Relational Aggression Among College Students Research Paper

Introduction

Speech communication is deployed in various interaction contexts between people of different ages and gender. For example, through speech communication, gender may be played out or acted. Through speech communication, people can build both positive and negatives relations. Relational aggression (RA) is one of the research areas in speech communication that have received immense scholarly research.

RA refers to any damaging relationships in which people use speech to present negatively the social status of others. Relational aggression produces different negative life-long repercussions among people whose relationships are damaged. This paper focuses on relational aggression among youths aged between 18-22 years in 10 colleges in the Californian metropolitan area.

Literature Review

Relational violence or offensive relationship has been witnessed in many societies around the world. It denotes a form of harassment where damage on an individual is caused by interfering with the person’s affairs or social standing. Relational aggression can be deployed in several situations and among diverse age brackets. However, scholars have not investigated such hostility in details among teenagers.

The consideration that this type of antagonism has received has been amplified by the facilitation of trendy media such as videos and paperbacks. In fact, a large scholarly body of knowledge that has examined the issue of relational aggression has focused primarily on adolescents. Peers influence one’s behavior and interaction processes significantly in the adolescent stage (Ostrov & Bishop, 2008).

Such interactions are incredibly important for healthy psychological development. Indeed, Ostrov and Bishop (2008) assert, “Peers provide many new behavioral models and feedback that is essential for successful identity formation and for the development of one’s sense of self” (p.310). Positive identities are formed when peers engage in speech communication about their friends. Such communication leads to positive profiling. Conversely, negative identities may make one feel bad about himself or herself. This situation has the implications of making peers develop low self-esteem.

Cassidy (2009) considers relational aggression as a type of bullying. Bullying implies “physically or psychologically violent re-occurring and not provoked acts, where the bully and victim have unequal physical strength and/or psychological power” (Forero, McLellan, Rissel, & Bauman, 2009, p.345). These conditions are found to characterize all forms of bullying, including verbal and relational or even physical harassment.

Relational aggression takes different forms, which can be classified into two: covert and indirect relational aggressions (Ostrov & Bishop, 2008). It may be planned, implying that it is acerbated with some predetermined goals. The fact that it can also be reactive means that it is acerbated in reaction to some perceive hostilities and/or threats. Ostrov and Bishop (2008) assert that relational aggression may be peer-directed and/or romantic in nature in some situations.

Ostrov and Bishop (2008) also acknowledge the availability of several studies that focus on investigating different types of relational aggression. Such studies show how reactive hostilities relate to tendencies, which assume that other people have antagonistic intentions towards them. However, it is important to note that the highest focus of relational aggression has been mainly on adolescents and children since studying relational aggression among adults is problematic (Cassidy, 2009).

Relational aggression denies people their right to equity and equality in participation in societal processes. Equality refers to a state of an affair in which people in a society or even isolated groups of people possess the same status in some certain respects. In communication, equality means the possessing of equal rights as stipulated in the freedom of speech law. The targets of relational aggression develop a perception that they are less powerful compared to people who engage in name-calling, backbiting, teasing, or any act that amounts to relational aggression. Consequently, targets of relational hostility lose equity and equality rights in terms of communicating freely.

Relational aggression depends on demographic differences. For example, gender is an important factor in studying relational aggression. While males are more likely to engage in physical aggression, females are more likely to engage in verbal antagonism (Putallaz et al., 2007). Yeung and Leadbeater (2007) assert that today, female aggression is associated with hostile bodily languages, including eye rolling, rumor and teasing, and secrets.

Females are also more likely to use exclusion, ignorance, and gossiping as aggressive behaviors towards other women compared to men. The fact that attempts to complain or refute escalate the speech aggressive behavior makes the victims suffer even more harm. They develop internal anger that they cannot expose or let it burst in fear of more aggression. Despite using different approaches to expressing aggressive speech behavior towards their targets, Ostrov and Godleski (2010) assert that both males and females do so with the motive of displaying their power, competitiveness, control, gaining higher self-esteem associated with societal popularity, and/or because of jealousy.

Literature on speech aggressive behavior evidences that such conducts can be found among preschool children, although it is most prevalent among adolescents with a probability of it continuing even into adulthood (Ostrov & Godleski, 2010). Hence, aggressive speech behavior begins at early years of socialization processes.

As a form of bullying in schools, relational aggression constitutes the most common method of bullying in the US. In a study by Nansel et al. (2011), between 15% and 20% of students reported being bullied over a period of one term. This prevalence level is lower compared to other places in the world. For example, Nansel et al. (2011) assert that some countries record up to 70% students who claim to have experienced relational bullying.

In schools around the globe, many cases of frequent bullying occur at least once in a week. For example, research on a Malta sample indicated a 19% prevalence level while a sample on Irish school bullying reported a 1.9% prevalence level (Forero et al., 2009). The types of bulling may take the form of physical aggression, verbal abuse, name-calling, threats, and even rejection. It is important to note that many researches on different forms of bullying have been done in Australia and Europe (Nansel et al., 2011). This situation creates a room for conducting a similar research in the US. The current paper studies relational aggressive behavior in the context of the Californian metropolitan area.

Statement of Hypothesis

The current research hypothesizes that rumor spreading is the most frequently used tool for relational aggression among college girls aged between 18 and 22 years in California.

Research Methods

A research can be designed as one of the four main approaches, namely, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and/or the emancipator approach. In this research, pragmatic approach will be utilized. Freshwater, Sherwood, and Drury (2006) posit, “Pragmatic researchers grant themselves the freedom to use any of the methods, techniques, and procedures typically associated with quantitative or qualitative research” (p.295).

The freedom of choice of method depends on the researchers’ perception and evaluation of the methods that best suit the particular research they are conducting. The best choice is the one that utilizes methodologies that complement one another. This aspect forms the basic logic for designing this research to use the pragmatic approach that deploys aspects of both quantitative and qualitative research.

For the methodology of any qualitative research to be effective, it deserves to demonstrate various features or criteria for excellence as established by the preceding assessment criteria. However, such research designs have problems of validity. Qualitative research lacks validity “because of necessity to incorporate rigor and subjectivity, as well as creativity into scientific processes” (Whittermore, Chase, & Mandle, 2001, p.522).

Rigor is crucial for a systematic qualitative research. The data used only needs to make use of particular criteria to establish relationships or differences. The proposed research establishes the prevalence of different ways of acerbating speech aggression behavior among college students

The current research uses surveys as the primary data collection tool. The independent variable is the perception and recognition of the existence of speech aggressive behavior in school settings in the geographical area of interest. The dependent variable is its effects and the problems on targets. Some survey questions that require qualitative information will also be used to help in the provision of data on specific perceptions about the effect of speech aggressive behavior on the society.

Eight (8) survey questions will be used to capture the aspects of boys and girls’ (18-22 years old) experiences with different forms of speech aggressive behavior. However, the research is restricted to only three variables, which are also important forms of speech relational aggression. These variables include rumor spreading, teasing, and gossiping. The survey questions are shown in appendix A.

Eight hundred (800) copies of survey questions will be prepared. Two researchers will administer these survey questions to 10 different colleges in a selective manner to ensure that half of these copies are administered to boys. The respondents will indicate their demographic information in the survey questionnaires. It will be expected that all the 800 copies will be responded promptly. Hence, no survey questions will be rejected. However, any copy filled by persons above 22 years will not be included in the data analysis and presentation. Data will be analyzed through computations of percentages of responses for each question in the survey questionnaire. These results will then be used to conduct an analysis of speech relational aggression.

Conclusion

Relational aggression constitutes an important aspect studied in the speech communication. It may be practical or imprudent. Relational speech aggression may lead to lowering the targets’ self-esteem, make them feel bad about themselves, and/or negatively impair their socialization processes. Most of the studies in relational aggression have investigated its implications and the mechanisms in which it has been acerbated among adolescents.

Although it has been found problematic to study it in the context of adults, it has been found to continue through adulthood when developed at early years of growth. Rumor spreading is the most common form of relational aggression among college girls. This claim is consistent with past studies on the subject. To verify this assumption, a research is proposed in the Californian metropolitan area focusing on 10 colleges with survey selected as the research methodology.

Reference List

Cassidy, T. (2009). Bullying and victimization in schoolchildren: the role of social identity, problem-solving style, and family and school context. Social Psychology of Education, 12(1), 63-76.

Forero, R., McLellan, L., Rissel, C., & Bauman, A. (2009). Bullying behavior and psychosocial health among school students in New South Wales, Australia: Cross Sectional Survey. BMJ, 319 (7), 344–348.

Freshwater, D., Sherwood, G., & Drury, V. (2006). International research collaboration: Issues, benefits and challenges of the global network. Journal of Research in marketing, 11(4), 295-303.

Nansel, T., Overpeck, M., Pila, R., Ruan, R., Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2011). Bullying behaviors’ among US youth: prevalence and association with psychological adjustment. JAMA, 285(16), 2094-2100.

Ostrov, J., & Bishop, C. (2008). Preschoolers’ aggression and parent-child conflict: A multi-informant and multi-method study. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 99(4), 309-322.

Ostrov, J., & Godleski, S. (2010). Toward an integrated gender-linked model of aggression subtypes in early and middle childhood. Psychological Review, 117(5), 233-242.

Putallaz, M., Grimes, C., Foster, K., Kupersmidt, J., Coie, J., & Dearing, K. (2007). Overt and relational aggression and victimization: Multiple perspectives within the school setting. Journal of School Psychology, 45(4), 523-547.

Whittermore, R., Chase, S., & Mandle, C. (2001). Validity in Qualitative Research. Qualitative health research. Health Policy & Services, 11(4), 522-537.

Yeung, S., & Leadbeater, B. (2007). Does hostile attribution bias for relational provocations mediate the short-term association between relational victimization and aggression in preadolescence? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36(2), 973-983.

Appendices

Appendix A

• Please specify your gender (male or female)
  • Male;
  • Female.
• Place specify your age
  • 13-17;
  • 18-22;
  • Above 22.
• Have you ever experienced any form of speech relational aggression
  • Yes;
  • No.
• If your answer to question 3 is ‘Yes’, what type of relational aggression did you experience?
  • Rumor spreading;
  • Teasing;
  • Gossiping;
  • Specify if other__________.
• If your answer to question 3 is ‘Yes’, how did you cope with it?
  • Refuted;
  • Ignored;
  • Specify if other__________.
• If your answer to question 3 is ‘Yes’, how did you feel or react?
  • Angry;
  • Low self-esteem;
  • hated;
  • specify if other____________.
• Why do you think speech relational aggression you experienced is bad?
• What do you think the college authorities should do to address the kind of relational aggression you have experienced?