Relational Aggression in Relation to Friendship Quality in Female Dyads

Abstract

Understanding relational aggression within adolescent relationships can provide information about reasons why teens engage in antisocial or prosocial behavior, and may lead to better solutions for controlling deviant acts. Likewise, knowledge of relational aggression within friendships can assist therapists, teachers, and parents in developing tools to help teens stop relational aggression. This study seeks to understand how high levels of mutuality contribute to relational aggression in a friendship and to perceptions of the quality of that friendship. Those same high levels of relational aggression and closeness, however, can lead either to prosocial or deviant behavior in adolescent friendships. Data for the study consist of videotaped interactions of 138 female participants, aged 16 to 17, engaged in the Peer Interaction Task. Project Alliance, a psychological organization from a University of Oregon affiliate, the Child and Family Center, collected and controls the data, which is part of a larger study.