Understanding Aggression in Children: The Role of SIP Model, Thesis of Communication

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Using Social Information Processing Theory to Counsel Aggressive Youth Elizabeth Santone, Laura M. Crothers, Jered B. Kolbert, and Joseph Miravalle Duquesne University

Abstract The social information processing (SIP) model, which involves a sequence of six cognitive processing steps, is frequently used by researchers to understand proactive and reactive aggression in youth; however, there has been little discussion in the literature regarding the application of the SIP model in school counseling. This article presents a review of the SIP model followed by a brief summary of the research regarding the relationship between SIP deficits and aggression. Counseling interventions related to each of the SIP steps for use with proactive and reactive aggressive youth are also presented. Keywords : social information processing theory, proactive aggression, reactive aggression, bullying, school counselor

promote students' social and emotional development within the real-life context of their peer relationships. However, the SIP model does not appear to be utilized by the school counseling profession, as no articles could be found in which PSCs used the SIP model in prevention or intervention efforts. Use of the SIP model offers potential benefits for the school counseling profession as it is an empirically supported framework that has been used in several promising school-based programs (Fraser et al., 2005; Terzian et al., 2015). The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the research concerning each step of the SIP model and identify suggestions for counseling with aggressive children who exhibit deficits or differences within each step. Six Cognitive Processing Steps in the SIP Model Dodge (1991) defined proactive aggression as intentional, whereas reactive aggression is characterized as involving a reaction to a presumed threat. A meta- analysis study showed that many studies distinguish between proactive and reactive forms of aggression (Polman, Orobio de Castro, Koops, van Boxtel, & Merk, 2007). Encoding Social Cues The first two steps of SIP (encoding and interpretation) guide the understanding of social situations. Non-aggressive children are more effective than aggressive children at encoding relevant cues about context and emotion (Dodge & Godwin, 2013). Aggressive children are more likely to encode fewer cues and more hostile social cues, than their nonaggressive peers (van Nieuwenhuijzen et al., 2015; Ziv, 2012). Hostile attribution bias (HAB) is the tendency to attribute aggressive intention to others, which involves both encoding and interpretation. A meta-analysis revealed that HAB is related to aggression in a variety of populations and age groups (Orobio de Castro, Merk,

Koops, Veerman, & Bosch, 2005), and predicts future increases in aggression (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam 2006). Interpretation of Cues Children with poor focused attention skills may have difficulty filtering out irrelevant information and stimuli, which contributes to inaccurate interpretations of social situations (Dodge & Godwin, 2013). These interpretation deficits are related to inaccurate problem solving, which may impact students’ beliefs about possible responses, prediction of outcomes, and selection of appropriate behavioral responses (van Nieuwenhuijzen et al., 2015). For example, a child in an ambiguous social encounter may focus on children’s laughter as being unrelated to the interaction and interpret the laughter as hostile. This interpretation may influence the child’s beliefs about the ability to join with others and ultimately may contribute to the use of reactive aggression. Clarification of Goals The third step of SIP involves selecting a social goal, whether it be instrumental or relational. Children clarify their goals for a given social situation based on their desired outcome. According to the SIP model, after children have encoded and interpreted a social event, they must decide (consciously or unconsciously) if they will pursue an instrumental or relational goal, and what sort of social goal they want to pursue. High levels of emotional arousal are likely to interfere with decision-making processes related to goal identification (Frey, Nolen, Van Schoiack Edstrom, & Hirschstein, 2005). Children who are prone to emotional arousal are more likely to be impulsive and react with aggression when developing social goals in comparison to

aggressive children identify aggressive responses as a means to fulfill instrumental goals (Arsenio & Gold, 2006), are more likely to be motivated by tangible rewards, and report happiness in using aggression (Arsenio & Gold, 2006) and elevated self-esteem (Cervone, 1997). Proactively aggressive children appear to view aggressive responses favorably and feel good about themselves as a result of successful goal completion by aggressive means. This view of proactive aggression highlights potential deficits in empathic reasoning. While proactively aggressive children understand the negative consequences that their aggression has on others, they fail to consider these consequences when generating behavioral responses. Therefore, proactively aggressive children generate responses consistent with instrumental goal fulfillment and lack a connection to the wider consequences of their behavior. Proactively aggressive children perceive their aggression as effective, which increases the likelihood that they store these social experiences in memory and construct social knowledge that will inform future decision-making processes (Crick & Dodge, 1996). These memories of social knowledge and outcomes directly influence children’s social behavior and can promote future use of proactive aggression. In summary, proactively aggressive children often understand the harmful impact of aggression but perceive aggression to be an acceptable means to achieve goals. Whereas proactively aggressive children can often generate prosocial responses, reactively aggressively children exhibit difficulties in problem-solving (Arsenio & Gold, 2006), and may resort to aggression as a means of defense. In comparison to proactive aggressive children, reactively aggressive children

demonstrate less verbal ability and are more likely to exhibit attention and encoding deficits (Crick & Dodge, 1996). Reactive aggression at the response generation step results from inaccurate coding and hostile attributions (Crick & Dodge, 1996). Moral knowledge structures at the response generation step differ significantly in proactive and reactive children. Both proactive and reactive aggressive children justify the morality of their behavior by disengaging themselves from consequences but through different means (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Bandura, 1995). When proactively aggressive children pursue aggression, they avoid facing the harm they cause, or they minimize it. They readily recall prior information given to them about the potential benefits of the behavior but are less able to remember its harmful effects. While proactively aggressive children demonstrate underdeveloped empathic or moral reasoning, reactively aggressive children appear to have moral values, but are impaired in their ability to exercise social reasoning while determining the hostile intent of others (Arsenio & Gold, 2006). These deficits in social reasoning are demonstrated by skewed moral justifications for aggression such as palliative comparisons of behavior (e.g., “what I did is not as bad as what they did”) or euphemistic labels for aggression such as “I was standing up for what’s right” or “I was always taught to defend myself” (Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001; Bandura, 1995). Reactively aggressive children disengage from their moral meaning structures by attributing blame to others and seeing themselves as faultless victims who are driven to use aggression. Consequently, aggressive behavior is justified as a self-defense against injustice. The cognitive processes that cue moral knowledge structures differ in terms of reactive (relational goals, with interpersonal focus) and proactive aggression (instrumental goals, with self-

perspective (Fontaine, Burks, & Dodge, 2002). Children evaluate potential responses across domains such as instrumental and intrapersonal gains, consideration of relationships, and consequences (Fontaine, 2006). Aggressive children’s expectancy that peers would aggressively retaliate in response to aggression does not appear to deter aggressive children’s preference for aggressive behavior (Perry, Perry, & Rasmussen, 1986). Outcome expectancies and self-efficacy beliefs that reinforce the use of aggression are evaluated based on children’s prior experiences that have been mentally rehearsed and carried out numerous times, are easily accessed from memory, and are selected for enactment (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Huesmann, 1988). Behavioral decision-making processes differ between proactive and reactive aggressive children regarding outcome-oriented and ability-oriented processing. In comparison to reactively aggressive children, proactively aggressive children predict more positive outcomes from aggressive behavior (Dodge, Bates & Pettit, 1990; Orobio de Castro et al., 2005; Ziv, 2012). They believe that aggression increases self-esteem (Slaby & Guerra, 1998) and results in tangible rewards (Perry et al., 1986). In addition, children who are proactively aggressive, in comparison to reactively aggressive children, tend to believe that aggression is a relatively easy and effective way of achieving desired goals. The willingness to pursue social goals through instrumental aggression may reflect disruptions in moral reasoning rather than inaccurate social- cognitive biases (Arsenio, Adams, & Gold, 2009). An outcome of aggression that tends to be valued by proactively aggressive children includes control of the intended target; however, aggressive children tend to devalue the negative impact of aggression,

including victim suffering, retaliation, peer rejection, and negative self-evaluation (Fontaine, 2006). Unlike proactive aggressors, children who react aggressively fail to evaluate the adequacy of possible responses and will be more likely to have highly emotional and impulsive responses that are retaliatory in nature (Crick & Dodge, 1996). Both emotion (anger) and impulsivity have been associated with aggressive behavior. Anger leads to psychological arousal that can flood pertinent processing mechanisms, impeding social reasoning and judgment (Dodge & Godwin, 2013; van Nieuwenhuijzen et al., 2015). Children who are reactively aggressive are less likely to review pertinent mental structures when deciding whether to retaliate. In fact, response evaluation may be entirely omitted as a result of emotional dysregulation (Fontaine et al., 2002). Enactment of Behavioral Response The sixth and final step of SIP is response behavioral enactment. In this step, children perform a selected behavioral response based upon the processes in the previous two steps. Performing aggressive responses during enactment can be a result of children’s failure to think about consequences (impulsive responses) or a favorable evaluation of aggression (Dodge & Godwin, 2013). Due to the minimal processing requirements, aggressive behavior becomes habitual or automatic, resulting in reenactments that accumulate to form aggressive schemas, which can be readily accessed in social situations. The notion that cognitive schemas guide ongoing processing operations (Dodge et al., 2006) implies that SIP acts as a mediator between the schemas and aggressive behavior. Children develop schemas early in life and enter interactions with databases of acquired knowledge that inform their interpretations and

(Eisenberg, Fabes, Nyman, Bernzweig, & Pinuelas, 1994; Saarni, 1999). Children who experience intense emotions and lack the skills for emotional regulation are likely to become too self-focused to construct response options and evaluate those options while considering the perspectives of the various involved persons (Eisenberg et al., 1994; Saarni, 1999). Children experiencing intense emotions tend to use inflexible approaches (Casey & Schlosser, 1994; Saarni, 1999). Emotion is now acknowledged as an essential component of SIP, and thus, emotional regulation training is a common component of SIP-based interventions. Counseling Interventions Although there is varied research on the predictors of aggressive behavior, moral emotions and cognitive deficits are the best predictors (Aresenio & Lemerse, 2000). Recent research on SIP and aggression demonstrate that both emotional and cognitive factors are influential (Aresenio & Lemerise, 2000; Casey & Schlosser, 1994; Saarni, 1999). Interventions based on the SIP model, therefore, should account for contextual influences on aggressive behavior, with regard for the implications of both reactive and proactive subtypes of aggression. Encompassing frameworks may be especially relevant for PSCs. For example, the contextual social-cognitive model (Lochman & Wells, 2002) of aggression considers schema, emotional regulation, impulsivity, and SIP deficits as being the driving forces for aggressive behavior. Reactive aggressors are thought to be inhibited by high levels of emotional arousal and impulsivity, whereas proactive aggressors are more cognitively controlled and conscious of aggression- supporting schemas that influence SIP (Crick & Dodge, 1996).

In the first steps of SIP, aggressive children are more likely to exhibit deficits in spontaneously reading and correctly interpreting social cues, in addition to having trouble distinguishing central versus peripheral information. Interventions aimed at improving focused attention and encoding skills through accurate emotional recognition are helpful in the earlier steps of the SIP model. Emotional recognition refers to the ability to distinguish various affective expressions in facial, gestural, and verbal displays in oneself and others, as well as to understand their social-contextual meaning (Bauminger, 2002). Aggressive children with deficits in emotional recognition abilities display challenges in explaining causes for complex emotions, and in reflecting on oneself in relation to others (e.g., pride, embarrassment). Interventions designed to strengthen emotional recognition skills, such as facial recognition, can aid in accurate encoding of social cues and help children establish a more advanced catalogue of attributions. PSCs may teach accurate encoding skills through facial recognition exercises such as making faces for children and asking them to interpret what the counselor may be feeling, and having children make faces while imagining how someone else might be feeling. This exercise can complement interventions on perspective taking and flexible thinking by asking children to imagine “why” someone may be feeling a certain way. PSCs can explain to aggressive children that although it is not possible to know exactly what another person is thinking or feeling, it is often helpful to guess what other people are thinking and feeling, and then try to determine what another person is thinking and feeling. Discussions with aggressive children regarding their assessments about the perceptions and emotions of children with whom they are in conflict may illuminate

working with students who struggle with focused attention problems, PSCs may ask questions about the overall social situation in a broader context (“what were other children doing?,” “what was going on around you?,” "what do you think the other person was feeling?," or "how do you know they were likely feeling that way?") to help them to include additional relevant social information in their interpretations. Aggressive children should be encouraged to consider the likely reciprocal nature of a relationship conflict. PSCs may ask students to consider the pattern of events in a relationship, asking such question as "what happened next," "how did you respond," or "what did you the person do following your response." Aggressive children can be taught flexible thinking by suggesting alternative hypotheses to hostility such as “they are having a bad day,” “they did not mean to bump into you,” or “they were attempting to joke around with you.” Furthermore, having flexible thinking skills may help reactively aggressive children to identify with perpetrators in a positive way by uncovering similarities and shared experiences. The focus of interventions in the earlier SIP steps should be to change the way the aggressive child processes social information. When focused attention is improved, SIP becomes more deliberate, which improves social cognitive abilities, attribution of benign intent in ambiguous situations, and accurate representation of others' emotions. At the conclusion of such discussions, the PSC can help the aggressive child by summarizing the results of these in-depth analyses of social interactions. For example, the PSC might state, "So if I understand you correctly, you were really angry at Mike for walking away at recess, but when you think more about it, not only were you angry, but you were also hurt that he did not seem like he wanted to

talk to you. The more you think about it, you think Mike was upset that at lunch you did not save him a spot at the table." During SIP, children are presented with social stimuli and are tasked with making inferences and selecting behavioral responses to match the social goal identified in response to the demands of the situation, which requires adequate cognitive control of focused attention and inhibition (van Nieuwenhuijzen et al., 2015). In order to respond competently, children must possess the ability to filter out irrelevant information and consider different possible behavioral responses and outcomes of responses, which requires inhibition of the urge to react impulsively and draw immediate conclusions about social scenarios. Inhibition is also helpful to prevent maladaptive schemas from negatively influencing SIP in ambiguous social scenarios. Intervention with reactively aggressive children who exhibit deficits in producing prosocial responses should focus upon impulse control to delay their responses, and on the development of social cognitive education to identify prosocial responses. PSCs can teach children who display deficits in emotional regulation to identify emotions and develop strategies to inhibit their emotional intensity. Children who react with aggression to peer rejection are more likely to attempt to conceal their emotional expression, which is associated with increased arousal, leaving them at greater risk for emotional dysregulation (Cortez & Bugental, 1994). Aggressive children are more likely to react impulsively in order to quickly eliminate their negative emotion, and thus fail to consider how the action may be inconsistent with their social goals (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Children’s attempts to reduce negative emotions should be redirected to modify, rather than eliminate emotional experiences (Cortez & Bugental, 1994). Providing such

students can identify strategies for managing their emotions, and the school counselor's prompting may help them to recall their strengths and resources. Mindfulness techniques may also help with anxious and intrusive thoughts that lead to impulsive aggressive responses. PSCs should form supportive bonds with aggressive children so that they are motivated to delay their responses with the promise of gratification by processing negative emotions with the counselor. When possible, PSCs should provide immediate positive feedback when children are able to employ prosocial responses to conflict. As aggressive children develop the ability to manage their emotional intensity, they can subsequently be encouraged to learn to accept these emotions. Accepting one's emotions helps aggressive youth realize that they can tolerate emotions and provides them with greater insight regarding their wants/goals. Upon learning to tolerate and understand the more vulnerable emotions associated anger, aggressive children hopefully gain a better understanding of their goals/wants and can develop a plan that help them achieve their wants/goals. For example, the aggressive child may realize their goal is to maintain a friendship and threatening to end the relationship with a friend who does not acquiesce to their demand is not likely to be an effective long-term strategy for achieving their goal. In intervening with reactive aggressors, given that their responses are typically impulsive and highly emotional, PSCs may ask children when they are ready to receive feedback and process the events, giving children time to return to a state of calm where they can better process feedback. Interventions that exercise the working memory, such as verbal rehearsals, can help children plan for challenges and have immediate access to prosocial responses (Scholte, Engels, Overbeek, Van de Kemp, & Haselager, 2007).

PSCs may prepare children by asking them to identify alternative strategies to aggression and have them verbally rehearse prosocial language to manage conflict. Intervening with proactively aggressive children who exhibit deficits in response generation should include the development of prosocial versus instrumental goals. While proactively aggressive children may have greater cognitive empathy than their less aggressive peers (Arsenio & Gold, 2006; Arsenio & Lemerise, 2001), there is some evidence to suggest that they are lacking in emotional empathy (Matli & Keller, 2009). PSCs could ask such students what they think their victim felt and what were the indicators of their victim's feelings, given that the goal is to encourage the perpetrator to develop a healthy sense of guilt. Some experts consider guilt to be an appropriate emotion, as it is indication of a violation of prosocial values (Greenberg, 2015). However, it is important for the PSC to assess whether the student is experiencing a sense of shame, which is not considered to be a healthy emotion, as it associated with negative views of self (Greenberg, 2015). With proactively aggressive children who display extreme self-interest, the PSC could assist them in recognizing the benefits of prosocial responses but assume a long-term approach in helping them internalize societal rules, including empathic concern for others (Frey et al., 2005). There are several ways in which PSCs can promote the emotional empathy of proactively aggressive children. Since research suggests emotional empathy is associated with prosocial behavior (Ongley, Nola, & Malti, 2014), PSCs should engage proactively aggressive children in moral evaluations of their aggressive responses to sharpen their empathic reasoning and replace instrumental goals with prosocial goals. PSCs may engage children in the process of empathic