Participant Roles in Aggression: Analysis of the Overt and Relational Aggression Participant Role Scales with Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Abstract

The peer group is a dynamic context within which children and adolescents have a wide range of experiences, both positive and negative. Friendships provide support and a sense of belonging; however, friendships can also be contexts within which competition and aggression occur. During childhood and adolescence, aggression and victimization are likely to occur in the school context and in situations where several members of the peer group are present and sometimes actively (or passively) participating. In the seminal work related to bullying as a group process, Salmivalli and colleagues identified distinct roles that children take when enacting aggression (Salmivalli et al., 1996). Salmivalli's work, in the area of participant roles, however, has focused on overt bullying, a specific subtype of aggression which has a specific meaning within the peer relations literature. To date, the participant roles have not been measured within the context of overt and relational aggression. The purpose of the present study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Overt Aggression Participant Role Scale (OAPRS) and the Relational Aggression Participant Role Scale (RAPRS), two new scales designed by the author, to measure the aggressor, assistant, reinforcer, defender, outsider, and victim roles during acts aggression, as opposed to bullying. Additional goals include: 1) exploring the associations among the roles, 2) examining measurement equivalence across gender and grade level, and 3) exploring associations of the participant roles with measures of sociometric status and depressive symptoms. Findings point toward the psychometric properties of the two scales being quite robust. The data fit the 12 factor model and the scales measure the constructs equivalently across gender and three grade groups. The aggressor, assistant, and reinforcer roles were strongly associated as were the aggressor and victim roles. Several relational roles were highly overlapping, suggesting reciprocity of roles. Few meaningful gender or grade level differences were found resulting in more similarity in the overt and relational roles than differences. The outsider role was the only role not associated with depressive symptoms. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.