Child Development, January/February 2009, Volume 80, Number 1, Pages 244 258

Temperament, Harsh and Indulgent Parenting, and Chinese Childrens Proactive and Reactive Aggression
Yiyuan Xu
University of Hawaii at Manoa

Jo Ann M. Farver
University of Southern California

Zengxiu Zhang
East China Normal University

This study examined the additive and interactive effects of temperament and harsh and indulgent parenting on Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Participants were 401 children (M age 5 9.29 years, 203 girls) and their parents who were recruited from 2 elementary schools in Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China. The results showed that childrens sensation seeking was associated with proactive aggression, whereas anger/ frustration was associated with reactive aggression. Both subtypes of aggression were negatively related to childrens effortful control but positively related to harsh parenting. Significant Temperament Temperament and Parenting Temperament interactions were also found. The findings point to similarities and differences between proactive and reactive aggression in relation to childrens temperament and harsh and indulgent parenting in the Chinese context.

Childrens aggression in the peer group and the relation to dispositional and familial factors have been of considerable interest to developmental and clinical psychologists (Parke & Slaby, 1983; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). Much of this interest has been fostered by research suggesting that aggressive behavior predicts a variety of adjustment problems, such as school dropout, delinquency, and substance use (Rubin et al., 1998). It has been proposed that childhood aggression results from the complex interplay between biologically based temperamental characteristics and social experiences with parents and peers (Rubin et al., 1998). Recent efforts to understand the antecedents and consequences of childrens aggression have focused on two subtypes that differ in underlying function and motivation (Dodge & Coie, 1987). Proactive aggression is consistent with social learning theory (Bandura, 1973) and has been described as instrumental and goal oriented and motivated by the anticipation of reward (Dodge, 1991). Reactive aggression originates from the frustration anger theory of aggression (Berkowitz, 1962) and is conceptualized as hostile and frustrated behavior in response to threat or provocation (Dodge, 1991).
We wish to thank the children, parents, and teachers who participated in the study. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yiyuan Xu, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822. Electronic mail may be sent to yiyuan@ hawaii.edu.

Although there is some debate among theorists (Bushman & Anderson, 2001), there is increasing evidence to suggest that childrens proactive and reactive aggression have different antecedents and consequences and that this distinction has implications for diagnosis, prevention, and intervention (Kempes, Matthys, de Vries, & van Engeland, 2005; Schwartz et al., 1998; Vitaro, Brendgen, & Barker, 2006b). Despite this progress, little is known about the possible antecedents of childhood aggression in nonWestern settings because most studies have been conducted in North America. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to investigate proactive and reactive aggression in Mainland Chinese school-aged children and to examine how dispositional (i.e., childrens temperament) and familial (i.e., harsh and indulgent parenting) factors are related to these two subtypes of aggression. Bates and Pettit (2007) proposed that to understand how parenting and child temperament are involved in the development of childrens adjustment problems, such as proactive and reactive aggression, both additive and interactive effects should be considered. First, negative parenting and temperamental risk factors often additively predict childrens adjustment. Second, temperament and parenting practices may

# 2009, Copyright the Author(s) Journal Compilation # 2009, Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2009/8001-0019

Proactive and Reactive Aggression

245

moderate each other in that some temperamental characteristics may buffer the consequence of negative parenting, whereas others may heighten the effects of familial risk factors (Lerner & Lerner, 1994; Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Finally, multiple temperamental characteristics may moderate each others effects, where one temperament trait may exacerbate or protect against risk consequences of another temperament trait (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Using this conceptual framework that integrates the effects of parenting and temperament on childrens adjustment (Bates & Pettit, 2007; Rothbart & Bates, 2006), this study examined (a) the main effects of parenting and temperament, (b) Temperament Temperament interactive effects, and (c) Parenting Temperament interactive effects on Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Prior research has differentiated proactive from reactive aggression in children. Generally, proactive and reactive aggression co-occur and are moderately to highly correlated (Dodge & Coie, 1987), yet they are factorially distinct (Poulin & Boivin, 2000a; Salmivalli & Nieminen, 2002; Vitaro, Barker, Boivin, Brendgen, & Tremblay, 2006a; Xu & Zhang, 2008) and appear to have different psychosocial correlates (Frick, Cornell, Barry, Bodin, & Dane, 2003; Schwartz et al., 1998; Xu & Zhang, 2008). Proactive aggression has been associated with childrens positive expectancies for aggression, disruptive classroom behavior, and subsequent conduct problems (Crick & Dodge, 1996; Dodge, Lochman, Harnish, Bates, & Pettit, 1997; Smithmyer, Hubbard, & Simons, 2000; Vitaro, Gendreau, Tremblay, & Oligny, 1998). However, under some circumstances, proactive aggression may be effective in controlling resources due to its instrumental nature. In some studies of North American children, proactive aggression was associated with leadership, having a sense of humor, and the formation of friendships, but it was not associated with peer rejection or victimization (Poulin & Boivin, 2000a, 2000b). In contrast, reactive aggression has been linked to overt displays of anger under stress, hostile attribution, and deficits in social problem solving (Dodge, 1991; Hubbard, Dodge, Cillessen, Coie, & Schwartz, 2001; Hubbard et al., 2002). Unlike proactively aggressive peers, children who engage in reactive aggression are often disliked, have very few friends (Poulin & Boivin, 2000a, 2000b), and are sometimes victimized by others (Schwartz et al., 1998). Although few studies have distinguished proactive from reactive aggression in the Chinese context, existing research has shown that aggression in general is highly prohibited in Chinese school settings (Chen, 2000). Due to its instrumental and manipulative nature, proactive aggression may disrupt the

social order and interfere with harmonious group functioning that is highly valued in Chinese culture (Bond & Wang, 1982; Ho, 1986; Xu & Zhang, 2008). The display of reactive aggression that often involves anger and frustration directed toward peers is also not tolerated in Chinese culture, where the control of emotional expression, especially in public, is highly encouraged (Kang, Shaver, Sue, Min, & Jing, 2003). Overall, both subtypes can be expected to lead to serious school maladjustment and difficulties in peer relations among Chinese children (Chen, 2000; Schwartz, Chang, & Farver, 2001; Xu & Zhang, 2008). Dodge (1991) suggests that proactive and reactive aggression stem from different socialization experiences. Proactive aggression appears to be deliberate and is associated with parenting practices that are overly supportive, fail to monitor childrens behavior, and tolerate aggression as a means to achieve goals. Proactive aggression may also be learned from and/ or reinforced by harsh parenting, which appears to predict childrens aggressive behavior regardless of subtype (Vitaro et al., 2006a). In contrast, reactive aggression is considered to be hotheaded and is associated with parental hostility, rejection, and physical abuse. Consistent with Dodges (1991) model, in a study examining the relation between peer and family experiences and preadolescents aggressive behavior, Poulin and Dishion (2000) found that proactive aggression had a stronger relation to positive or supportive parent child interaction than did reactive aggression. In another study of the developmental histories of schoolchildren who were classified into proactively aggressive, reactively aggressive, pervasively aggressive (combined type), and nonaggressive groups, Dodge et al. (1997) showed that only the reactively aggressive group had a history of parent physical abuse. Vitaro et al. (2006a) examined the prospective relation between childrens early experience of harsh parenting at 17 months and their aggressive behavior later in kindergarten. Parents harsh parenting was positively associated with both proactive and reactive aggression. Drawing on Dodges (1991) model and recent research carried out with Western children (e.g., Vitaro et al., 2006a), the current study focused on two dimensions of parenting that may be relevant for Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression: harsh and indulgent parenting. Harsh parenting is characterized by the frequent use of physical punishment, verbal assaults, and punitive/nonreasoning strategies. Typically, Chinese families have been portrayed in the parenting literature as harsh, strict, or controlling (Lin & Fu, 1990), a view later challenged by Chao (1994) who suggested that most Chinese

246

Xu, Farver, and Zhang

families do not endorse harsh parenting but rather engage in training that is a composite of parental control, parental support, care, and concern (for a comprehensive review on the differences between training and harsh parenting, see Nelson, Hart, Yang, Olsen, & Jin, 2006). Unlike training that is considered adaptive in Chinese families, harsh parenting represents an aversive form of parental control and rejection and has predictable negative consequences for both Western and Chinese children (Chang, Schwartz, Dodge, & McBride-Chang, 2003; Hart, DeWolf, Wozniak, & Burts, 1992; Nelson et al., 2006). For instance, in a study of Chinese kindergarten children and their parents, Chang et al. (2003) found that harsh parenting was associated with childrens emotion dysregulation and aggression as rated by their teachers. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, harsh parenting assessed at 17 months predicted proactive and reactive aggression in kindergarten children (Vitaro et al., 2006a), suggesting that harsh parenting may be involved in the etiological pathway for both subtypes. On the other hand, indulgent parenting is characterized by parents excessive attention to their childrens demandsreasonable or otherwiseand a high tolerance for their inappropriate behavior (Chen, Liu, & Li, 2000). Although Chinese parents have been prototypically described as strict or controlling, indulgent parenting has become increasingly common in Mainland China, possibly due to the one-child-per-family policy that may be producing little emperors who are overprotected and spoiled (Chen et al., 2000). Indulgent parents seem to lack the ability or inclination to effectively discipline and monitor their childrens behavior, which often leads to behavioral problems including aggression (Parke & Buriel, 1998). Thus, indulgent parenting may exemplify an overly supportive family environment that fosters proactive aggression (Dodge, 1991). Despite the possible links between harsh and indulgent parenting and subtypes of aggression, existing evidence precludes any definite conclusion about the direction of effects. From a transactional view, the relation between parenting and childrens behaviors is bidirectional and both child and parenting effects can be expected (Wachs, 1992). For instance, children who engage in constant aggressive behavior, regardless of subtype, may annoy or frustrate their parents and evoke harsh parenting. Children who are easily frustrated may attract excessive attention from their parents who become increasingly overprotective and tolerant. Because we were particularly interested in testing Dodges (1991) model in which subtypes of aggression were hypothesized to stem from different family environments, we chose to

focus on the effect of parenting on childrens aggressive behavior yet acknowledge the possible effects of childrens behavior on parenting. Therefore, our first objective was to investigate the relative contribution of parents harsh and indulgent parenting to childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Harsh parenting was expected to be associated with both proactive and reactive aggression in children, whereas indulgent parenting was expected to be associated with proactive but not with reactive aggression. Although Dodges (1991) model focused on parents effects on the subtypes of aggression, there is evidence to suggest that childrens temperament also plays an important role. One aspect of temperament known as sensation seeking may be particularly relevant for the development of proactive aggression. Sensation seeking is defined as a need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experience and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experience (Zuckerman, 1979, p. 10). Consistent with this conceptualization, Kafry (1982) found that childrens sensation seeking was related to a preference for complex puzzles and pictures and engagement in negative behaviors. Raine, Reynolds, Venables, Mednick, and Farrington (1998) suggested that sensation seeking may be linked to a physiological state of underarousal in some aggressive children. That is, a state of low arousal leads to destructive forms of self-stimulation such as aggression in an effort to restore their arousal to optimal/normal levels. A relation between sensation seeking and childhood aggression was reported in previous studies. Tremblay, Vitaro, and Dobkin (1994) showed that children who were characterized by novelty seeking and a lack of anxiety in kindergarten were more likely to be aggressive and antisocial in middle childhood. Raine et al. (1998) found that sensation seeking in 3-year-old Mauritian children significantly contributed to their aggressive behavior measured 8 years later. Similarly, Russo et al. (1991, 1993) showed that compared to other clinically referred peers, boys diagnosed with conduct disorder tended to seek stimulation from their environment due to boredom and they had elevated scores on a self-report measure of sensation seeking. In addition, sensation seeking may lead to a tendency to expect positive outcomes for aggressive behavior (Zuckerman, 1979), an aspect that seems to characterize proactive aggression (Smithmyer et al., 2000). Therefore, it is possible that children with a high propensity for sensation seeking may engage in proactive aggression for reward or social status. Studies have shown that reactive aggression was related to temperamental characteristics such as anger

Proactive and Reactive Aggression

247

and frustration toward threatening or aversive stimuli (e.g., peer provocation; Vitaro, Brendgen, & Tremblay, 2002). Children who are predisposed to anger/frustration or those who experience high negative affect related to the interruption of ongoing tasks or goal blocking (Rothbart & Bates, 2006) are likely to exhibit angry outbursts of reactive aggression when faced with provocations or threats. Consistent with this view, it has been found that dispositional anger/frustration was associated with elevated conduct problems and aggressive behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2001) and that reactive aggression was related to temperamental predispositions for angry reactivity, negative emotionality, and emotional dysregulation (Dodge et al., 1997; Vitaro et al., 2002, 2006a). Taken together, dispositional anger/frustration may be particularly relevant for the development of reactive aggression. Both proactive and reactive aggression may be influenced by the temperamental characteristic effortful control. Effortful control refers to the efficiency of executive attention, including the ability to inhibit a dominant response and/or to activate a subdominant response, to plan, and to detect errors (Rothbart & Bates, 2006, p. 129) and is related to the capacity to modulate emotions and behavior by delaying actions, shifting attention, or suppressing or initiating inappropriate or appropriate behavior (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000). Children with low effortful control often have difficulty in regulating their emotional and behavioral responses in challenging situations and may engage in aggressive behavior when facing peer provocation (i.e., reactive aggression; Calkins & Fox, 2002; Eisenberg et al., 2001). Low levels of effortful control may also undermine childrens ability to behave in ways that are compatible with broader values of the society and lead to a lack of guilt or moral conscience (Kochanska, 1993)qualities that seem to characterize proactively aggressive children who tend to outweigh reward or social status over social norms (Frick & White, 2007; Frick et al., 2003). In addition, effortful control may moderate the relation of other temperamental risk factors to childrens adjustment problems such as proactive and reactive aggression. Muris, Meesters, and Blijlevens (2007) showed that negative affectivity was associated with higher levels of self-reported anxiety/depression symptoms among children with lower levels of effortful control. Eisenberg et al. (1996) found that negative emotionality was more strongly related to behavioral problems among children with low levels of self-regulation (a composite of attention and ego control that resembles effortful control). Despite the limited evidence, the three aspects of temperament mentioned earlier were expected to be

associated with Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Consistent with the traditional emphasis on harmonious and interdependent social relationships (Ho, 1986), Chinese children are socialized to not stand out in the group and refrain from public displays of emotion, particularly negative emotions, such as anger. Consequently, in the Chinese context, sensation seeking is viewed as being individually oriented and risk taking (i.e., standing out), and anger/frustration is thought to reflect a lack of selfcontrol, inattentiveness to group norms, and inappropriate emotional expression, all of which may challenge group functioning and the authority of teachers and parents. In contrast, effortful control enables children to cope with emotional arousal or behavioral impulses and is considered important for maintaining social order and harmony (Zhou, Eisenberg, Wang, & Reiser, 2004). Consistent with how the three temperamental characteristics are viewed in the Chinese context, studies have found that selfreported sensation seeking was associated with drug use among both Chinese and American adolescents (Pilgrim, Luo, Urberg, & Fang, 1999), whereas high anger/frustration and low effortful control were associated with Chinese childrens aggressive behavior and externalizing problems (Eisenberg et al., 2007; Zhou et al., 2004). In addition, Zhou et al. found that effortful control moderated the relation between dispositional anger/frustration and Chinese childrens social functioning. Anger/frustration was only related to adjustment problems and aggressive behavior among Chinese children with low and moderate levels of effortful control. Our second objective was to examine the relative contribution of sensation seeking, anger/frustration, effortful control, and the interactions among the temperamental characteristics to childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Based on the existing Western and Chinese findings, sensation seeking was expected to be related to proactive aggression, whereas anger/frustration was hypothesized to be associated with reactive aggression. Effortful control was expected to be negatively associated with both subtypes and to moderate the relations between sensation seeking and proactive aggression and between anger/frustration and reactive aggression. Although temperament and parenting may additively contribute to proactive and reactive aggression, the effects of Parenting Temperament interactions can also be expected. According to Rothbart and Bates (2006), temperamental risk factors such as anger/ frustration may exacerbate the effect of negative parenting, whereas temperamental protective factors such as effortful control may buffer against parental

248

Xu, Farver, and Zhang

risk factors such as harsh parenting. Consistent with this view, in one study, Paterson and Sanson (1999) found that the interaction between temperamental inflexibility (a composite of negative emotionality and inadaptability) and harsh/punitive parenting predicted parent-rated aggression and externalizing problems among 5-year-old children. Another study of school-aged children who had experienced divorce in the family reported that parent rejection was more strongly related to adjustment problems including aggression for children who were low in positive emotionality, and parents inconsistent discipline was more strongly related to adjustment problems for children who were high in impulsivity (Lengua, Wolchik, Sandler, & West, 2000). Therefore, our third objective was to examine how the interactive effects of temperament and harsh and indulgent parenting may contribute to Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression. We expected that (a) the relation between harsh parenting and two subtypes of aggression, and between indulgent parenting and proactive aggression, would be stronger among children with high levels of sensation seeking or anger/frustration (i.e., temperamental risk factors) and (b) the effect of harsh and indulgent parenting on subtypes of aggression would be weaker among children with higher levels of effortful control (i.e., a temperamental protective factor).

Procedure Parent questionnaires were distributed during a parent school meeting to be completed at home and returned at the next meeting. Mothers completed the family demographic survey and child temperament questionnaires, and both mothers and fathers rated their spouses harsh and indulgent parenting practices (see details below). Teachers rated childrens temperament and proactive and reactive aggression, and peers assessed two forms of aggression. All questionnaires had been used with Chinese children in previous studies (e.g., Chen et al., 2000; Xu & Zhang, 2008; Zhou et al., 2004). Measures Family socioeconomic status (SES). Mothers responded to items regarding both parents education and occupation. Parents education level was coded as 1 5 less than or equal to 9 years (equivalent to junior high school), 2 5 between 10 and 12 years (equivalent to senior high school), 3 5 between 13 and 16 years (equivalent to some college education or a 4-year degree), and 4 5 more than 16 years (equivalent to some graduate education or an MA or PhD degree). The mean levels of the mothers and fathers education were 2.06 (SD 5 0.83) and 2.29 (SD 5 0.79), respectively. Parents employment status was coded as 1 5 unemployed; 2 5 unskilled workers, such as food service, machine operators, and laborers; 3 5 semiskilled workers, such as taxi drivers, construction or manufacturing workers, company clerks, and service providers; 4 5 professional workers, schoolteachers, government officials, or business administrators; and 5 5 doctors, professors, or engineers. The mean levels of the mothers and fathers occupations were 2.78 (SD 5 0.90) and 3.18 (SD 5 0.87), respectively. Nine fathers and seven mothers did not report their occupations. A family SES score was computed based on the average of the standardized educational levels and occupational status of both parents (r 5 .63, p , .01). Mothers and fathers harsh and indulgent parenting. To minimize self-report bias in parenting assessments, we used a spouse-report paradigm (Nelson et al., 2006). Specifically, spouses rated each others harsh and indulgent parenting. Three subscales from the Chinese version of the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ; Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995; Wu et al., 2002) were used to assess harsh parenting. These included nonreasoning/punitive (e.g., punish by taking privileges away from child with little if any explanation; as 5 .68, .65 for mothers and fathers, respectively),

Method Participants Participants were recruited from 12, third- and fourth-grade classrooms in two elementary schools in Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China. This age group represents a developmental period where the nature and function of aggressive behavior are relatively organized and stable (Dodge & Coie, 1987; Poulin & Boivin, 2000a). Parents were contacted by teachers before the data collection and were given information about the goals and procedures of the study. Four hundred and sixteen children and their parents (95%) consented to participate. Two children were absent during the questionnaire administration, and 13 parents did not return the questionnaires. Therefore, complete data were available for 401 children (203 girls, M age 5 9.29 years). Because of the one-child policy, 92% of the participants were the only children in their families (12 parents did not report the childs sibling status). All but 4 children, whose parents were divorced, were from two-parent families.

Proactive and Reactive Aggression

249

physical coercion (e.g., use physical punishment as a way of disciplining our child; as 5 .72, .72 for mothers and fathers, respectively), and verbal hostility (e.g., yell or shout when child misbehaves; as 5 .70, .71 for mothers and fathers, respectively). Indulgent parenting was measured using the parental indulgence scale adapted from Chen et al. (2000; e.g., let child do whatever s/he likes to do; as 5 .75, .77 for mothers and fathers, respectively). Items were all rated on a 5-point scale (1 5 never and 5 5 always). Composite variables were created for mothers and fathers ratings. Harsh parenting was derived from the average of the three PSDQ subscale scores (rs ranged from .41 to .64, p , .01, as 5 .81, .82 for the combined mothers and fathers ratings, respectively). Indulgent parenting derived from the average of the item scores within the parental indulgence scale. These measures have shown strong reliability and validity in previous studies with Chinese children (Chen et al., 2000; Wu et al., 2002). Mothers and teachers ratings of childrens effortful control, sensation seeking, and anger/frustration. Mothers and teachers rated childrens effortful control, sensation seeking, and anger/frustration on a 5-point scale (1 5 extremely untrue, 5 5 extremely true) using four subscales adapted from the Chinese version of Rothbarts Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ) Short Form (Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey, & Fisher, 2001). The CBQ has shown adequate reliability and construct validity in previous studies with Chinese children (Ahadi, Rothbart, & Ye, 1993; Zhou et al., 2004). Because the CBQ was originally written for parents, four items that were not appropriate for teachers to complete were dropped (i.e., prepares for trips and outings by planning things s/he will need, enjoys riding a tricycle or bicycle fast and recklessly, gets angry when told s/he has to go to bed, and rarely gets upset when told s/he has to go to bed; and reverse coded). Childrens effortful control was measured using the inhibitory control (e.g., can lower his/her voice when asked to do so; as 5 .65, .69 for mothers and teachers ratings, respectively) and the attention focusing subscales (e.g., when drawing or reading a book, shows strong concentration; as 5 .72, .72 for mothers and teachers ratings, respectively). Mothers and teachers ratings of effortful control (as 5 .70, .71 for combined mothers and teachers ratings, respectively) were computed by averaging the two subscale scores within each informant (rs 5 .52, .61 for mothers and teachers ratings, respectively). The high intensity pleasure subscale was used to assess childrens dispositional sensation seeking (e.g., likes to play so wild and recklessly that s/he might get

hurt; as 5 .76, .75 for mothers and teachers ratings, respectively). Items within the subscale were averaged to derive mothers and teachers ratings of childrens sensation seeking. The anger/frustration subscale was used to assess childrens dispositional anger/frustration (e.g., gets irritated when s/he has to stop doing something s/he is enjoying; as 5 .75, .72 for mothers and teachers ratings, respectively). Items within the subscale were averaged to derive mothers and teachers ratings of childrens anger/frustration. Teachers ratings of childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Using a measure adopted from Dodge and Coie (1987), teachers rated childrens proactive aggression (e.g., this child threatens or bullies other children in order to get his/her own way; a 5 .80) and reactive aggression (e.g., when this child has been teased or threatened, s/he gets angry easily and strikes back; a 5 .88) on a 5-point scale (1 5 never and 5 5 almost always). This measure has shown high internal consistency and strong construct validity (Dodge et al., 1997; Xu & Zhang, 2008). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) replicated the two factors identified in Dodge and Coie. Specifically, the results showed that the two-factor model satisfactorily fit the data: v2(8) 5 13.94, p . .05, comparative fit index (CFI) 5 1.00, Tucker-Lewis Index/nonnormal fit index (TLI/ NNFI) 5 .99, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) 5 .04, standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) 5 .03, with three items loaded on each factor (item loadings ranged from .73 to .93). The correlation between the two latent factors was moderate: r 5 .52, p , .01. Thus, the item scores for each factor were averaged to form the teachers ratings of proactive and reactive aggression. Peer nominations of childrens proactive and reactive aggression. A peer nomination questionnaire was group administered. Children were asked to nominate all the peers in their classes who best fit each behavioral descriptor using the same Dodge and Coie (1987) teacher measure. CFA was conducted to examine the factor structure for the peer nomination scores. To reduce the skewedness of the peer nomination data, all item scores were log transformed. The CFA results based on log-transformed data were similar to those based on the raw scores. Therefore, the results were reported with the untransformed data. The twofactor model reasonably fit the data: v2(8) 5 22.73, p , .01, CFI 5 .99, TLI/NNFI 5 .98, RMSEA 5 .07, SRMR 5 .04 (item loadings ranged from .79 to .91). The factorial correlation between the two latent factors was moderate: r 5 .48, p , .01. Therefore, the item scores were standardized within the class to adjust for the differences in the number of nominators and were

250

Xu, Farver, and Zhang

averaged to form peer-nominated proactive (a 5 .89) and reactive aggression (a 5 .88).

Results Descriptive Statistics The means and standard deviations by gender for the major variables are presented in Table 1. Compared to girls, boys had higher scores on mothers and fathers ratings of their indulgent parenting, mothers ratings of their verbal hostility and punitiveness, and fathers ratings of their verbal hostility and physical coercion and lower scores on parents and teachers ratings of effortful control, higher scores on teachers ratings of sensation seeking, and higher scores on teachers ratings and peers nominations of proactive and reactive aggression. Correlations Between Parenting Variables and Childrens Proactive and Reactive Aggression Table 2 summarizes the correlations among the variables. Mothers and fathers harsh parenting was positively correlated with teachers ratings and

peers nominations of reactive aggression and teachers ratings of proactive aggression. Mothers harsh parenting was also correlated with peers nominations of proactive aggression. Mothers and fathers indulgent parenting was correlated with peers nominations of proactive aggression. Fathers indulgent parenting was also correlated with teachers ratings of proactive aggression. Correlations Between Temperament Variables and Childrens Proactive and Reactive Aggression As shown in Table 2, mothers and teachers ratings of effortful control were negatively associated with teachers ratings and peers nominations of proactive and reactive aggression. Mothers and teachers ratings of sensation seeking were positively associated with teachers ratings and peers nominations of proactive aggression and teachers ratings of reactive aggression. Mothers and teachers ratings of anger/ frustration were positively correlated with teachers ratings and peers nominations of reactive aggression. Teachers ratings of anger/frustration were also correlated with peers nominations of proactive aggression.

Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations for the Variables by Gender Boys Variables Harsh parenting (M) Verbal hostility (M) Punitive (M) Physical coercion (M) Harsh parenting (F) Verbal hostility (F) Punitive (F) Physical coercion (F) Indulgent parenting (M) Indulgent parenting (F) Effortful control (M) Effortful control (T) Sensation seeking (M) Sensation seeking (T) Anger/frustration (M) Anger/frustration (T) Proactive aggression (T) Proactive aggression (P) Reactive aggression (T) Reactive aggression (P) M SD M Girls SD F test

2.21 2.34 2.09 2.20 2.06 2.18 2.53 2.42 2.59 2.56 2.41 3.21 2.78 2.57 2.52 0.28 2.58 0.11

1.08 0.98 0.80 1.10 1.04 1.01 1.14 1.35 0.90 1.15 0.99 0.96 0.77 0.96 0.84 1.24 1.26 1.09

1.91 1.83 2.07 1.91 1.90 1.96 2.26 2.13 2.91 3.23 2.27 2.52 2.67 2.54 1.60 0.27 1.70 0.11

0.97 0.99 0.84 0.98 0.90 0.69 1.19 1.41 0.98 1.06 0.91 0.99 0.72 0.97 0.51 0.55 1.01 0.87

8.96** 27.19** 0.06 7.62** 2.63 6.35** 5.12* 4.53* 11.46** 37.43** 2.44 49.98** 2.15 0.12 177.92** 33.76** 59.20** 4.75*

Note. M 5 mothers ratings; F 5 fathers ratings; T 5 teachers ratings; P 5 peers nominations. *p , .05. **p , .01.

Proactive and Reactive Aggression

Note. Because the missing data were less than 1% (n for bivariate correlations ranged from 389 to 401), the missing values were replaced by sample means. M 5 mothers ratings; F 5 fathers ratings; T 5 teachers ratings; P 5 peers nominations. *p , .05. **p , .01.

251

Correlations Between Parenting and Temperament Variables Mothers harsh parenting and indulgent parenting were negatively associated with mothers and teachers ratings of childrens effortful control. Fathers harsh parenting and indulgent parenting were negatively correlated with mothers ratings of effortful control. Mothers harsh parenting was negatively correlated with mothers and teachers ratings of childrens sensation seeking. Fathers indulgent parenting was positively correlated with mothers and teachers ratings of childrens anger/frustration. To reduce the number of variables, we created several composite variables from the parents and teachers ratings and peers nominations. Because the analyses that were based on separate mothers and teachers ratings resulted in similar findings, standardized mothers and teachers ratings were averaged to derive composite scores for each temperament construct. In a similar vein, childrens composite proactive and reactive aggression ratings were created by averaging the standardized teachers ratings and peers nomination scores. Finally, mothers and fathers ratings were averaged to form the composite scores for harsh and indulgent parenting.

14

15

.07 .11* .16** .22** .31** .29** .30** .27**

.30** .03 .02 .24** .13* .20** .09

.02 .07 .36** .13* .25** .02

.30** .07 .04 .13* .13*

.05 .20** .14** .24**

10

.59** .49** .30**

11

.37** .44**

12

.47**

13

The Additive and Interactive Relation of Childrens Temperament and Parents Harsh and Indulgent Parenting to Childrens Proactive and Reactive Aggression To examine the additive and interactive relation of temperament and harsh and indulgent parenting to childrens proactive and reactive aggression, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted with childrens proactive and reactive aggression treated as criterion variables. In each model, childrens age, gender, and family SES scores were entered in the first step, followed in the second step by the main effects of three composite temperament variableseffortful control, sensation seeking, and anger/frustration, and the interactions that involve the potential moderating effect of effortful control. In the third step, we entered the main effects of composite harsh and indulgent parenting. The two-way and three-way Parenting Temperament interactions were entered in the fourth and final step, respectively (see Table 3). Following Aiken and West (1991), all the predictors were mean centered. Multicollinearity was not a problem according to the variance inflation factors. Main effects of temperament variables. Childrens dispositional sensation seeking was positively

Table 2 Correlations Among the Variables

1. Harsh parenting (M) 2. Harsh parenting (F) 3. Indulgent parenting (M) 4. Indulgent parenting (F) 5. Effortful control (M) 6. Effortful control (T) 7. Sensation seeking (M) 8. Sensation seeking (T) 9. Anger/frustration (M) 10. Anger/frustration (T) 11. Proactive aggression (T) 12. Proactive aggression (P) 13. Reactive aggression (T) 14. Reactive aggression (P)

.41** .20** .15** .13* .20** .12* .12* .16** .05 .23** .12* .47** .19**

.08 .21** .12* .06 .01 .11* .32** .29** .20** .03 .46** .12*

.38** .15** .15** .02 .09 .00 .18** .08 .24** .03 .01

.13* .04 .13* .06 .00 .04 .15** .25** .07 .11

.36** .04 .12* .23** .22** .20** .19** .22** .15**

252

Xu, Farver, and Zhang

Table 3 The Additive and Interactive Relation of Childrens Temperament and Harsh and Indulgent Parenting to Childrens Proactive and Reactive Aggression Criterion variable Proactive aggression Step 1 Predictor b F R2 (DR2)

Step 2

Step 3 Step 4

Step 5

Age Gender (1 5 boy, 0 5 girl) Family SES Effortful control Sensation seeking Anger/frustration Sensation Seeking Effortful Control Anger/Frustration Effortful Control Harsh parenting Indulgent parenting Harsh Parenting Effortful Control Indulgent Parenting Effortful Control Harsh Parenting Sensation Seeking Indulgent Parenting Sensation Seeking Harsh Parenting Anger/Frustration Indulgent Parenting Anger/Frustration Sensation Seeking Effortful Control Harsh Parenting Sensation Seeking Effortful Control Indulgent Parenting Anger/Frustration Effortful Control Harsh Parenting Anger/Frustration Effortful Control Indulgent Parenting Age Gender (1 5 boy, 0 5 girl) Family SES Effortful control Sensation seeking Anger/frustration Sensation Seeking Effortful Control Anger/Frustration Effortful Control Harsh parenting Indulgent parenting Harsh Parenting Effortful Control Indulgent Parenting Effortful Control Harsh Parenting Sensation Seeking Indulgent Parenting Sensation Seeking Harsh Parenting Anger/Frustration Indulgent Parenting Anger/Frustration Sensation Seeking Effortful Control Harsh Parenting Sensation Seeking Effortful Control Indulgent Parenting Anger/Frustration Effortful Control Harsh Parenting Anger/Frustration Effortful Control Indulgent Parenting

.05 .49a .04 .21a .13a .01 .15a .09 .13a .16a .05 .11a .20a .12a .04 .06 .10 .06 .09 .07 .02 .27a .04 .22a .09 .14a .08 .16a .38a .03 .03 .04 .06 .04 .07 .03 .01 .04 .11 .03

39.49**

.24**

23.31**

.33** (.09**)

20.88** 16.34**

.36** (.03**) .41** (.05**)

13.91**

.43** (.02*)

Reactive aggression Step 1

10.06**

.07**

Step 2

12.46**

.21** (.14**)

Step 3 Step 4

18.13** 11.58**

.33** (.12**) .33** (.00)

Step 5

9.59**

.34** (.01)

Note. SES 5 socioeconomic status. a To control for the inflation of error rate due to a large number of significance tests, we used (alpha i/m) as the significant level for each predictor, where alpha was the target error rate of .05, i was the ordered position of the ith largest p value associated with an individual predictor, and m was the total number of significance tests (Benjamin & Hochberg, 1995). *p , .05. **p , .01.

associated with their proactive aggression, whereas dispositional anger/frustration was positively associated with reactive aggression. Childrens effortful control was negatively associated with both subtypes.

Interactions among the temperament variables. The Sensation Seeking Effortful Control interaction was significant for childrens proactive aggression, whereas the Anger/Frustration Effortful Control interaction was significant for childrens reactive

Proactive and Reactive Aggression

253

aggression. The two interactions were plotted in Figure 1 with effortful control treated as the moderator, which shows the mean values of proactive or reactive aggression (criterion variable) at 1 SD, 0 SD, and +1 SD of effortful control (moderator) and sensation seeking or anger/frustration (predictor). Sensation seeking or anger/frustration was positively associated with proactive aggression or reactive aggression, respectively, for children with low or moderate effortful control but was not for children with high effortful control. Main effects of parenting variables. Composite harsh parenting was associated with both aggression subtypes. Composite indulgent parenting was associated with proactive but not with reactive aggression. Interaction between parenting and temperament variables. Three significant interactions between the parenting and the temperament variables were found for proactive aggression: Indulgent Parenting Effortful Control, Indulgent Parenting Sensation Seeking, and Harsh Parenting Sensation Seeking. The interactions were plotted in Figure 2 with effortful control or sensation seeking treated as the moderator, which shows the mean values of proactive aggression at 1 SD, 0 SD, and +1 SD of the parenting and temperament variables. The results indicated that indulgent parenting was positively associated with proactive aggression for children with low or moderate effortful control but not for children with high effortful control and for children with moderate or high sensation seeking but not for children with low sensation seeking. Harsh parenting was positively associated with proactive aggression for children with moderate or high sensation seeking but not for children with low sensation seeking. No significant three-way interactions were found for proactive aggression, and no two-way or three-way interactions were revealed for reactive aggression.

Low Effortful Control (.37**) Mean Effortful Control (.19**) High Effortful Control (.03) 1

Proactive Aggression

Sensation Seeking

-1

Low Effortful Control (.23**) Mean Effortful Control (.12**) High Effortful Control (.01) 1

Reactive Aggression

Anger/Frustration

-1

Figure 1. The Temperament Temperament interactive effects in relation to childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Note. The numbers in parentheses are simple slopes. **p , .01.

Discussion Using a multi-informant approach, we examined how the complex interplay of temperament and parenting contributed to subtypes of aggressive behavior and investigated the additive and interactive effects of effortful control, sensation seeking, anger/frustration, and harsh and indulgent parenting on school-aged Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression. Consistent with Western studies, parenting and childrens temperament were uniquely and to some degree differentially related to two subtypes of aggression that support a distinction between proactive and reactive aggression in Chinese children. In addition,

significant interactions among some of the parenting and temperament dimensions indicate that children with varying temperamental profiles differed in their relative risk for exhibiting subtypes of aggression in the presence of negative parenting. For instance, although dispositional sensation seeking exacerbated the impact of harsh and indulgent parenting, effortful control to some degree buffered the effect of indulgent parenting, particularly on childrens proactive aggression. Parenting and temperament variables independently and additively contributed to Chinese childrens proactive and reactive aggression. The significant relations between indulgent parenting and childrens proactive aggression and between harsh parenting and reactive aggression are consistent with Dodges (1991) model. Overprotective and indulgent parents may tolerate childrens use of aggression to achieve their goals and reinforce proactive aggression. In contrast, parents use of physical coercion and verbal assaults may create a hostile and unpredictable family environment that leads to insecurity and increased hypervigilence to threatening cues and social conflict in children. Over time,

254

Xu, Farver, and Zhang

Low Effortful Control (.32**) Mean Effortful Control (.15**) High Effortful Control (-.02) 1

children may develop a tendency to attribute hostile intention to ambiguous social interactions and coupled with a lowered threshold for anger and frustration may respond to peers provocations with outbursts of reactive aggression (Crick & Dodge, 1996; Vitaro et al., 2006a). The relation between harsh parenting and proactive aggression may be explained by social learning theory (Bandura, 1973). Parents frequent use of punitive and nonreasoning discipline strategies creates a family environment in which coercive behaviors are directly reinforced and are perceived as functional (Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989) and may socialize children to use coercive behavior in resolving peer conflicts (Patterson et al., 1989). In addition, childrens exposure to harsh parenting may lead to expectations for positive outcomes for aggression and provide a justification for the use of proactive aggression to achieve their goals. Temperament was differentially associated with proactive and reactive aggression. In the regression analyses, sensation seeking was associated with proactive aggression, whereas anger/frustration was associated with reactive aggression. These findings provide further support for the distinction between the two subtypes. Sensation seeking has been shown to predict a variety of risky behaviors and may be associated with some childrens and adolescents antisocial or delinquent behavior (Zuckerman, 1979). One possibility is that children who are high in sensation seeking are underaroused and preoccupied with pursuing reward or excitement to restore their arousal levels (Raine et al., 1998). As a result, they may be less responsive to punishment cues or negative consequences, especially when a rewardoriented response set is primed (Barry et al., 2000), and instead expect positive outcomes for their aggressive behavior. Therefore, children who are in high sensation seeking are likely to exhibit proactive aggression to gain a reward or peer group status. The relation found between anger/frustration and reactive aggression supports the frustration theory of aggression (Berkowitz, 1962) and is consistent with Vitaro et al.s (2006a) finding that negative emotionality (a broad construct that includes anger) was associated with reactive but not with proactive aggression. It is likely that dispositional anger/frustration reflects a low tolerance for frustration and a tendency to react to aversive or threatening stimuli. Consequently, reactively aggressive children tend to be hotheaded and respond impulsively and aggressively to their peers provocations. Consistent with previous Chinese findings (Eisenberg et al., 2007; Zhou et al., 2004), effortful

Proactive Aggression

Indulgent Parenting

-1

Low Sensation Seeking (-.01) Mean Sensation Seeking (.12**) High Sensation Seeking(.26**)

Proactive Aggression

Harsh Parenting

-1

Low Sensation Seeking (-.01) Mean Sensation Seeking (.16**) High Sensation Seeking (.33**)
1

Proactive Aggression

Indulgent Parenting

-1

Figure 2. The Parenting Temperament interactive effects in relation to childrens proactive aggression. Note. The numbers in parentheses are simple slopes. **p , .01.

control was not only negatively associated with both proactive and reactive aggression but also moderated the relation between anger/frustration and reactive aggression and between sensation seeking and proactive aggression. Effortful control is thought to involve the willful control of attention and behavior and to modulate or regulate emotional reactions (Eisenberg et al., 2007). Thus, children with high levels of effortful control, even in the presence of dispositional sensation seeking or anger/frustration, may be able to cope with their low levels of arousal or reactions to disturbing stimuli with socially

Proactive and Reactive Aggression

255

appropriate behavior rather than engaging in proactive or reactive aggression. We found that indulgent parenting was associated with proactive aggression among children who had low or moderate levels of effortful control but not in children with high levels of effortful control. It is possible that parental indulgence and lack of monitoring are particularly problematic for children who cannot self-regulate their emotional arousal or inhibit socially inappropriate behavior and thus are particularly vulnerable to engage in proactive aggression. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that even with high effortful control, children with indulgent parents may develop adjustment problems other than proactive aggression. Both harsh parenting and indulgent parenting were more strongly associated with childrens proactive aggression in the presence of higher sensation seeking in children. With a propensity to take risks, children who are high in sensation seeking may be particularly vulnerable to parents use of physical coercion or punitive strategies, which illustrates the instrumental use of aggression and reinforces a tendency to ignore the negative consequences for aggression (Raine et al., 1998). On the other hand, parental indulgence and a lack of monitoring may lead to the expectation, particularly among children who often seek reward or stimulation, that the use of aggression is tolerated by parents and may not lead to parent discipline. Over time, these children may learn to use aggressive means to cope with their low levels of arousal and to achieve their social goals. The current study has some limitations. First, our data are cross-sectional and do not allow inferences to be made about the direction of effects between temperament and parenting and childrens aggression. For instance, high levels of harsh parenting or mothers and teachers ratings of low levels of effortful control may be due to childrens engagement in proactive or reactive aggression. Future studies should adopt a longitudinal design and assess temperament and parenting in childrens early years (Vitaro et al., 2006a). Second, interactive effects are statistically hard to detect. It is crucial to replicate the identified Temperament Temperament interactions and Parenting Temperament interactions in future studies, particularly in other cultural settings. Third, the similarities in the effortful control and harsh parenting correlates found for proactive and reactive aggression may be due to the correlation between the two subtypes. To overcome this limitation, Little, Jones, Henrich, and Hawley (2003) developed a selfreport measure to allow for the decomposition of variability of aggressive behavior which is due to

form (i.e., being aggressive) and that which is due to function (i.e., being proactive or being reactive; also see Vitaro et al., 2006a). In future studies, this decomposition approach could be used to disentangle dispositional and familial correlates for proactive and reactive aggression. Fourth, because teachers reported on both childrens temperament and aggression, it is possible that the associations between the two were due to the conceptual overlap between items on both measures (Lengua, West, & Sandler, 1998). Although the use of multi-informants for each construct may attenuate measurement contamination, it is also important to assess temperament using observational methods. Finally, although spousal reports may to some degree minimize self-report bias in assessing parenting, the method is limited because it could reflect transient states about how spouses feel about each other (Nelson et al., 2006). In this regard, childreport or observational measures could provide additional important information about mothers and fathers engagement in harsh and indulgent parenting. Despite these limitations, the current study has several strengths and provides a unique contribution to our understanding of the complex biosocial interplay in the etiology of proactive and reactive aggression. First, we examined multiple dimensions of temperament and parenting that are of theoretical significance for understanding the similarities and differences between proactive and reactive aggression in children, including temperament (sensation seeking and effortful control) and parenting (indulgence) dimensions that have not been examined in previous studies of subtypes of aggression. Second, we explored both the moderating role of a temperamental characteristiceffortful control on the effects of the familial (e.g., indulgent parenting) and temperamental risk factors (e.g., anger/frustration). Examining the additive and interactive effects of temperament and parenting complemented and clarified the theoretical difference between proactive and reactive aggression. Third, to our knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine proactive and reactive aggression in a non-Western setting and provides some preliminary evidence for the relevance of examining both subtypes in other cultural settings.

References
Ahadi, S. A., Rothbart, M. K., & Ye, R. (1993). Childrens temperament in the U.S. and China: Similarities and differences. European Journal of Personality, 7, 359 377. Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression. Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

256

Xu, Farver, and Zhang Dodge, K. A., Lochman, J. E., Harnish, J. D., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (1997). Reactive and proactive aggression in school children and psychiatrically impaired chronically assaultive youth. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 37 51. Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., Spinrad, T. L., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S. A., Reiser, M., et al. (2001). The relations of regulation and emotionality to childrens externalizing and internalizing problem behavior. Child Development, 72, 1112 1134. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Guthrie, I. K., Murphy, B. C., Maszk, P., Holgren, R., et al. (1996). The relations of regulation and emotionality to problem behavior in elementary school children. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 141 162. Eisenberg, N., Ma, Y., Chang, L., Zhou, Q., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. (2007). Relations of effortful control, reactive undercontrol, and anger to Chinese childrens adjustment. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 385 409. Frick, P. J., Cornell, A. H., Barry, C. T., Bodin, S. D., & Dane, H. A. (2003). Callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems in the prediction of conduct problem severity, aggression, and self-report of delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 31, 457 470. Frick, P. J., & White, S. F. (2007). The importance of callousunemotional traits for developmental models of aggressive and antisocial behavior. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 359 375. Hart, C. H., DeWolf, M., Wozniak, P., & Burts, D. C. (1992). Maternal and paternal disciplinary styles: Relations with preschoolers playground behavioral orientations and peer status. Child Development, 63, 879 892. Ho, D. Y. F. (1986). Chinese pattern of socialization: A critical review. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The psychology of the Chinese people (pp. 1 37). New York: Oxford University Press. Hubbard, J. A., Dodge, K. A., Cillessen, A. H. N., Coie, J. D., & Schwartz, D. (2001). The dyadic nature of social information processing in boys reactive and proactive aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 268 280. Hubbard, J. A., Smithmyer, C. M., Ramsden, S. R., Parker, E. H., Flanagan, K. D., Dearing, K. F., et al. (2002). Observational, physiological, and self-report measures of childrens anger: Relations to reactive versus proactive aggression. Child Development, 73, 1101 1118. Kafry, D. (1982). Sensation seeking of young children. Personality and Individual Differences, 3, 161 166. Kang, S., Shaver, P. R., Sue, S., Min, K., & Jing, H. (2003). Culture-specific patterns in the prediction of life satisfaction: Roles of emotion, relationship quality, and selfesteem. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1596 1608. Kempes, M., Matthys, W., de Vries, H., & van Engeland, H. (2005). Reactive and proactive aggression in children: A review of theory, findings and the relevance for child and adolescent psychiatry. European Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14, 11 19.

Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Barry, C. T., Frick, P. J., Grooms, T., McCoy, M. G., Ellis, M. L., & Loney, B. R. (2000). The importance of callousunemotional traits for extending the concept of psychopathy to children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 335 340. Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2007). Temperament, parenting, and socialization. In J. Grusec & P. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization (pp. 153 177). New York: Guilford. Benjamin, Y., & Hochberg, Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 57, 289 300. Berkowitz, L. (1962). Aggression: A social psychological analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill. Bond, M., & Wang, S. (1982). Aggressive behavior in Chinese society: The problem of maintaining order and harmony. Bulletin of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, 8, 5 25. Bushman B. J., & Anderson C. A. (2001). Is it time to pull the plug on the hostile versus instrumental aggression dichotomy? Psychological Review, 108, 273 279. Calkins, S. D., & Fox, N. A. (2002). Self-regulatory processes in early personality development: A multilevel approach to the study of childhood social withdrawal and aggression. Development and Psychopathology, 14, 477 498. Chang, L., Schwartz, D., Dodge, K., & McBride-Chang, C. A. (2003). Harsh parenting in relation to child emotion regulation and aggression. Journal of Family Psychology, 17, 598 606. Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Development, 65, 1111 1120. Chen, X. (2000). Social and emotional development in Chinese children and adolescents: A contextual crosscultural perspective. In F. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in psychology research (Vol. 1, pp. 229 251). Huntington, NY: Nova Science. Chen, X., Liu, M., & Li, D. (2000). Parental warmth, control, and indulgence and their relations to adjustment in Chinese children: A longitudinal study. Journal of Family Psychology, 14, 401 419. Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1996). Social informationprocessing mechanisms in reactive and proactive aggression. Child Development, 67, 993 1002. Dodge, K. A. (1991). The structure and function of reactive and proactive aggression. In D. Peppler & K. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 201 218). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Dodge, K. A., & Coie, J. D. (1987). Social-informationprocessing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in childrens peer groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1146 1158.

Proactive and Reactive Aggression Kochanska, C. (1993). Toward a synthesis of parental socialization and child temperament in early development of conscience. Child Development, 64, 325 347. Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., & Harlan, E. T. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change, antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36, 220 232. Lengua, L. J., West, S. G., & Sandler, I. N. (1998). Temperament as a predictor of symptomatology in children: Addressing contamination of measures. Child Development, 69, 164 181. Lengua, L. J., Wolchik, S. A., Sandler, I. N., & West, S. G. (2000). The additive and interactive effects of parenting and temperament in predicting adjustment problems of children of divorce. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 29, 232 244. Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (1994). Explorations of the goodness-of-fit model in early adolescence. In W. B. Carey & S. C. McDevitt (Eds.), Prevention and early intervention: Individual differences as risk factors for the mental health of children: A festschrift for Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas (pp. 161 169). New York: Brunner/Mazel. Lin, C. C., & Fu, V. R. (1990). A comparison of child-rearing practices among Chinese, immigrant Chinese, and Caucasian-American parents. Child Development, 61, 429 433. Little, T. D., Jones, S. M., Henrich, C. C., & Hawley, P. H. (2003). Disentangling the whys from the whats of aggressive behavior. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 122 183. Muris, P., Meesters, C., & Blijlevens, P. (2007). Self-reported reactive and regulative temperament in early adolescence: Relations to internalizing and externalizing problem behavior and Big Three personality factors. Journal of Adolescence, 30, 1035 1049. Nelson, D. A., Hart, C. H., Yang, C., Olsen, J. A., & Jin, S. (2006). Aversive parenting in China: Associations with child physical and relational aggression. Child Development, 77, 554 572. Parke, R. D., & Buriel, R. (1998). Socialization in the family: Ethnic and ecological perspectives. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., pp. 463 552). New York: Wiley. Parke, R., & Slaby, R. (1983). The development of conflict. In P. Mussen (Series. Ed.) & E. Hetherington (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4 (pp. 547 621). New York: Wiley & Sons. Paterson, G., & Sanson, A. (1999). The association of behavioral adjustment to temperament, parenting and family characteristics among 5-year-old children. Social Development, 8, 293 309. Patterson, G. R., DeBaryshe, B. D., & Ramsey, E. (1989). A developmental perspective on antisocial behavior. American Psychologist, 44, 329 335. Pilgrim, C., Luo, Q., Urberg, K. A., & Fang, X. (1999). Influence of peers, parents, and individual character-

257

istics on adolescent drug use in two cultures. MerrillPalmer Quarterly, 45, 85 107. Poulin, F., & Boivin, M. (2000a). Proactive and reactive aggression: Evidence of a two-factor model. Psychological Assessment, 12, 115 122. Poulin, F., & Boivin, M. (2000b). The role of proactive and reactive aggression in the formation and development of friendships in boys. Developmental Psychology, 36, 1 8. Poulin, F., & Dishion, T. J. (2000). The peer and family experiences of proactively and reactively aggressive preadolescents. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Chicago. Raine, A., Reynolds, C., Venables, P. H., Mednick, S. A., & Farrington, D. P. (1998). Fearlessness, stimulationseeking, and large body size at age 3 years as early predispositions to childhood aggression at age 11 years. Archives of General Psychiatry, 55, 745 751. Robinson, C. C., Mandleco, B., Olsen, F. S., & Hart, H. C. (1995). Authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting practices: Development of a new measure. Psychological Reports, 77, 819 830. Rothbart, M. K., Ahadi, S. A., Hershey, K. L., & Fisher, P. (2001). Investigations of temperament at three to seven years: The Childrens Behavior Questionnaire. Child Development, 72, 1394 1408. Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (2006). Temperament. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., pp. 99 166). New York: Wiley. Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W., & Parker, J. G. (1998). Peer interactions, relationships, and groups. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., pp. 619 700). New York: Wiley. Russo, M. F., Lahey, B. B., Christ, M. A. G., Frick, P. J., McBurnett, K., Walker, J. L., et al. (1991). Preliminary development of a sensation Seeking scale for children. Personality and Individual Difference, 12, 399 405. Russo, M. F., Stokes, G. S., Lahey, B. B., Christ, M. A. G., McBurnett, K., Loeber, R., et al. (1993). A sensation seeking scale for children: Further refinement and psychometric development. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 15, 69 86. Salmivalli, C., & Nieminen, E. (2002). Proactive and reactive aggression among school bullies, victims, and bully-victims. Aggressive Behavior, 28, 30 44. Schwartz, D., Chang, L., & Farver, J. M. (2001). Correlates of victimization in Chinese childrens peer groups. Developmental Psychology, 37, 520 532. Schwartz, D., Dodge, K. A., Coie, J. D., Hubbard, J. A., Cilessen, A. H. N., Lemerise, E. A., et al. (1998). Socialcognitive and behavioral correlates of aggression and victimization in boys play groups. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 26, 431 440. Smithmyer, C. M., Hubbard, J. A., & Simons, R. F. (2000). Proactive and reactive aggression in delinquent adolescents: Relations to aggression outcome expectancies. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 29, 86 93.

258

Xu, Farver, and Zhang predict later conduct problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 377 385. Wachs, T. D. (1992). The nature of nurture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Wu, P., Robinson, C. C., Yang, C., Hart, C. H., Olsen, S. F., Porter, C. L., et al. (2002). Similarities and differences in mothers parenting of preschoolers in China and the United States. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 481 491. Xu, Y., & Zhang, Z. (2008). Distinguishing proactive and reactive aggression in Chinese children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 539 552. Zhou, Q., Eisenberg, N., Wang, Y., & Reiser, M. (2004). Chinese childrens effortful control and dispositional anger/ frustration: Relations to parenting styles and childrens social functioning. Developmental Psychology, 40, 352 366. Zuckerman, M. (1979). Sensation seeking: Beyond the optimal level of arousal. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Tremblay, R. E., Vitaro, F., & Dobkin, P. L. (1994). Predicting early onset of male antisocial behavior from preschool behavior. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51, 732 739. Vitaro, F., Barker, E. D., Boivin, M., Brendgen, M., & Tremblay, R. E. (2006a). Do early difficult temperament and harsh parenting differentially predict reactive and proactive aggression? Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 34, 685 695. Vitaro, F., Brendgen, M., & Barker, E. D. (2006b). Subtypes of aggressive behaviors: A developmental perspective. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30, 12 19. Vitaro, F., Brendgen, M., & Tremblay, R. E. (2002). Reactively and proactively aggressive children: Antecedent and subsequent characteristics. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 495 505. Vitaro, F., Gendreau, P. L., Tremblay, R. E., & Oligny, P. (1998). Reactive and proactive aggression differentially