NCJ Number
185301
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 5 Issue: 5 Dated: September-October 2000 Pages: 467-490
Editor(s)
Vincent B. Van Hasselt,
Michel Hersen
Date Published
2000
Length
24 pages
Annotation
Social-cognitive information processing models have frequently been used as a reference in studying the aggressive behavior of children and adolescents; according to these models, aggressive behavior is considered to be one way for children and adolescents to cope with the social problems of daily life.
Abstract
A high level of aggressive behavior is traced to deficiencies in processing social information, for example, in encoding social cues, interpreting situations, adopting goals, producing strategies, and evaluating responses, leading to an increased likelihood of employing aggressive problem-solving strategies. Emotional and physiological factors are also suggested to contribute to social-cognitive information processing activities that promote aggression. The development of aggressively biased ways of processing social information is seen to be related to numerous biological and environmental factors. The author concludes that social-cognitive information processing models have helped to explain aggressive behavior in several areas. New information has been obtained about specific social-cognitive mechanisms used to regulate aggressive behavior. The social-cognitive information processing approach has extended knowledge of the development of aggressive behavior. The basic hypothesis of the social-cognitive information processing models is that certain developmental factors may cause a deviation in the social cognitive memory structure that, in turn, may be reflected as deficiencies and aggressive biases in social-cognitive information processing patterns, patterns that increase the likelihood of employing aggressive problem-solving strategies. 148 references and 2 figures