The Effect of Relational Models or the Socio-moral Context on Aggressive Responding in Adolescents

Tan Wei Ming Steven

As aggression occurs between people, the social context may play a role beyond individual factors in motivating, directing, and evaluating such behaviour. This research investigated the influence of relational models (RMs; Fiske, 1992) on aggression among adolescents and young adults. Fiske proposed that individuals construe social situations according to four RMs: intuitive, pre-existing, and normative rulesets that guide a person’s cognitive interpretations, motivations, and behaviours—including aggression. Study 1 investigated whether differences in trait aggression were associated with spontaneous trait-like RM selection. Adolescents (N = 179) read hypothetical social scenarios and rated the appropriateness of four responses consistent with each RM. Trait aggression was associated with stronger endorsement of equality matching (EM) responses in conflictual, relative to non-conflictual scenarios. In Study 2, adolescents (N = 125) were experimentally primed with an RM before responding to hypothetical ambiguous provocations. EM-primed participants reported more anger than those primed with communal sharing (CS), but no more than control participants. Nevertheless, reported levels of EM construal predicted greater hostile attribution, anger, and aggressive behaviour intent, controlling for person-based fixed factors. The mitigating effect of CS priming relative to the control condition was evident, with participants reporting more benign attribution and lower levels of aggressive behaviour intent through reduced anger. Study 3 was an online experiment involving undergraduate students (N = 96) who were RM primed and directly provoked before being given an opportunity to aggress. Provocation strongly resulted in aggressive behaviour but was not moderated by RM prime or other relevant traits. These findings offer preliminary support for the role of RM construal in predicting and possibly controlling young people’s aggressive intent in ambiguous, but not clearly provocative, situations. Replication and further operational refinement are warranted to both establish the effect of RM construal on aggression and identify its limiting factors.

The Effect of Relational Models or the Socio-moral Context on Aggressive Responding in Adolescents

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