArcher, 2004]. By adulthood, being popular in the‘‘social world’’, although still important, becomesless of a priority than in adolescence. Therefore, anysex differences in indirect aggression by adulthoodmay become less apparent when compared toadolescence [e.g., Green et al., 1996].

Relational Aggression

Relational aggression is similar to indirect aggres-sion, but focuses on ‘‘behaviors that harm othersthrough damage to relationships or feelings ofacceptance, friendship, or group inclusion’’ [Cricket al., 1999, p 77]. Relational aggression does notneed to be covert. Rather, it is often carried outdirectly in front of the victim: e.g., a girl telling herfriend that they will no longer be friends unless shedoes what the girl wants. Relational aggressionresearchers argue that this construct is distinct fromindirect aggression [Crick et al., 1999]. Indirectaggression researchers, however, maintain that thetwo terms are identical [Bjorkqvist, 2001]. Althoughseveral items of relational aggression fit the defini-tion of indirect aggression (e.g., gossiping, and

backbiting), others do not (e.g., ignoring or stoptalking to someone). These are often included inmeasures of indirect aggression [Archer and Coyne,2005], so that the two constructs may be moresimilar in practice than their definitions indicate.Relational aggression has also been found to

occur more frequently in girls than boys [Crick andGrotpeter, 1995; Crick et al., 1997], although somestudies have found no sex difference [Deveaux andDaniels, 2000; Hart et al., 1998; Henington et al.,1998]. Several primitive forms of direct relationalaggression may appear at earlier ages than covertforms of aggression [Crick et al., 1999]. Preschoolerstypically use these direct forms of relational aggres-sion (e.g., ‘‘We’re not friends unless you share yourice cream cone with me!’’) and then progress to moresubtle forms as they mature and gain the socialintelligence needed to effectively manipulate thesocial environment to their advantage [Salmivalliet al., 2000].

Social Aggression

Social aggression is very similar to both relationaland indirect aggression. It is a term coined by Cairnset al. [1989], and expanded by Galen and Under-wood [1997, p 589], who described it as behaviorwhich is ‘‘directed toward damaging another’s self-esteem, social status, or both, and may take suchdirect forms as verbal rejection, negative facialexpressions or body movements, or more indirectforms such as slanderous rumors or social exclu-sion’’. It appears that social aggression encompassesall the behaviors in relational and indirect aggres-sion, while adding harmful non-verbal behaviors(e.g., rolling eyes, giving dirty looks) to theconstruct. Underwood et al. [2001, p 252] suggestthat researchers use the term social aggressionbecause it ‘‘so aptly describes what might be at leastone purpose of these behaviors’’. Unfortunately,researchers are still arguing as to whether indirect,relational, and social aggression are all distinctforms of aggression, and what to call it if they areessentially the same constructs [Archer and Coyne,2005; Underwood et al., 2001].

Indirect, Relational, and Social Aggressionon Television

Indirect, relational, and social aggression not onlyoccur in the playground and the classroom, but alsoon television, although the research in this field isstill in the early stages. Coyne and Archer [2004]found that these forms of aggression occur morefrequently on television than do physical and verbal

295Indirect, Relational, and Social Aggression

Aggr. Behav. DOI 10.1002/ab

aggression. They are more likely to be enacted byattractive, female aggressors whose actions areportrayed as justified and rewarded. Other studieshave revealed that viewing these forms of aggressionon television can increase indirect aggression in reallife [Coyne et al., 2004], and that indirectlyaggressive girls view significantly more programscontaining indirect aggression than other girls do[Coyne and Archer, 2005].Information processing theory can explain how

aggression, both physical and indirect, can belearned after viewing either form of aggression ontelevision [Huesmann, 1988]. Each individual has avariety of cognitive scripts that they use to explainand interpret their environment. These scripts covera variety of topics, including appropriate aggressivebehavior. When an individual views indirect (orphysical) aggression on television, certain scriptsrelating to aggression are activated in the person’smemory, increasing the likelihood that the indivi-dual will behave aggressively in subsequent situa-tions. Indirect/relational/social aggression is oftenportrayed on television to be justified, rewarded, andby attractive characters, all characteristics that havebeen shown to increase the likelihood that viewerswill behave aggressively after viewing aggression ontelevision [e.g., Coyne and Archer, 2004; Donner-stein et al., 1994].Individuals do not learn how to behave aggres-

sively solely from watching aggression on television.They can learn aggressive behavior from a variety ofsources, including from parents, friends, and othersin the social environment. One controversial defensefor the levels of violence on television today is thatthis violence is a realistic mirror image of a violence-filled world. Critics of the levels of indirect,relational, and social aggression on television mayassume such a stance, as these behaviors are (unlikeviolent behavior) very common in schools, homes,and the workplace. To discover if this perspective isaccurate, the levels of these forms of aggression ontelevision need to be compared with the levels ofaggression found in the real world, where indivi-duals may find that such activities are often not thejustified or rewarded behaviors they view ontelevision.

Aims of the Present Study

One major goal of the current study was to assessthe frequency of items of relational, indirect, andsocial aggression in the school environment ofadolescents, and to compare this with exposure tothese forms of aggression on television. We have

decided to examine adolescents, as this behaviorbecomes particularly frequent and harmful duringpre- to early-adolescence [e.g., Bjorkqvist et al.,1992b]. We then used this information to assesswhether the items that make up these constructs areperceived as occurring together to a greater extentthan do items from different constructs [Archer,2001; Bjorkqvist, 2001]. From this, we determinedthe existence of any differences in the constructs ofrelational, indirect, and social aggression.Another aim of the study was to examine how

frequent and harmful the individual items subsumedin these categories of aggression are perceived to be.Often, researchers only report results for aggregateindirect or relational aggression, instead of examin-ing the individual items such as gossiping orbackbiting. It is important to know which individualitems occur more frequently than others, and whichitems are perceived as more harmful so as to informfuture research which aggressive behaviors areviewed differently than others. Based on previousresearch, we predicted that all forms of indirect/relational/social aggression will be more commonand hurtful for girls and that physical aggressionwill be more common and hurtful for boys [e.g.,Galen and Underwood, 1997]. As participants wereall in pre- to mid-adolescence, age differences werepredicted to be minimal as indirect, relational, andsocial aggression are all very frequent at this stageof life [e.g., Crick et al., 1999].

METHOD

Participants

After data screening was completed (see below),422 participants’ data were analyzed, with sevenparticipants’ data being excluded. Two hundred andsixteen males (51.18%) and 191 females (45.26%)took part in the study (15 participants (3.55%) didnot report their sex). Participant age ranged from 11to 15 years, with the mean age being 12.79 years(SD5 .90). Participants attended one of two aver-age-sized high schools in North West England.Seventy-seven participants were from year 7 (sixthgrade US equivalent), 156 were from year 8 (seventhgrade US equivalent), and 170 were from year 9(eighth grade US equivalent) (19 participants didnot report their year).

Measures

The Indirect/Social/Relational Aggression scale(ISRA) was used to assess the frequency and

296 Coyne et al.


harmfulness of different forms of aggression. Thismeasure was created by incorporating items fromseveral scales commonly used by indirect, relational,and social aggression researchers. Items of indirectaggression were taken from the Direct and IndirectAggression Scale [Bjorkqvist et al., 1992a]. Thismeasure asks participants to rate each class mem-ber’s level of aggression on a Likert Scale; therefore,providing a multi-informant measure of an indivi-dual’s aggression. Relational aggression items weretaken from a peer nomination measure of relationalaggression [Crick and Grotpeter, 1995] and theSocial Experience Questionnaire, a self-report mea-sure of victimization of aggression [Crick andGrotpeter, 1996]. A few non-verbal items commonlyused by social aggression researchers were takenfrom the Revised Social Experience Questionnaire,a derivation of the above scale [Galen andUnderwood, 1997]. Items of physical and verbalaggression from the Aggression Questionnaire werealso included [Buss and Perry, 1992]. These measureswere chosen as they provide a fairly representativesample of the items used by researchers in this area.As there are many items that overlap for indirect,relational, and social aggression, these were difficultto place in clear, distinct, categories. However, basedon conceptual groupings and a factor analysis(reported later), we decided to classify these itemsas indirect aggression (ten items), direct relationalaggression (six items), and non-verbal social items(two items). There were also five items of physicalaggression and five items of direct verbal aggression(see Table VI for a listing of the total 28 items).For Part 1, participants were required to circle

how many times they heard about or witnessed eachaggressive behavior in the past week on a scaleranging from 0 to 51.1 It should be noted that wewere investigating how frequently various forms ofaggression occur in a person’s social environment,rather than the more usual method of measuringindividuals’ behavior. This methodology was usedso that we could compare exposure to aggression ina participant’s social environment with exposure toaggression on television. Self-report measures thatask how frequently a person is an aggressor orvictim would not capture the total exposure of anindividual to these forms of aggression. Addition-ally, these measures have been criticized for notbeing accurate as many individuals are unwilling toreport that they engage in any aggressive behavior

[Bjorkqvist, 2001]. Part 2 of the ISRA required eachparticipant to rate how harmful they felt eachaggressive behavior would be if it actually happenedto someone. Participants were asked to circle anumber on a Likert scale, with 1 representing ‘‘theywould NOT feel sad or hurt at all’’, 2 representing‘‘they would not really feel sad or hurt, 3 represent-ing ‘‘they would feel somewhat sad or hurt’’, and4 representing ‘‘they would feel REALLY sador hurt’’.Cronbach’s a for each scale in part 1 were:

Indirect (.84), Direct relational (.79), Social (.50),Verbal (.81), and Physical (.75). Reliability wasacceptable for each scale, except for social aggres-sion, which was most likely a result of the lowernumber of items on this scale (Cortina, 1993).However, the total reliability for all aggressionquestions was high (.93). For part 2, Cronbach’sa were: Indirect (.84), Direct relational (.76), Social(.68), Verbal (.77), and Physical (.83). Again,reliability for social aggression was low, and thetotal reliability for this section was high (.94).The responses to the questionnaire were later

compared to the results of a content analysis ofaggression in British television [for full results seeCoyne and Archer, 2004]. This analysis assessed thefrequency of indirect, relational, social, physical,and verbal aggression in 228 hr of programming(402 episodes) identified as popular by participantsin this study. Each participant was asked to list thefive television programs they viewed most fre-quently, and the 29 most popular programs overallwere included in the analysis. Each act of aggressionwas coded on the following variables: type ofaggression, reward, punishment, justification, rea-lism, relationship of aggressor and victim, aggressorand victim characteristics, genre, and country oforigin, although these categories were not used inthe present study.

Procedure

The questionnaire was administered in 17 coedu-cational classrooms (consisting of between 20 and 28students per classroom). For part 1, each participantwas given instructions to ‘‘Think about all the othermembers of your year and the way they treated eachother in the past week. Now circle the number oftimes that you either heard about or watched thefollowing behaviors taking place in the past week’’.Teachers went through the following sample ques-tion with their class and answered any questions ifthe students were in any way confused about howto complete the questionnaire.

1Originally, the scale ranged from 0 to 71. This was lowered to a 0 to

51 scale after pilot testing revealed that responses above 5 were non-

existent.



Sample 1: FrequencyHearing someone say something nice about someone

else 0 1 2 3 4 51

After completing the sample question, participantswere instructed to complete the questionnaire, byfollowing the same procedure they did in the samplequestion.For part 2, participants were instructed to ‘‘Now

think about how a person would feel if someone elsedid the following behaviors to them. Please circlehow much you think that each of the behaviorswould make a person feel sad or hurt.’’

Sample 2: HarmfulnessHearing someone say something nice about

them 1——2——3——4

After completing the sample question, participantswere instructed to complete the rest of the questionson the test. Finally, participants were askedto mark their sex, age, and year and how manyhours of television they watched each day (scaleof 0–8 hr).2

RESULTS

Data Screening

Several analyses were carried out to check forunivariate outliers and missing data. The variables‘‘Total Aggression’’ and ‘‘Total Hurt’’ were trans-formed into z scores. Any participant receiving a zscore of over 3 was not used in the analysis. A totalof seven participants’ data was not analyzed. Aninspection of these participants revealed that theyappeared not to take the questionnaire seriously(e.g., putting all 5s for how much aggression theysee, or putting a ‘‘not hurtful at all’’ for all typesof aggression). Assumptions of multi-collinearity,singularity, and normality were met.

Factor Analysis

A series of exploratory factor analyses werecarried out to assess whether indirect, relational,and social aggression appeared as distinct factors.The factor analyses were only undertaken for thefrequency scale.3

All items. A principal components analysiswith promax rotation was undertaken for all theitems on the RISA. The suitability of the data forfactor analysis was assessed prior to performingthe analysis. An inspection of the correlationmatrix revealed that the majority of factors hadcoefficients exceeding .30. The Kaiser–Meyer–Oklinvalue was .93, exceeding the critical value of .60[Kaiser, 1970]. Bartlett’s test of sphericity wassignificant, w2 (378)5 3,872.35, Po.001) suggestingthat the data are suitable for factor analysis[Bartlett, 1954].We decided to extract three factors based on

conceptual groupings and examination of the screeplot. Altogether, this solution accounted for 49.45%of the variance. Table I shows that most itemsloaded strongly on only one factor, and three items(‘‘prank phone calls’’, ‘‘destroying relationships’’,and ‘‘rolling eyes’’) did not load on any factor. Thefirst factor accounted for 34.97% of the varianceand consisted of solely indirect, relational, andsocial aggression (e.g., ‘‘gossiping’’, ‘‘spreadingrumors’’, ‘‘ignoring’’). The second component ac-counted for 8.71% of the variance and consisted ofmainly the physical aggression items (e.g., ‘‘destroyproperty in front of someone’’, ‘‘biting’’, ‘‘scratch-ing’’). There was one item of indirect aggression(getting others to dislike) and two items of directrelational aggression (‘‘not inviting to a party’’ and‘‘threatening to end the friendship’’) that also loadedhighly on this factor. The third factor contributed5.77% to the variance and consisted of mainlyverbal aggression items (e.g., ‘‘insulting’’, ‘‘yelling’’,‘‘teasing’’). However, it should be noted that‘‘hitting’’, the most common physical aggressionitem also loaded highly on this factor. This may be aresult of the high frequency with which both hittingand verbal aggression are witnessed. The results ofthis analysis support the argument that there isanother form of aggression that is distinct fromphysical and verbal aggression.

Indirect, relational, and social items. Asseveral items loaded on separate factors, a secondfactor analysis was conducted to assess whetherthere was any evidence for the distinction of theterms indirect, relational, and social aggression.A principal components analysis with promax rotationwas undertaken on the 18 items of the ISRA scaleinvolving relational, indirect, or social aggression.Again, the data were suitable for factor analysis asthe majority of the items had a coefficient exceeding.30, a Kaiser–Meyer–Oklin value of .92 and asignificant Bartlett’s test of sphericity, w2 (153)5

2,403.48, Po.001).

2Ethical approval was obtained from the University’s ethics

committee. Participants were treated in accordance with the Code

of Conduct, Ethical Principles, and Guidelines as established by the

British Psychological Society.3When combined, the factor analysis revealed two factors: one

containing all the frequency items and one containing all the

perceived harmfulness, thus the need to separate the two scales.

298 Coyne et al.


Examination of the scree plot indicated a three-factor solution, altogether accounting for 52.66% ofthe variance. Table II shows that most items loadedstrongly on only one factor. The first factoraccounted for 39.39% of the variance and consistedmainly of direct ways of hurting someone (e.g., ‘‘notinvite to party’’, ‘‘threaten to end friendship’’,‘‘sitting close together’’). The second componentaccounted for 7.35% of the variance and consistedof mainly indirect ways of hurting another (e.g.,‘‘breaking confidences’’, ‘‘spreading rumors’’, ‘‘gos-siping’’). The third factor contributed 5.93% to thevariance and consisted solely of two non-verbalitems (‘‘dirty looks’’ and ‘‘rolling eyes’’). One item(prank phone calls) did not load on any factorand was omitted from the analysis. There wasone ambiguous item (become friends with another asrevenge) which loaded highly on both factors 1 and2. The results of this analysis partially support theargument that items of indirect, relational, and

social aggression are different, at least as far as theirperceived occurrence is concerned.

Differences in Frequency

Table III shows the means and standard devia-tions for the frequency with which adolescentswitness or hear about indirect, direct relational,social, verbal, and physical aggression.4 A mixedfactorial ANOVA was conducted to assess whetherthese differences were significant and to examine themoderating factors of sex and year in school.Mauchly’s test of sphericity was significant, w2

(9)5 243.55, df5 9, Po.001; so Greenhouse–Geisser statistics will be reported. There was an

TABLE I. Promax Rotation of the Three Factor Solution for all Frequency Items�

Item

Component 1

(indirect, relational, and social items)

Component 2

(physical items)

Component 3

(verbal items)

Spreading rumors .77

Break confidences .69

Become friends with another .69

Leaving people out on purpose .68

Ignoring someone .67

Gossiping .64

Make fun of someone so it makes them look stupid .56

Anonymous mean notes .55

Make fun of clothes or personality behind a person’s back .51

Getting others to help .51

Make fun of clothes or personality to a person’s face .50

Huddling .45

Try to destroy someone else’s relationshipa

Prank phone callsa

Biting .79

Destroy property behind back .78

Destroy property in front of someone .77

Not invite to party .63

Scratching .62

Get others to dislike .57

Threaten to break off friendship .55

Insulting .80

Yelling .80

Teasing .79

Calling someone a mean name .75

Give a dirty look .66

Hitting .57

Rolling eyesa

% of variance explained 34.97 8.71 5.77

�Only loadings above .40 are displayed.aItem omitted.

4All ‘‘51’’ responses were coded as ‘‘5s’’, therefore making the range

of means 0–5. It should be noted that because of this, answers of 51

may represent a number higher than 5, therefore deflating the mean.

However, as revealed in pilot testing, typical answers did not exceed

above 5, therefore, discrepancies would be minor if any.



overall significant difference in the frequency ofaggression reported by adolescents, F(3.14,1236.67)5

203.74, Po.001. Simple effects analyses were con-ducted to assess where the differences occurred. Allcomparisons were significant (Po.001) except forbetween direct relational and physical aggression,t (418)5 1.56, P5 .12 (not all reported here becauseof the many comparisons). Adolescents reportedwitnessing or hearing about verbal aggression themost, then social aggression, indirect aggression,and finally about direct relational and physicalaggression.The mixed ANOVA also revealed a significant

main effect for year in school, F(2,394)5 3.79,Po.05, but not for sex, F(1,394)5 .83, P5 .36.A significant interaction between year and sex was

also not revealed, F(2,394)5 1.72, P5 .18. Themeans and standard deviations for frequency ofdifferent forms of aggression are shown in Table IVfor sex and Table V for year in school of theparticipants.A MANOVA was conducted to more fully

examine the age differences for the frequency ofdifferent forms of aggression. This analysis revealeda significant overall difference between year,

TABLE II. Promax Rotation of the Three Factor Solution for Indirect, Relational, and Social Items�

Item

Component 1

(direct relational items)

Component 2

(indirect items)

Component 3

(social items)

Get others to dislike .85

Not invite to party .84

Threaten to break off friendship .77

Huddling .73

Try to destroy someone else’s relationship .60

Getting others to help .54

Anonymous mean notes .43

Spreading rumors .80

Make fun of someone so it makes them look stupid .75

Break confidences .71

Gossiping .66

Leaving people out on purpose .54

Make fun of clothes or personality behind a person’s back .46

Become friends with another .43 .46

Ignoring someone .45

Prank phone callsa

Give a dirty look .77

Rolling eyes .65

% of variance explained 39.39 7.35 5.93

�Only loadings above .40 are displayed.aItem omitted.

TABLE III. Frequency and Harmfulness of Aggressive

Behaviors

Frequencya Harmfulnessb

Type of aggression Mean SD Mean SD

Indirect 1.68 1.04 2.89 .60

Direct relational 1.42 1.09 2.94 .67

Social 2.46 1.41 2.13 .80

Verbal 2.84 1.35 2.74 .69

Physical 1.34 1.09 2.95 .78

aThe higher the score the more frequent (Scale of 0–5).bThe higher the score the more harmful (Scale of 1–4).

TABLE IV. Frequency and Perceived Harmfulness of

Aggression for Boys and Girls

Boys Girls

Mean SD Mean SD

Frequencya

Indirect 1.71 1.09 1.66 1.00

Direct relational 1.44 1.08 1.40 1.10

Social 2.34 1.43 2.63 1.36

Verbal 2.94 1.35 2.74 1.36

Physical 1.44 1.09 1.19 1.03

Perceived harmfulnessb

Indirectc 2.78 .63 3.06 .52

Direct relationalc 2.81 .68 3.12 .59

Social 2.12 .81 2.17 .79

Verbalc 2.69 .71 2.84 .64

Physical 2.75 .60 2.96 .50

aThe higher the score the more frequent (Scale of 0–5).bThe higher the score the more harmful (Scale of 1–4).cComparison is significant.

300 Coyne et al.


F(10,788)5 3.51, Po.001; and significant maineffects for indirect, F(2,397)5 3.82, Po.05; directrelational, F(2,397)5 7.93, Po.001; and verbalaggression, F(2,397)5 5.04, Po.005. A seriesof Tukey’s post hoc tests (Po.05) revealed thatYear 8 students reported being exposed to moreof these forms of aggression than Year 7 andYear 9 students.

Differences in Perceived Harm

Table III shows the means and standard devia-tions for perceived harmfulness of overall types ofaggression. A second mixed factorial ANOVA wasconducted to assess whether these differences weresignificant and to again examine the moderatingfactors of sex and year in school. Mauchly’s test ofsphericity was significant, w2 (9)5 271.96, Po.001,so Greenhouse–Geisser statistics will again bereported. There was an overall significant differencein the perceived harmfulness of aggression reportedby adolescents, F(2.98,1176.24)5 187.61, Po.001.Simple effects analyses were undertaken to discoverwhere these differences occurred. A series of pairedsamples t-tests revealed significant differences(Po.001) between all variables except betweenphysical, direct relational, and indirect. Therefore,these variables were all perceived as the mostharmful types of aggression, followed by verbalaggression and finally by social aggression.The mixed factorial ANOVA also revealed signi-

ficant main effects for sex, F(1,394)5 4.29, Po.05,and for year in school, F(2,394)5 3.52, Po.05, but

not for an interaction between the two,F(2,394)5 2.13, P5 .12. The means and standarddeviations for perceived harmfulness of aggressionare shown in Table IV for sex and Table V for yearin school. Two separate MANOVAs were con-ducted to further examine these differences. Anoverall effect was revealed for sex, F(5,398)5 8.60,Po.001. Girls perceived indirect, F(1,402)526.50,Po.001; direct relational, F(1,402)525.19, Po.001;and verbal aggression, F(1,402)5 5.36, Po.05, asmore harmful than boys did. There was no differencebetween girls and boys in the perceived harmfulnessof social, F(1,402)5 .55, P5 .46 or physical aggres-sion, F(1,402)5 1.21, P5 .27. A MANOVA alsorevealed a significant overall effect for year inschool, F(1,397)5 4.25, Po.05; and significant maineffects for social, F(1,397)5 4.25, Po.05; and verbalaggression, F(1,397)5 6.33, Po.005. A series ofTukey’s post hoc tests (Po.05) revealed that in eachcase Year 7 students rated these forms of aggressionas more harmful than Year 8 and Year 9 students.

Individual Aggression Items

Frequency. The frequency of individual ag-gression items was also examined. It should be notedthat the following comparisons are only descriptivein nature; thus, these findings should be interpretedwith caution. Table VI shows the means andstandard deviations for each item. In particular,for indirect items, ‘‘gossiping’’ occurred mostfrequently, and ‘‘breaking confidences’’ occurredleast frequently. For direct relational items, ‘‘making

TABLE V. Frequency and Perceived Harmfulness of Aggression for Years 7, 8, and 9 Students

Year 7 Year 8 Year 9

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Frequencya

Indirectb 1.64 1.08 1.87 1.06 1.54 .99

Direct relationalb 1.56 1.16 1.62 1.18 1.17 .90

Social 2.21 1.38 2.66 1.48 2.44 1.33

Verbalb 2.45 1.31 3.03 1.34 2.86 1.35

Physical 1.34 1.20 1.45 1.04 1.19 1.02

Perceived harmfulnessc

Indirect 3.01 .54 2.89 .60 2.88 .61

Direct relational 3.06 .59 2.97 .63 2.90 .70

Socialb 2.37 .72 2.13 .78 2.06 .84

Verbalb 3.00 .57 2.73 .67 2.68 .73

Physical 3.05 .77 2.97 .73 2.94 .81

aThe higher the score the more frequent (Scale of 0–5).bComparison is significant.cThe higher the score the more harmful (Scale of 1–4).



fun of someone to make them look stupid in front ofthe group’’ was the most frequent, while ‘‘not inviteto party’’ was the least frequent item. The mostfrequent pure social aggression item was ‘‘givingsomeone a dirty look’’ and the least frequent itemwas ‘‘rolling eyes at someone’’. For verbal aggres-sion, the most frequent item was ‘‘calling someone amean name’’. The least frequent item was ‘‘makingfun of clothes or personality to a person’s face’’,although it should be noted that all these types ofverbal aggression were quite frequent when com-pared to other types of aggression. The mostfrequent item of physical aggression was ‘‘hittingor punching someone’’, and the least frequent itemwas ‘‘biting’’.

Harmfulness. Specific aggressive behaviorswere also examined to assess which were perceived

as more harmful than others. Table VI shows themeans and standard deviations for the harmfulnessratings. For indirect aggression, ‘‘breaking confi-dences’’ was perceived as the most harmful and‘‘gossiping’’ was considered to be the least hurtful.These are the direct opposite of the frequencyratings. The most harmful direct relational aggres-sion item was ‘‘making fun of others in front of thegroup so as to make someone feel stupid’’, while theleast hurtful item was ‘‘huddling together to makesomeone feel excluded’’. For pure social aggression,‘‘giving dirty looks’’ was perceived as the mosthurtful and ‘‘rolling eyes’’ was considered the leasthurtful. The most harmful verbal aggression itemswere perceived to be ‘‘making fun of clothes orpersonality to a person’s face’’ and the least hurtfulwas ‘‘being yelled at’’. Finally, for physical aggres-

TABLE VI. Frequency and Harmfulness of Specific Aggressive Behaviors

Frequencya Harmfulnessb

Type of aggressive behavior Mean SD Mean SD

Indirect

Anonymous mean notes 1.35 1.61 3.06 .94

Break confidences 1.08 1.40 3.28 .91

Get other people to help 1.26 1.57 3.03 1.00

Get others in the group to dislike someone 1.36 1.55 2.84 .94

Gossiping 2.75 1.71 2.61 .95

Ignoring someone 1.69 1.53 2.74 .91

Leaving people out on purpose 1.65 1.68 2.80 .91

Make fun of clothes or personality behind a person’s back 2.16 1.97 2.79 1.00

Prank phone calls 1.36 1.38 2.72 1.10

Spreading rumors 2.06 1.67 3.08 .87

Direct relational

Become friends with another 1.21 1.49 2.93 .89

Huddling 1.34 1.52 2.64 .98

Make fun of someone so it makes them look stupid 2.49 1.76 3.20 .91

Not invite to party 1.05 1.55 2.86 1.08

Threaten to break off friendship 1.15 1.46 2.87 1.01

Try to destroy someone else’s relationship 1.31 1.59 3.13 .99

Social

Give a dirty look 3.23 1.69 2.18 .88

Rolling eyes .68 1.70 2.07 .86

Verbal

Calling a mean name 3.43 1.75 2.70 .98

Insulting 2.74 1.83 2.76 .92

Make fun of clothes or personality to a person’s face 2.25 1.81 3.12 .96

Teasing 2.86 1.84 2.75 .99

Yelling 2.95 1.72 2.37 .94

Physical

Biting .68 1.36 2.86 1.09

Destroy property behind their back .93 1.34 3.00 .95

Destroy property in front of someone 1.42 1.60 3.13 1.01

Hitting or punching 2.72 1.91 3.19 .96

Scratching .94 1.39 2.62 1.04

aThe higher the score the more frequent (Scale of 0–5).bThe higher the score the more harmful (Scale of 1–4).

302 Coyne et al.


sion, the most harmful item was perceived to be‘‘hitting or punching’’, while the least hurtful was‘‘scratching’’.

Sex differences. A MANOVA was used toexamine sex differences in specific aggressive items.Box’s test for equality of covariance was significant,F(406,261899)51.44, Po.001, so Pillai’s trace wasagain used. A main effect for sex was found,F(28,269)52.48, Po.001. In particular, females re-ported significantly more gossiping, F(1,296)57.96,Po.005, and dirty looks, F(1,296)5 10.32, Po.001,than males. Males reported significantly moremaking fun of others to make them look stupid,F(1,206)5 9.87, Po.005; and hitting, F(1,396)5

5.93, Po.05. There were no significant sex differ-ences in any other specific act of aggressivebehavior.There were sex differences in a large number of the

harmfulness ratings for specific aggressive items, ineach case the girls rating the item as more harmfulthan the boys. However, these items were largelyconfined to indirect and direct relational aggression(e.g., ‘‘gossiping’’, ‘‘spreading rumors’’, ‘‘ignoring’’).The items on which the sexes did not differ werealmost entirely physical, verbal, and social aggres-sion (e.g., ‘‘hitting’’, ‘‘teasing’’, ‘‘giving dirtylooks’’).

Relationship Between Aggression onTelevision and in Real Life

Television hours viewed. Participants viewedan average of 4.81 hr of television a day (33.67 hra week). An independent samples t-test found thatmales and females did not differ in their reportedhours of television watching, t (383)5 .41, P>.69.A Pearson’s correlation found that as age increased,television watching decreased, r5�.16, Po.001,although the overall correlation between the twowas rather small.

Total aggression. On average, respondentsheard about or witnessed 50.20 separate acts oftotal aggression each week. For indirect, relational,and social aggression, participants reported thatthey were exposed to 33 acts of indirect aggressionduring a typical week in everyday life.Coyne and Archer [2004] found that indirect,

relational, and social aggression were portrayedapproximately 9.34 times per hour on televisionprograms popular among British adolescents. In thisstudy, participants reported they viewed an averageof 4.81 hr of television a day, or 33.67 hr per week.This would result in the average adolescent viewingapproximately 319.20 acts of indirect, relational,

and social aggression each week on television. Thiswas compared to the amount of aggression anadolescent is exposed to in the real world, which wasfound to be 33 acts of these forms of aggression.Based on these calculations, adolescents are exposedto nearly 10 times more acts of indirect, relational,and social aggression on television than they arein real life.

DISCUSSION

The primary goals of this investigation werethreefold: to examine whether there is cause todistinguish between the terms indirect, relational,and social aggression, to confirm existing researchon sex and age differences for frequency andperceived harmfulness of aggression, paying parti-cular attention to the importance of individualitems, and to compare exposure to indirect/rela-tional/social forms of aggression in real life toexposure on television.We found that the perceived frequency of items of

relational, indirect, and social aggression werestatistically distinct from each other, although theyalso showed considerable overlap. All three cate-gories of aggression contained items that may beplaced into more than one of the categories,although it also appears that each of the termscontains items of aggression that are unique. Factoranalysis showed three distinct factors, correspond-ing very closely to the three types of manipulativeand often covert types of aggression. Thus, there issome support that the terms are distinct but over-lapping concepts, at least as far as their perceivedoccurrence is concerned.When comparing these terms to physical and

verbal aggression, however, it is clear that they aremuch more similar than they are different. Themajority of indirect, relational, and social items wereplaced in a distinct factor when compared to verbaland physical aggression. As Bjorkqvist [2001]argued, all the terms are essentially describing thesame types of behavior—a very manipulative andsneaky way of hurting others, particularly throughthe use of social groups and relationships. Indeed,indirect, relational, and social aggression researcherscould decrease confusion and argumentation bycreating one larger construct that encompasses allthe items. We have argued that this term should beindirect aggression, as it has precedence over theother two, and is practically identical with relationalaggression in both its form and strategic aims,except in the case of dyadic relationships where the



aims and the acts involved are so different that thisshould be treated as a separate category [Archer andCoyne, 2005]. It is anyway clear that agreeing on asingle term would reduce the confusion that isinherent in research using these three terms, andwould allow researchers to draw on a wider range ofrelevant research and focus their activities.Overall, we found that verbal aggression was the

type of aggression that was most frequently heardabout or witnessed by adolescents, with socialaggression (non-verbal) not far behind. Indirectaggression was found to be perceived as occurringmore frequently than more direct forms of aggres-sion aimed at harming relationships. This may be aresult of the high perceived occurrence of gossipingas compared to other forms of indirect/relationalaggression. Physical aggression was actually one ofthe least frequent types of aggression reported.These findings are consistent with research on bothbullying and aggression. For instance, Eslea [2005]found that name-calling was the most frequent typeof bullying for both children and adults, followedclosely by threats, rumors, and ignoring the victim.Physical bullying was actually one of the leastfrequent forms of bullying found in schools. Verbalaggression was also found to be more common thanphysical aggression in preschool children [McCabe& Lipscomb, 1988]. This finding may be dependenton the environment of the individual, as self-reportsin prisons revealed that physical aggression wasactually the most frequent form of bullying [Irelandand Archer, 1996].Overall, we found that participants perceived

indirect and direct relational aggression as the mostharmful, followed closely by physical aggression.Verbal and social aggression (non-verbal forms)were perceived to be the least harmful by adoles-cents. This may be because the effects of verbal andsocial aggression are not as long-lasting as otherforms of indirect and direct relational aggression(e.g., destroying someone’s relationships). A recentstudy on bullying found that victims coped moreeasily with verbal aggression than with indirectaggression [Eslea, 2005]. Victims of indirect bullyingwere most likely to try to ignore the aggressor or getupset when bullied. Both of these forms of copingskills were very ineffective in getting the bullying tostop. Perhaps, this ineffectiveness of the copingstyles in response to indirect and relational aggres-sion is what makes it particularly distressing foradolescents.The results of this study support previous findings

that females may be surrounded by as muchaggression in the social environment as males when

more covert forms of aggression are taken intoaccount [e.g., Ireland and Archer, 1996; Owenset al., 2000]. This finding is inconsistent with theresults from some studies using individual measures,which find that girls are more aggressive than boysin indirect forms, while boys are more physicallyaggressive than girls [e.g., Archer, 2004; Bjorkqvistet al., 1992b; Crick and Grotpeter, 1995; Crick et al.,1997; Fesbach, 1969]. However, it does supportother findings showing similar levels of this type ofaggression in the two sexes [e.g., Forrest et al., 2002;Hart et al., 1998; Linder et al., 2002; Rys and Bear,1997]. One possible reason why our results did notconfirm previous research was the methodologyused. Since we were comparing these forms ofaggression to those witnessed on television, we wereinterested in assessing an individual’s overall ex-posure to aggression, and not their direct experiencewith being an aggressor or victim. When examiningaggression from this perspective, it appears thatboys and girls are exposed to equal amounts ofaggression in their social environment.We also found that girls tended to perceive

aggression as being more harmful than boys did.In particular, girls were more likely to rate indirect,direct relational, and verbal aggression as moreharmful. This finding supports the majority ofother studies [Bjorkqvist et al., 1992b; Crick andGrotpeter, 1995; Galen and Underwood, 1997;Lagerspetz et al., 1988], as it suggests that girls valuesocial relationships more than boys do, and are thusmore hurt when these relationships are harmed orput into jeopardy.Although overall sex differences were not found,

we found that girls reported observing more‘‘gossiping’’ while boys reported more ‘‘hitting’’when examining each individual item. Perhaps,previous findings that girls are more indirectlyaggressive really stem from their high use ofgossiping, rather than other less common but moreharmful types of indirect/relational/social aggres-sion. Campbell et al. [1997, p 169] have argued thatgossiping among women should not even beclassified as aggression as the intent to harm anotherperson may not be there. They state that gossiping isabout ‘‘forming rapport with another woman, andnot aggressing’’. Although this may be true to someextent, especially when the victim is a member of theingroup, we believe that gossiping can be hostile inintent, particularly when the aggressor knows thatthe victim is in an excluded outgroup and willsomehow hear about the gossip. Gossiping can alsotaint other people’s view of the victim, and thushinder their chances of having a good relationship in

304 Coyne et al.


the future. Perhaps, the term malicious gossipingshould be introduced to distinguish it from gossip ingeneral, which has other functions, such as advertis-ing status and networking [Dunbar, 1996, 2004].Malicious gossip can therefore be defined as‘‘another person saying something mean aboutsomeone else behind his or her back. Gossip is onlya form of aggression if the perpetrator knows thatthe victim’s feelings would be hurt if they heardabout what was said.’’ Gossiping is likely to get backto the victim and therefore will hurt their feelings,if not their reputation. Although the person’s mainintent may not be to harm the victim, it can still bedefined as aggression as they know that the victimcould possibly be harmed by the gossip. This type ofintent is called ‘‘inconsiderate intent’’ and occurswhen the aggressor knows that the action may causedistress or harm but accepts this and placeshis or her own interests above those of others[Potter et al., 1995].We also found limited support for age differences

in the use of aggression. Indirect, relational, andsocial aggression researchers generally agree thataggression goes through a developmental process[e.g., Bjorkqvist et al., 1992b; Crick et al., 1999;Underwood, 2003]. Early in life, children primarilyuse physical aggression to achieve what they desire.When verbal skills emerge, children can use thisnewfound ability to aggress against others. Indirect/relational/social forms of aggression do not appearuntil preschool age, when peer relationships emergeon the scene. Even then, these forms of aggressionare relatively primitive and are more likely toinvolve direct relational than other forms. Whenchildren develop the social intelligence to success-fully manipulate the social circle for their gain,aggression becomes even more covert. Bjorkqvistet al. [1992b] stated that indirect aggression peaks atage 11 and begins to decline thereafter. Our resultspartially confirmed previous research concerningage differences. In particular, participants in Year 8(aged 12–13) were more likely to report witnessingor hearing about indirect, direct relational, andverbal aggression than participants in Year 7 (aged11–12) and Year 9 (aged 13–14). Indirect strategiesof Year 7 students may not be fully developed,especially as this is their first year in high school andthey are integrated with a large number of studentswith whom they are not familiar. By the time theyreach Year 8, social groups may be fully established,and indirect and direct relational aggression maybecome particularly effective. The frequency ofaggression reported dropped by Year 9. By thistime, students may experience more social sanctions

against using aggression on their peers, or perhapsthe aggression has become so covert by this age thatit is not witnessed or heard about by the rest of theYear. Again, these results should be taken withcaution, as the methodology used may inflate theactual amount of aggression occurring, as more thanone student may be reporting each episode.We found that adolescents are exposed to a great

deal more indirect/relational/social aggression ontelevision than they are exposed to in real life. Theywitness nearly 10 times the amount of this form ofaggression while viewing their favorite televisionprograms than they experience when interactingwith their peers. Therefore, any claims that televi-sion is simply mirroring the level of indirectaggression in real life are unfounded.Because of the volume of this form of aggression

on television, it is possible that television isinfluencing adolescents in their perceptions ofindirect/relational/social aggression, more so thanthe aggression they are exposed to in school. Coyneet al. [2004] found that adolescents who viewedindirect aggression on television were more likely tobe indirectly aggressive in real life than those whoviewed no aggression. The information processingtheory [Huesmann, 1988] would predict that viewingsuch a large amount of this form of aggression ontelevision may reinforce aggressive scripts and teachadolescents that aggression used in social interac-tions is justified, rewarded, and normal. It should benoted, however, that participants in the currentstudy only reported aggression that occurred atschool or among friends. Thus, the frequency maybe slightly higher when aggression in family relation-ships is included. Furthermore, although a fairlyexhaustive list of indirect/relational/social aggres-sion behaviors was included on the measure, theremay be other items that we did not include.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, we found that adolescents are exposed toa rather large frequency of indirect, relational, andsocial aggression during school. However, they areexposed to an even greater amount of aggressionwhile viewing television each day. This studyrevealed some evidence for a distinction betweenthe terms indirect, direct relational, and socialaggression. Yet, we also found support for anintegration of the terms, as they are more similarthan distinct when compared to physical or verbalaggression. We have suggested that researchersagree on a system that acknowledges the similarities



in the terms, to enable them to focus more on how tocombat these hurtful forms of aggression, instead ofdebating definitions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the head teachers and counsellors whohelped with scheduling the data collection.

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