Social Aggression among Girls

While several recent popular books address the topic of girls' "meanness" to one another, this volume offers the first balanced, scholarly analysis of scientific knowledge in this area. Integrating current research on emotion regulation, gender, and peer relations, the book examines how girls are socialized to experience and express anger and aggression from infancy through adolescence. Considered are the developmental functions of such behaviors as gossip, friendship manipulation, and social exclusion; consequences for both victims and perpetrators; and approaches to intervention and prevention. Presenting innovative research models and methods, this is an accessible and much-needed synthesis for researchers, professionals, and students.

I. Setting the Stage1. Girls' Anger and Aggression: The Bind between Feeling Angry and Being Nice2. Childhood Aggression: Sticks and Stones and Social Exclusion3. Gender and Peer Relations: Separate Worlds?II. Development4. Girls' Anger in Infancy: Early Lessons That Anger Is Unwelcome5. Girls' Anger and Aggression in Preschool: If You Don't Do What I Say, I Won't Be Your Friend6. Middle Childhood: Gossip, Gossip, Evil Thing?7. Adolescence: Girl Talk, Moral Negotiation, and Strategic Interactions to Inflict Social HarmIII. Clinical Implications8. Developmental and Psychosocial Consequences of Girls' Aggression9. Prevention and Intervention: Harnessing the Power of Sisterhood10. New Models for Social Aggression: For Its Own SakeI. Setting the Stage1. Girls' Anger and Aggression: The Bind between Feeling Angry and Being Nice2. Childhood Aggression: Sticks and Stones and Social Exclusion3. Gender and Peer Relations: Separate Worlds?II. Development4. Girls' Anger in Infancy: Early Lessons That Anger Is Unwelcome5. Girls' Anger and Aggression in Preschool: If You Don't Do What I Say, I Won't Be Your Friend6. Middle Childhood: Gossip, Gossip, Evil Thing?7. Adolescence: Girl Talk, Moral Negotiation, and Strategic Interactions to Inflict Social HarmIII. Clinical Implications8. Developmental and Psychosocial Consequences of Girls' Aggression9. Prevention and Intervention: Harnessing the Power of Sisterhood10. New Models for Social Aggression: For Its Own Sake

Marion K. Underwood, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology in the School of Human Development at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her work has been published in numerous scientific journals, and her research program has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health since 1995. She received the 2001 Chancellor's Council Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.