Sugar and spice and everything nice?

That’s not what some girls are made of

Most studies about aggressive behavior in children have focused on boys and on physical expressions of aggression. “It gave the appearance that girls really were sugar and spice and everything nice,” says Nicki Crick, professor of child development. “But I didn’t believe that was really the case.”

For more than six years, Crick has been conducting longitudinal studies of relational aggression, witnessed mainly in girls. Rather than physically harming others, relationally aggressive children will threaten such retaliations as: “Do this or I won’t be your friend.” Or: “If you don’t help me, I’ll tell Amy you said she was ugly.”

“It can look as though girls have happy little childhoods compared to boys, but I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” Crick says. “By finding out more about how this form of aggression works, how it develops, and its underlying causes, we could create a huge opportunity for intervention and prevention that could make childhood a truly happier time for girls and boys, both.”

How the research on relational aggression works

Crick began one of her studies with a group of third-graders. They are now in middle school and Crick hopes to continue working with the same group through adolescence and young adulthood.

“I am interested in following this group and seeing how early behaviors might be related to such things as later substance abuse, teen pregnancy, problematic eating patterns, school dropout rates, and delinquent behavior,” she says. “This field is wide open. There is so much we don’t know that we need to know to better help these kids.”

In 2001 Crick initiated another longitudinal study, this time with young children in preschool. She hopes to follow them as they make the transition to elementary school to increase our understanding of the early development of relational aggression.

What the research shows

Some of Crick’s early research findings show relational aggression is related to factors such as particular types of family relationships and relationships with friends and other peers. She is especially interested in children whose aggression is gender-atypical—that is, girls who are physically aggressive and boys who are relationally aggressive.

“These kids seem to be the most at-risk for more serious social problems later in life,” she says. “The most apparent reason is that not only does their aggressive behavior make them less popular, but the fact that they’re perceived by their peers as acting inappropriately for their gender further isolates them.”

What others say about this research

“Nicki has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of aggressive behavior by girls,” says Kenneth Dodge, professor of public policy studies at Duke University. “She has reshaped the field by forcing us to re-think the incorrect stereotype that girls are not aggressive. She has described aggressive behavior that is directed toward the destruction of a peer’s social relationships, and she has shown that girls display this pattern more frequently than boys do. The life course, antecedents, and psychological mechanisms of this behavior are similar to those of overt physical aggression, which is more typically displayed by boys. Nicki is the leader in our understanding of girls’ aggression.”

William Bukowski, psychology professor at Concordia University, says, “Nicki Crick’s research on the variety of forms that aggressive behavior can take has expanded our understanding of the functioning of the peer group and of the differential means by which boys and girls can hurt and be hurt by each other. By providing convincing evidence that boys and girls engage in different forms of aggression Dr. Crick has truly changed the scope of research on peer relations and opened new windows for the understanding of social development in girls.”

Carol Dweck, psychology professor at Columbia University, says Crick’s work “has completely changed the field of aggression from an exclusive emphasis on boys and physical aggression. The field now takes seriously the fact that girls can have a problem with aggression and that aggression can involve an assault on other children’s relationships.

“The most exciting thing, conceptually, is that girls’ ‘relational’ aggression shares a number of key characteristics with boys’ physical aggression. Both are linked to a hostile attributional bias (the tendency to over-perceive hostile intent in others’ behavior) and to a similar array of problems in adjustment and social relations. This is developmental research at its best, with the power to shape the way scholars think and the power to change children’s lives.”

“Nicki Crick’s research has revolutionized the field’s understanding of sex differences in psychopathology,” says Dante Cicchetti, director of the Mt. Hope Center at the University of Rochester. “In a series of creative and rigorous studies, she has taught us that girls also experience adjustment difficulties in childhood. Nicki’s work demonstrates that girls manifest an array of mental health problems in childhood, including those of an externalizing nature (e.g., relational aggression).

“Nicki’s research findings suggest that epidemiological findings may be a vast underestimate of the amount of psychopathology in girls. Likewise, there is much that remains to be discussed concerning pathways to adaptation in girls. As our knowledge in the area of gender and psychopathology continues to expand, as I am certain it will under Nicki’s leadership, there will be implications for preventing adjustment difficulties in children of both genders.”

Why this research matters

Just as fights among boys can lead to a “boys will be boys” response from adults, girls who are mean to one another can lead to adults saying, “That’s just how girls are.” And while Crick recognizes that almost all children are cruel to one another on occasion, she emphasizes that some children are at the extreme edge of such behavior and need help.

“My hope and goal with this research is that people who interact with children and adolescents will come to understand how detrimental and harmful this kind of behavior is, take it seriously, support the kids who are victims of it, and help those kids who are perpetrating it,” Crick says.

December 2002