3. Chapter 3: Theoretical framework
3.4 Dodge’s social information processing model
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3.4.1 Introduction
Multiple factors and mechanisms may contribute to child aggression. In addition to the environmental, economic, and genetic factors, there are several social-cognitive factors (e.g., general knowledge structures and social
information processing) that can explain the nature of aggressive children’s thinking and the biases and deficits of information processing that may lead to the use of aggression as a strategy for solving their problems (Dodge, Coie, &
Lynam, 2006). Moreover, children with early experience of derprivation and maltreatment may have difficulty identifying and interpreting social cues and the social boundaries between them and others to the extent that they may dipsplay several maladaptive behaviours such as aggression or indiscriminate friendliness (Rutter, 2002). Researchers have considered the links between children’s ability to think about social situations and symptoms of
psychopathology. Research that has utilised this framework focused on understanding the externalising and internalising problems in children and adolescents. Attributional biases have been linked to increased symptoms of depression (Dodge, 1993; Quiggle, Garber, Panak, & Dodge, 1992), and anxiety (Luebbe, Bell, Allwood, Swenson, & Early, 2010). Moreover, there are other risk factors that foster or are associated with hostile attribution,
including maltreatment, modelling of hostile attribution by adults and peers, failure in important real-life tasks (e.g., basic calculation, reading ), and
rearing in a society that emphasises self-defence and retaliation (Dodge, 2006).
3.4.2 Dodge’s SIP model
Dodge’s SIP model of child aggression (Dodge, 1986) was originally proposed to identify cognitive characteristics that could lead children to display aggressive responses in social situations. Later, Crick and Dodge (1994) elaborated and reformulated the model to make circular in a way that fitted the parallel and simultaneous way of processing social information and to provide an experimental understanding of processing a single
stimulus/situation (Nigoff, 2008).
The reformulated model (Crick & Dodge, 1994) breaks information processing into six sequential steps. The first step is the selective encoding process of social cues from the environment through the senses. If the encoding process is not accurate or attending to the appropriate cues is
insufficient, deviant responses can occur. Moreover, the selectively encoded cues can be stored and integrated with the past database of experiences to support future interpretation of the situation. Accordingly, and due to their frequent exposure to hostile and violent environment, it has been found that highly aggressive individuals are more likely to attend to aggression or hostility-evoking stimuli or cues than their moderate or low aggressive peers (Sestir & Bartholow, 2007).
The second step involves the interpretation process of the selectively encoded cues from the first step and the integration of these cues with the past experience and existing social stimuli and cognitive content to produce a meaningful understanding of the situation. Here, social perception may be influenced by the alternative interpretation of the same cues previously encoded. In particular, social perception may be affected by the causal attributions that can be generated about others’ behaviours and intentions depending on the salience of the cues being processed (Huesmann, 1998).The hostile attribution bias is an example of the deficiency that may happen during this step. When individuals interpret ambiguous social cues and stimuli as threatening , hostile attribution bias is generated and in turn aggressive
retaliation or reactive aggression is more likely to occur (Crick & Dodge, 1994).
The third step involves the clarification of goals for the previously encoded and interpreted social situation. Then comes the fourth step where there is a search for the behavioural responses that can fit the outcomes of the first two steps and the goals that have been clarified in the third step. The combination of past experience, the ability to generate responses, and processes from the first three steps are used to construct the possible response to the situation. It is worth noting that this step is proposed to be influenced by the socialisation context where children develop (Crick & Dodge, 1994).
In the fifth step, a situation-specific response is chosen based upon the child’s abilities to carry out the decision he/she has made. In addition, an analysis of the consequences of such choice can be biased in terms of the previous steps and past experience. The final step of SIP concerns the enactment of the previously selected response. It is the culmination of the whole process and it can be affected by past experience and the chosen responses. At the end of this step, others’ reactions to the enacted behaviour
will establish a new social cue for a new cycle of SIP. In fact, others’ responses will be integrated into the child database of past experiences and will affect the way SIP steps work during future situations (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Dodge’s (Dodge, 1986) model and Crick and Dodge’s (Crick & Dodge, 1994)
reformulated model of SIP have been supported by empirical studies that mostly highlighted the differences between aggressive and non-aggressive children with respect to each step of the SIP model and the factors that could predict aggression.
3.4.3 Reactive vs. proactive aggression
The SIP model can be further used to differentiate between individuals who are proactively aggressive and those who are reactively aggressive based on the motives of their behaviours. Proactive aggression is defined a “learned aggressive behaviour, typically non-emotional, emitted to achieve a purposeful goal - for example, one child shoving another to cut in line” (Boxer & Tisak, 2003, p. 362). It is outcome-oriented aggression that is utilised as an
instrumental means to secure rewards and positive outcomes from others or dominate them (Vitaro & Brendgen, 2005). Reactive aggression is an
“aggressive behaviour provoked or influenced by a negative emotional reaction to a situation or event-for example, a bullied child lashing out from fear”
(Boxer & Tisak, 2003, p. 362). In addition, reactive aggression can be seen as an immediate and impulsive response to goal blocking or real perceived threat and it is usually accompanied by anger and frustration (Vitaro & Brendgen, 2005).
With regards to the above distinction, Crick and Dodge (1996) hypothesised that children who are reactively aggressive have a bias in the second step of the SIP model and in turn, they are more likely to interpret their peers’ intents in ambiguous situations as hostile. On the other hand, those who are proactively aggressive have biases in the third, fourth, and the fifth steps of the SIP model, and therefore they would evaluate the aggressive response they have selected and its consequences in the direction of positive rewards and outcomes.
Several studies have examined how the two dominant functions of aggression (i.e., reactive vs. proactive) are related to the differences that children exhibit regarding processing social information. For example, Dodge and Coie (1987) examined differences in hostile attributional bias in three
groups of school children (6-9 years old) : those who showed some reactive aggression, proactive aggression, and non-aggressive controls. The children were presented with a videotaped vignettes depicting ambiguous actions by their peers and they were asked to interpret the intents of their peers. It was found that reactively aggressive boys had hostile biases and errors in their interpretation of their peers’ social cues. Specifically, they found that reactively aggressive boys attributed hostile intent to ambiguous situations. In contrast, the proactively aggressive sample did not differ from the non-aggressive control group in the amount of the hostile attribution biases. Further studies have shown that that hostile attribution biases in 9-12-year-olds predicted reactive aggression. Reactively aggressive children attributed more hostile intent to their peers’ acts than their proactive and nonaggressive samples (Crick & Dodge, 1996).
Supporting evidence for the relationship between the two types of aggression (reactive vs. proactive) and generating hostile attributions was found in a recent study that asked a sample of aggressive children aged 7 to 13 years (N=54) and their age-matched non-aggressive controls (N=30) to answer open-ended questions after listening to an audiotaped vignette
depicting a peer ambiguous provocation that was supposed to hinder them in a social situation (Orobio de Castro, Merk, Koops, Veerman, & Bosch, 2005).
Moreover, their attributional bias to their own emotion and their peers’
emotions were also assessed using an open-ended question. It was found that aggressive children; compared to controls, attributed more hostile intents to their peers’ ambiguous acts, became more angry and were less adaptive in emotion regulation, resulting in more aggressive responses. After controlling for the effect of reactive aggression, the proactively aggressive children attributed less hostile intent and became less negative in their evaluation of their aggressive responses.
Research has focused on SIP in the context of peer relationships.
However, several studies have shown that the role of SIP in the development of behavioural and emotional symptoms is also present in the children’s relations with adults. For example, Bickett, Milich, and Brown (1996) compared mothers of aggressive boys and mothers of non-aggressive boys in terms of the ability to interpret hypothetical situations involving themselves with their boys,
husbands, and a peer interacting with their boys. Also, they were asked to infer a hypothetical interaction between their boys and their classmates and
teachers. It was found that hostile attribution biases in aggressive boys were linked to the general tendency of mothers to interpret ambiguous situations as hostile and this hostility could be predictive of their offspring’s aggressive responses towards those involved in the situations.
3.4.4 Summary
The Dodge’s SIP model provides an effective theoretical framework to explore mechanisms/processes used by children to interpret the social
situations in which they are involved and how these mechanisms or processes would shape their responses to such situations. In fact, Crick and Dodge (1994) described these processes and mechanisms of child aggression in terms of the causal attributions, since they may explain how aggressive children judge the behaviours and intentions of their peers and their own success and failure in social situations.
3.5 Conclusion
The early depriving experiences of institutional rearing and associated negative outcomes can be integrated as a first element in a multi-dimensional approach of exploring the risk factors that may influence the development of institutionalised children. This approach can also start to assess the effect of the sociocultural context where children are being reared by measuring the levels of percieved stigma children convey and the public social stigma others have towards them. Levels of stigma can affect children in a way that may increase the likelihood of expressing feelings of shame and other related symptoms. Thirdly, the early experience of social and emotional derprivation can influence the structure of knowledge and the SIP mechanisms children use to process and interpret social interactions with peers.