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- Title
Irritability and rejection‐elicited aggression in adolescents and young adults.
- Authors
Quarmley, Megan; Vafiadis, Athena; Jarcho, Johanna M.
- Abstract
Background: Violence exacts staggering personal and financial costs – a burden disproportionally born by adolescents and young adults. This may be partially due to an increased sensitivity to social rejection during this critical phase of development. Irritability, a transdiagnostic symptom, is often elicited by social interactions. Yet, little is known about age differences in social rejection‐elicited aggression and irritability. Progress toward testing such relations has been hindered by a lack of ecologically‐valid tasks that enable the measurement of in‐the‐moment social rejection‐elicited aggression. Methods: In this paper, we describe an initial study of young adults (n = 55) that demonstrates the efficacy of a novel Virtual School and Aggression Paradigm (VS‐AP). Next, we replicate these results in a second study of adolescents and young adults (ages 11–25 years; n = 173) and examine relations between social rejection‐elicited aggression, irritability, and age. Results: We found that aggressive behavior in the VS‐AP differed for accepting, rejecting, and unpredictable peer types (Study 1: F(2, 108) = 20.57, p <.001, ε2 =.28; Study 2: F(2, 344) = 152.13, p <.001, ε2 =.47), demonstrating that the VS‐AP successfully models social rejection‐elicited aggression. In Study 2, age was negatively correlated with aggressive behavior (r = −.29, p <.001) and irritability (r = −.28, p <.001), while irritability was positively correlated with aggressive behavior (r =.28, p <.001). Age moderated the relation between social rejection‐elicited aggression and irritability. Specifically, irritability was more predictive of aggression in young adults than in adolescents (F(3, 167) = 7.07, p <.001). Conclusions: Data suggest mechanisms promoting rejection‐elicited aggression may differ across development and vary for those with and without high levels of irritability. The VS‐AP is a promising tool for probing neurocognitive, developmental, and clinically relevant mechanisms underlying social rejection‐elicited aggression.
- Subjects
RESEARCH; AFFECT (Psychology); SOCIAL theory; VIOLENCE; SOCIAL isolation; TREATMENT effectiveness; PARADIGMS (Social sciences); COMPARATIVE studies; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; TEENAGERS' conduct of life; INTERPERSONAL relations; SOCIAL skills; AGGRESSION (Psychology); STATISTICAL correlation; ADULTS; ADOLESCENCE
- Publication
Journal of Child Psychology, 2023, Vol 64, Issue 9, p1346
- ISSN
0021-9630
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/jcpp.13804