Einfluss emotionaler und sozial-kognitiver Prozesse auf das aggressive Verhalten bei Kindern im Kindergartenalter

This cumulative dissertation focuses on the influence of emotional and social-cognitive processes on aggressive behavior in a sample of 193 preschool-aged children. Data on emotion regulation, social information processing (SIP), and aggressive behavior has been assessed using different methods (teacher report, structured observation, and child interview). Study I (Helmsen&Petermann, 2010a) showed that physically aggressive children exhibited deficits in almost every step of SIP. Relationally aggressive children did not show any biases in SIP. Study II (Helmsen&Petermann, 2010b) showed that physically aggressive children focused their attention on frustrating stimulus and used venting and cognitive verbalization more often than non-physically aggressive children. Relationally aggressive children used venting more often than non-relationally aggressive children. Study III (Helmsen, Koglin&Petermann, 2010) revealed that the relation between maladaptive emotion regulation and aggression was direct and not mediated by SIP biases.