Reducing Peer Directed Aggression in the Elementary Grades : The Effects of an Attribution Retraining Program / Cynthia Hudley.

An attributional intervention was designed to reduce aggressive males' tendency to attribute hostile intentions to peers and their concomitant reactive aggression. Subjects were 162 African-American and Latino elementary school boys--aggressive and nonaggressive--in grades 3 through 6. Subjects were randomly assigned to the attributional intervention or to one of two control conditions. Data were collected from subjects' attributions about hypothetical scenarios, a laboratory task, disciplinary referrals to the school office, and teacher ratings of aggressive behavior. Results showed that aggressive subjects in the attributional intervention reduced their presumptions of hostile intent in laboratory simulations of peer provocation and, to a lesser extent, in response to scenarios. They were also less likely than the control subjects to be referred to the school office for disciplinary action and were rated by their teachers as less aggressive than control subjects following the treatment. (Author/DR)

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