Program Goals/Target Population
The Social Aggression Prevention Program (SAPP) was a school-based, small group program designed to prevent social aggression and increase empathy, prosocial behavior, and social problem-solving skills among fifth-grade females. The program used a manualized curriculum and small group activities. The program emphasized the role of peer influences within conflicts and was designed to foster 1) emotional awareness of oneself and others during conflicts, 2) cognitive understanding of the motivations and consequences related to socially aggressive behavior, and 3) behavioral skills to resolve socially aggressive conflicts. The program goals were to reduce social aggression and increase positive leadership among peers.
Program Activities
SAPP was a school-based prevention program for girls in later elementary school, at an age where many have experienced social aggression but have not developed patterns of use. The target population included all fifth-grade girls regardless of “risk” or other factors. The SAPP group received a semi-structured curriculum, which was conducted in groups of four to seven girls with one group leader. The intervention consisted of 10 weekly 40-minute sessions that were conducted during the school day but outside of the classroom. The program strongly emphasized peers’ roles in perpetuating and dissolving socially aggressive conflicts. Activities focused on increasing emotional awareness, cognitive understanding, and the behavioral skills needed to resolve socially aggressive conflicts in a prosocial manner rather than perpetuate them.
SAPP group leaders used discussion, role playing, modeling, games, and collaboration to 1) increase knowledge of social aggression, 2) build emotional understanding of oneself and others during a conflict, 3) promote positive communication and behavior, 4) provide opportunities to observe, model, and practice social skills, and 5) teach social problem-solving skills.
Key Personnel
The SAPP small groups were led by female graduate students in clinical psychology and other women with experience in counseling elementary-age children.
Program Theory
Social aggression is the use of nonconfrontational behavior that employs a social community, otherwise referred to as subtle confrontational behavior (Galen and Underwood 1997; Underwood 2003). Social aggression is empirically different from overt aggression, in that social aggression perpetration and victimization are associated more with social and psychological adjustment than overt aggression (Crick and Bigbee 1998; Prinstein et al. 2001). When considering social aggression, the use of peers and friendship groups are also qualitatively different. Typically, at least three people are involved in instances of social aggression: the perpetrator, victim, and follower(s). Peer followers are integral components to the equation by spreading rumors, enacting the exclusion, and encouraging the person who perpetrated the crime (Pepler and Craig 1995; Xie, Swift, Cairns, and Cairns 2002). Some researchers have found that prevalence and experience of social aggression varies by gender and age, and girls in late childhood and early adolescence may be at a higher risk than boys (French et al. 2002; Rys and Bear 1997; Xie et al. 2003). The intervention focused specifically on girls because they are often ignored in aggression research and intervention (Giordano and Cernkovich 1997).
The curriculum content for SAPP was guided by the ABCD (affective, behavioral, cognitive, dynamic) model of development, which posits that children’s internal and external coping arises from their combined emotional awareness, cognitive understanding, and behavioral skills (Greenberg, Kusche, and Mihalic 1998). Social–interactional theory laid the framework for the intervention setting, implying that these types of behaviors commonly unfold within a school-based, within-gender peer group social context (Craig and Pepler 2000; Grotpeter and Crick 1996; Paquette and Underwood 1999; Xie, Cairns, and Cairns 2002). Additionally, social learning theory guided the composition of intervention in small groups so that participants could learn from each other (Bandura 1973; Craig, Pepler, and Atlas 2000; Huesmann and Eron 1984).
