An Investigation of Relational Risk and Promotive Factors Associated with Adolescent Female Aggression

Background/Purpose: A significant number of adolescent females are aggressive. Between 1985 and 2009, the number of female-involved delinquency cases increased 86%, while male-involved cases increased 17% (Puzzanchera, Adams, & Hockenberry, 2012). In fact, in the past two decades, females had a greater average annual growth in all offense categories, including violent offenses, compared to males. Despite these trends, much of the research on adolescent aggression has focused on males, leading to uncertainty of the extent to which research on aggression in mostly male samples can be applied to females. Using Relational-Cultural and Social Role theories as a framework, the current study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by identifying risk factors (i.e., variables that positively predict aggression) and promotive factors (i.e., variables that negatively predict aggression) associated with adolescent female aggression.  

Method:  The current study used a sample of 3,580 female adolescents from a rural, ethnically diverse county in the Southeast over a 4 year period. The racial diversity of the sample mirrored that of the surrounding community: 30% of participants identified as White, 26% as African American, 24% as American Indian, 13% as mixed race/other, and 7% as Latino. The School Success Profile (SSP) is a 195-item youth self-report that measures perceptions and attitudes about school, friends, family, neighborhood, self, health, and well-being. The current study used a modified version of the SSP, the School Success Profile Plus (SSP+), which includes 152 of the original SSP items and 17 additional subscales. Youth filled out the SSP+ online every spring for four years. Following multiple imputation analyses to handle missing data, measurement invariance of the aggression scale was tested across genders and a 2-level hierarchical linear model (level 1 time and level 2 individual) was estimated.

Results: Given evidence of measurement non-invariance (4 out of 9 items were non-invariant across genders) in the aggression scale, the analysis was restricted to female adolescents. Results of the HLM revealed that in addition to internalizing symptoms (p<.001), association with delinquent friends (p<.001), peer pressure (p<.001), and parent-child conflict (p<.001) were salient risk factors for adolescent female aggression. Teacher support (p<.001) was identified as a significant promotive factor against adolescent female aggression.  

Conclusions/Implications: The current study makes an important contribution to the adolescent aggression literature by identifying female-specific risk and promotive factors associated with aggression, which is a priority given increasing prevalence rates and the uncertainty with which aggression models based on male samples can be applied to female adolescents. Given the salience of relational risk factors (i.e., association with delinquent friends, peer pressure, parent-child conflict), the results of this study suggest that interventions should focus on negative or conflictual relationships in both the parent and peer domains. Moreover, the finding that internalizing symptoms significantly predicted aggression underscores the need for mental health services for aggressive girls, which may be particularly important in juvenile justice settings.