Developing the Helping Skills and Prosocial Motivation of Aggressive Adolescents in Peer Group Programs

• NCJ Number: 171714
• Journal: Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1996) Pages: 283-305
• Author(s): J C Gibbs; G B Potter; A Q Barriga; A K Liau
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 23 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Peer group and skills training treatment approaches are integrated in EQUIP, an innovative group program for aggressive and other antisocial adolescents.

Abstract

Peer group programs such as Positive Peer Culture have generally had only mixed success, perhaps because they do not sufficiently counteract the negative youth culture and the helping skill limitations of antisocial youth. These helping skill limitations include delay or immaturity in moral judgment and egocentric bias, social information processing deficits and distortions, and social skill deficiencies. Single-component skills training interventions addressing or another of these limitations have also had only mixed success. In contrast, EQUIP introduces "equipment meetings" to remediate the preceding limitations by incorporating multicomponent skills training into a peer group treatment approach. Equipment meetings also promote the development of a positive youth culture and hence the prosocial motivation of group members. A case example of the use of EQUIP with a group of incarcerated juvenile offenders is presented. 156 references and 2 tables