Authors: Stephanie L Cardoos Audrey L Zakriski Jack C Wright Harry W Parad
Publish Date: 2014/12/25
Volume: 43, Issue: 6, Pages: 1145-1159
Abstract
This research examined the independent and interactional contributions of peer experiences and group aggression to youth behavioral adjustment in shortterm residential treatment Participants were 219 youth M age = 1270 SD = 276 71 male nested in 28 sameage samesex treatment groups Sociometric interviews assessed social preference and victimization Daily behavioral observations by staff assessed overall levels of treatment group aggression as well as aggressive withdrawn and prosocial responses to specific social events Endofsummer behavioral responses to all events to peers to adults were predicted controlling for initial levels of these responses Social preference predicted higher endofsummer prosocial responses and victimization predicted lower prosocial and higher withdrawn responses Each interacted with group aggression in some analyses with more positive peer experiences only predicting more favorable responses in groups that were low or average in aggression Interactantspecific analyses revealed that some of these associations were broad whereas others applied only to adults For example group aggression moderated the association between social preference and aggressive responses to adults but not peers Gender differences were also interactantspecific Results highlight the importance of peer experiences in group treatment and underscore the value of both aggregation and disaggregation over interactants in analyses of behavioral adjustmentThis work was supported by NIH AREA grant 3R15MH07678701 to the second author and Ruth L Kirschstein National Research Service Award F31DA033716 to the first author The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health We would like to thank the research assistants and liaisons clinical staff children and families who made this work possible with special acknowledgement to Sophia ChoukasBradley Anselma Hartley and Lindsay Metcalfe for their indispensable role in staff training and to Larry Tucker for his programming expertise Harry Parad is no longer affiliated with Wediko Childrens Services
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