Reacting to Aggression Response(ably)

As all of us I'm sure realize, there has been a major push toward awareness to address and prevent bullying behavior in schools, and for very good reason. We've all seen or heard about horrible incidents of bullying on buses, in schools, on the playgrounds, cyberspace...and we've been outraged by it and the often tragic outcomes the behavior has for the victims. Movies like Bully , the preview of which I've embedded above, have been designed to heighten awareness of the serious implications of bullying behavior. The government has gotten involved in prevention and awareness, as evidenced by websites like Stop Bullying.gov . Other organizations have sprouted up to serve as a source of support for victims of bullying as well, like Bullyling.org Many programs/specials have been designed to do the same, like the CNN special series hosted by Anderson Cooper entitled Bullying: It Stops Here. Schools have increased awareness of this issue. Victims of bullying behavior are gaining a much needed voice.

As good and important as all of this is (and believe me, I don't under-estimate its value), I would argue that it is what Stewart (2006) would call a reaction rather than a response. And, in what I hope is true Dark Side form, I saw these readings as an attempt to complicate what I see as a social reaction in an attempt to help inform a social response to this very real and serious problem that we all face. As a mother to a 10 year old girl trying to make sense of socially aggressive peers, these readings spoke volumes to me. As a woman who grew up in a high school filled with socially aggressive girls and boys, these readings spoke volumes to me. As the sister of a woman who was bullied so severely because of an acne problem she suffered both psychological and material consequences, these readings spoke volumes to me. How could they not speak volumes? We've all been there, in some role or another, bully, victim, onlooker, bully-victim...whatever it may be, we've been there. And it's impacted us, one way or another. Reacting to this feels much better than carefully responding to it (at least for me). It's much simpler, requires much less energy, provokes much less controversy and provides a cathartic release for us when we or the ones we love are wronged. The problem is, it's irresponsible and socially damaging.

As discussion leader this week, I read the articles with an eye toward synthesis, but driven by and focused specifically on social aggression (Willer & Cupach, 2011). Most of my draw to this week’s readings was this topic—though, I didn’t expect what I read—more on that later.  A quick word about how I view the readings as building nicely toward a discussion of social aggression. Gilbert and colleagues (2009) found that feelings of external shame are linked to feelings of inferiority which in turn predict stress, depression and anxiety. There are clearly ramifications for those who are shamed and made to feel inferior. Spitzberg (1994) explains the complexities of communicative competence, and while the chapter was rich with information, what I was most struck by given my focus was that communicative competence is often viewed as a balance between appropriateness and effectiveness, and is often studied in terms of how it is inferred, or socially perceived. Of significance here is that “self-inference of competence has significant impacts on confidence, motivation, efficacy and the behavioral course of the relationship” (p. 41). In other words, if one perceives themselves to be socially incompetent (ineffective and/or inappropriate), they are more likely to have lower levels of confidence and lower levels of satisfaction in their relationships. It seems like we have a vicious cycle (or should I say patterned interpersonal behavior) that sets the stage for what we learn in Willer & Cupach’s chapter about girls’ social aggression. As peer relationships are negotiated, status, competence and identity are communicated, creating patterns in these interpersonal relationships.

Willer & Cupach (2011) focus on indirect social aggression among girls, and in doing this, they explore the issue from an SIT framework as well as from an Evolutionary perspective. These frameworks highlight that there are positive outcomes for social aggression. Girls that exhibit socially aggressive behaviors can be perceived as negotiating their identity through social competition and intragroup competition—a natural process that occurs with all in and out groups from an Intergroup Perspective. From this perspective, these girls’ identity concerns translate into social aggression. I see this play out each and every day as the parent of a young 10 year old girl trying to make sense of her world.I agree with and appreciate much of what SIT brings to the table on this issue. It highlights so much that I feel is lost in other perspectives. Despite this, I wasn't quite satisfied with it, prompting my first two questions:

Class Discussion Question 1: What are the benefits and drawbacks of the SIT framework when considering girls social aggression?

Class Discussion Question 2: Would/How would an SIT perspective account for strategy choice in negotiating identity concerns through social competition?  

Willer and Cupach (2011) also mention an Evolutionary perspective—and this one intrigued me. The notion of bi-strategic controllers was particularly interesting to me, and so I actually read the Hawley (2003) piece that they reference (and that was on our suggested reading list). If you'd like, you can read it here. I’ll summarize the article in class, and offer some thoughts/examples/experiences, but, for now, I pose the following questions for you to consider:

Class Discussion Question 3: Does/How does the Evolutionary perspective briefly referenced in Willer & Cupach (2011) fit with a Dark Side lens?

Class Discussion Question 4: How would a Systems Approach take on the indirect social aggression of adolescent girls as described by Willer & Cupach?

Class Discussion Question 5: How would a Dialectical Approach take on the indirect social aggression of adolescent girls as described by Willer & Cupach?

The final issue I would like to address from the Willer & Cupach (2011) chapter is that they clearly identify the Dark Side of Intervention. This, in my view, directly addresses my perception presented earlier that the awareness programs I highlighted when I first started my blog are a reaction as opposed to a response. They highlight that interventions that are not guided by empirical research, while clearly well intended, can risk a number of things, to include eliminating the benefits of social aggression—throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. This points to a theme that has troubled yet intrigued me throughout the semester—the way the interaction between our moral response which tends to produce highly polarized views (ie, evil incarnate or bright on the quadrant we discussed early on) and the lay discourse about social issues that tends to reify these polarizations clouds our ability to see the nuances inherent in all social interaction. Not only does this seem to cloud what we see, it frames what we do and inhibits our ability as researchers to “sell” our approach to a social problem as viable, practical and responsible. How easily do you think we could conduct translational research that promotes the social aggressiveness of girls in a climate that simultaneously demonizes social aggression and defines the ideal woman as inherently submissive? All of this points us back to the idea we started the class off with--making our research translational:

Class Discussion Number 6: How do we, as researchers, “sell” research oriented in academically sound yet socially controversial ways? Does the Dark Side lens help create a venue for this? Might it inhibit it?

This last question is driven by an experience I had and that shaped what I referenced earlier as my erroneous expectations for  this week’s readings, and highlights my biggest criticism of the readings. When I signed up for this week as discussion leader, I was thinking of a Bully Survey I was asked to consult on at the kids' school, geared toward having children identify their peers as possible bullies. When I asked what was going to be done when certain kids were identified as potential bullies, the response was, "we'll pray that the parents will take the steps they need to guide their children appropriately".  No support, no further discussion, no getting the perspectives of the children themselves or of their parents. No follow up. Just a label that the child and the parents must live with for the duration of their time in school.

This was well-intended. There were some bullies at school, and the principal wanted to address it. I applauded her courage in trying to do so. But, as you can imagine, particularly after reading for this week, it just wasn't that simple. In addition to all that we read about with regard to the functionally ambivalent nature of social aggression, my children come home from school and, if they have a fight with someone, they automatically refer to that person as a "bully". This is the language of their childhood given the emphasis on bullying prevention. So, this is a powerful label to throw around, and as our readings indicated, like Spitzberg's (1994) characterization of social competence, bullying  isn’t an easy term to nail down. Is it prosocial teasing? Is it cruel teasing? Is it bullying (Kowalski, 2007)? Is it defined in terms of actual intent? Perceived intent? In what context? All of this, as our readings pointed to, and as we've discussed throughout the semester, plays a major role in how the behavior is characterized, but this does not necessarily reflect how it is experienced by all those involved. It’s all in your perspective, and each child is going to view the same behavior differently. Those in a powerful position (aka parents and teachers) have clear influence over the tinstitutional labeling of bullies, but bi-strategic controllers often use prosocial and aggressive behaviors, masking their aggression/coercion from those in authority (Hawley, 2003; Willer & Cupach, 2011). So, given this, who carries the label bully? According to Hawley (2003), it's not generally the Machiavellian children (bi-strategic controllers). Is it those who react to aggressive behavior with less well defined social skills? I think it’s important to consider the dark side of the label “bully” itself--at the individual, relational and social level. This was what I wanted/expected to read about this week, though, it's not surprising that it's not represented.  Despite several personal blogs pointing to the stigma associated with the label “bully”—I could not find one published academic article that explored the implications of our polarizing “reaction” rather than “response” to social aggression. I did however, find a nice article by anthropologist Janice Harper published in the Huffington Post called The Bully Label Has To Go that I feel articulates a strong case for important future research. It seems the Dark Side metaphor can shed a good deal more light on our social processes.

Discussion Question 7: Has the pendulum swung too far on this issue, and, can/how can our research and the way we present it to the lay public both raise awareness and maintain a sense of balance? Or can we?

Discussion Question 8: How would we examine the labels of "bully" and "victim" using a dark side lens? How would our unit of analysis change the way we approach this (individual, relational, social)? What theoretical orientation that we've discussed might be useful? Why?

Discussion Question 9:Can you think of other instances where social reaction rather than response to an issue labeled problematic served to polarize perspectives, pitting actors against one another rather than addressing the issue in all its complexity? What are some of these situations? How can a dark side lens illuminate them?

Finally, Parks (1995) urges us to be mindful of the ideological underpinnings of our research, something it would seem Spitzberg (1994) would agree is important as he asserts that social competence research is undergirded by ideologies of accuracy, clarity and understanding, clouding issues of ambiguity, deceit and tentativeness as competent. Given this, I ask my final question:

Discussion Question 10: In what ways might the ideologies guiding our approach to social aggression work toward shaping what qualifies as light and dark? For what actors? For example, how do gendered expectations about social aggression shape the functional ambivalence of social aggression?

Why is this important to consider as we approach our research? How might re-positioning our lens challenge or perpetuate these ideological assumptions?


I'm looking forward to a great discussion this week!