Arnaldo Zelli

The relation of family functioning to violence among inner-city minority youths.

The relationship between family influences and participation in violent and nonviolent delinquent behavior was examined among a sample of 362 African American and Latino male adolescents living in the inner city. Participants were classified into three groups: (a) nonoffenders, (b) nonviolent offenders, and (c) violent offenders. Families in the violent delinquent group reported poorer discipline, less cohesion, and less involvement than the other two groups. These results were consistent across ethnic groups. However, the factor Beliefs About Family related to violence risk in opposite directions for African American and Latino families. These results highlight the need to look at ethnic group differences when constructing models of risk.

Multidimensional latent-construct analysis of children's social information processing patterns: correlations with aggressive behavior problems.

Social information processing (SIP) patterns were conceptualized in orthogonal domains of process and context and measured through responses to hypothetical vignettes in a stratified sample of 387 children (50% boys; 49% minority) from 4 geographical sites followed from kindergarten through 3rd grade. Multidimensional, latent-construct, confirmatory factor analyses supported the within-construct internal consistency, cross-construct discrimination, and multidimensionality of SIP patterns. Contrasts among nested structural equation models indicated that SIP constructs significantly predicted childrens aggressive behavior problems as measured by later teacher reports. The findings support the multidimensional construct validity of childrens social cognitive patterns and the relevance of SIP patterns in childrens aggressive behavior problems.

Assessment of family relationship characteristics : A measure to explain risk for antisocial behavior and depression among urban youth

Two large samples of urban families were used to develop and cross-validate an assessment model and a measure to tap basic family processes and risk among diverse ethnic groups. Six scales (Cohesion, Beliefs About Family, Deviant Beliefs, Organization, Support, and Communication) produced a 3-dimension higher order factor model (Cohesion, Structure, and Beliefs). Tests support reliance on composite family scoring. Most scales and each higher order factor relate to depression, and aggression. Relations vary little by age, ethnicity, marital status of parent, or family income. Implications for family assessment methodology and risk models are discussed.

The Distinction Between Beliefs Legitimizing Aggression and Deviant Processing of Social Cues: Testing Measurement Validity and the Hypothesis That Biased Processing Mediates the Effects of Beliefs on Aggression

In 2 studies the authors examined knowledge and social information-processing mechanisms as 2 distinct sources of influence on child aggression. Data were collected from 387 boys and girls of diverse ethnicity in 3 successive years. In Study 1, confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated the discriminant validity of the knowledge construct of aggression beliefs and the processing constructs of hostile intent attributions, accessing of aggressive responses, and positive evaluation of aggressive outcomes. In Study 2, structural equation modeling analyses were used to test the mediation hypothesis that aggression beliefs would influence child aggression through the effects of deviant processing. A stronger belief that aggressive retaliation is acceptable predicted more deviant processing 1 year later and more aggression 2 years later. However, this latter effect was substantially accounted for by the intervening effects of deviant processing on aggression.

A New Scale for Measuring Adults' Prosocialness

Abstract. In the present study, the authors proposed a novel self-report 16-item scale for assessing individual differences in adult prosocialness and tested its measurement properties by employing an item response theory (IRT) analysis of data collected from a sample of 2,574 Italian adults. Prior work employing classical psychometric methods of analysis had already established the reliability and validity of the instrument. The present study furthered this scrutiny by examining whether the different prosocialness items were equally effective in discriminating people and equally informative; it also examined gender differences in the functioning of the items. The results of IRT analyses strongly supported the measurement effectiveness and sensitivity of the 16 prosocialness items, and findings are discussed for their implications in behavioral assessment research on prosocialness.

The association between parental warmth and control in thirteen cultural groups

The goal of the current study was to investigate potential cross-cultural differences in the covariation between two of the major dimensions of parenting behavior: control and warmth. Participants included 1,421 (51% female) 7- to 10-year-old (M = 8.29, SD = .67 years) children and their mothers and fathers representing 13 cultural groups in nine countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Children and parents completed questionnaires and interviews regarding mother and father control and warmth. Greater warmth was associated with more control, but this association varied widely between cultural groups.

Social inference and individual differences in aggression : evidence for spontaneous judgments of hostility

This research examined the hypothesis that aggressive vs. nonaggressive individuals differ in their spontaneous trait inferences, i. e., inferences made without any conscious intention of inferring characteristics of an actor. We anticipated that spontaneous processing conditions would be more revealing of aggressive/nonaggressive differences than would conditions that prompt deliberate inference processes. We used a cued-recall paradigm. Aggressive and nonaggressive subjects were instructed to memorize sentences that were open to either hostile or nonhostile interpretations. Sentence recall was then cued by either hostile dispositional terms or by words that were linked semantically to the element of the sentences. Within the spontaneous inference condition, semantic cues prompted twice as much recall as hostile cues among nonaggressive subjects, whereas dispositional cues aided recall more than semantic cues among aggressive subjects. As predicted, within the delinerate inference conditions there were no aggressive/nonaggressive differences. The nature of spontaneous vs. deliberate inferential processes and the advantages of spontaneous inference paradigms for testing predictions about schema-based processing in aggression are discussed.

Agreement in Mother and Father Acceptance-Rejection, Warmth, and Hostility/Rejection/ Neglect of Children Across Nine Countries

The authors assessed whether mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their preadolescent children differ cross-nationally and relative to the gender of the parent and child in 10 communities in 9 countries, including China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States (N = 998 families). Mothers and fathers in all countries reported a high degree of acceptance and warmth, and a low degree of HRN, but countries also varied. Mothers reported greater acceptance of children than fathers in China, Italy, Sweden, and the United States, and these effects were accounted for by greater self-reported warmth in mothers than in fathers in China, Italy, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand and less HRN in mothers than in fathers in Sweden. Fathers reported greater warmth than mothers in Kenya. Mother and father acceptance-rejection were moderately correlated. Relative levels of mother and father acceptance and rejection appear to be country specific.

Hostile attributional bias and aggressive behavior in global context.

Significance Interpersonal conflict and violence occur within and between groups around the world. Although not proving causation, this study is significant because it suggests a key psychological mechanism in children’s chronic aggression that might be targeted for intervention: one’s attribution that a peer is acting with hostile intent. When children attribute hostile intent to peers, they are more likely to predict they would react aggressively than when they attribute benign intent. Differences in this tendency statistically account for differences in future chronic aggressive behavior problems across children, as well as differences in chronic aggressive behavior problem rates across ecological-context groups. Identifying this mechanism could lead to novel interventions, education, and policies that reduce or prevent aggressive behavior. We tested a model that children’s tendency to attribute hostile intent to others in response to provocation is a key psychological process that statistically accounts for individual differences in reactive aggressive behavior and that this mechanism contributes to global group differences in children’s chronic aggressive behavior problems. Participants were 1,299 children (mean age at year 1 = 8.3 y; 51% girls) from 12 diverse ecological-context groups in nine countries worldwide, followed across 4 y. In year 3, each child was presented with each of 10 hypothetical vignettes depicting an ambiguous provocation toward the child and was asked to attribute the likely intent of the provocateur (coded as benign or hostile) and to predict his or her own behavioral response (coded as nonaggression or reactive aggression). Mothers and children independently rated the child’s chronic aggressive behavior problems in years 2, 3, and 4. In every ecological group, in those situations in which a child attributed hostile intent to a peer, that child was more likely to report that he or she would respond with reactive aggression than in situations when that same child attributed benign intent. Across children, hostile attributional bias scores predicted higher mother- and child-rated chronic aggressive behavior problems, even controlling for prior aggression. Ecological group differences in the tendency for children to attribute hostile intent statistically accounted for a significant portion of group differences in chronic aggressive behavior problems. The findings suggest a psychological mechanism for group differences in aggressive behavior and point to potential interventions to reduce aggressive behavior.

The Role of Social Norms in the Development of Aggressive Behavior

Individual differences in the propensity to behave aggressively appear very earlyin life. By age 6 some children have adopted characteristic patterns of aggressive behavior in their social interactions (Parke & Slaby, 1983), and by age 8 children are characteristically more or less aggressive over a variety of situations (Eron, Walder, & Lefkowitz, 1971). The incidence of aggressive behavior continues to increase into adolescence as aggressiveness becomes a relatively stable personality characteristic (Huesmann & Eron, 1989; Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz, & Walder, 1984; Olweus, 1979). The more aggressive child is likely to become the more aggressive adult. It is difficult to find any other childhood factor, be it physiological, environmental, or familial, that predicts more of the variation in adult aggression than does childhood aggression.