Social Studies 400 (Thursday's Assignment)

Read the following article and answer the questions.

http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/what-grown-ups-are-missing-about-boys/?_r=0

True or False

Relational aggression is defined as “harming others through damaging or manipulating peer relationships.”

This study relied on data collected from surveys which asked students how often in the past 30 days they had done things like spreading false rumors, ostracizing people or making mean comments about someone to turn other kids against that person.

One hundred students took the survey regularly from 6th grade through 12th grade. 

The results of the study found significantly more girls than boys exhibited a pattern of high relational aggression in the early years of the study.

Rosalind Wiseman, whose book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” gave rise to the movie “Mean Girls."

The group of students reporting high aggression was 66.7 percent male.


“People say, ‘well, boys are physically aggressive, but girls are aggressive in their relationships." According to this article, this belief is a myth.
Parents, need to pay attention to what both boys and girls are doing (with regard to aggressive behavior).

It is not important for parents to model positive behavior, including not being relationally aggressive themselves because their kids aren't paying attention.

If parents talk badly about other people (especially other children their child knows), it’s only reasonable to assume that their child won’t do anything different.

One expert quoted in the article advised parents to emphasize the positive. She said there are many examples of kids saying good things and kids helping each other, but that doesn’t sell very much so we don’t talk about it.

Short Answer

What do you think are some of the consequences of relational aggression (for both boys and girls)? (Other than affecting relationships with peers, are there any other negative consequences of this behavior?)

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