Relational Aggression
In a study of 491 third- through sixth-grade girls, Crick and Grotpeter (1995) found that girls, while physically less aggressive than boys, practice what they termed “relational aggression.” They defined it as behavior intended to harm by damaging or manipulating relationships with others.
It aims at destruction of relationships by means such as cyber bullying, exclusion, insults, malicious gossip, manipulation, peer pressure, rumor mongering, shaming, taunting, and teasing. It may have evolved as an alternative to physical bullying because of social expectations that girls must “be nice.”Relational aggression develops as early as age three in approximately 20% of females. It peaks in the pre- and early-adolescent years when friendship and social connections are especially important and therefore a point of great vulnerability. For a smaller percentage, it continues into adulthood. It is rare in males, although they may join females in directing it at females.
Research shows that the targets of relational aggression can exhibit a wide range of symptoms and behaviors including eating disorders, anxiety, delinquency, reduced achievement, attempts to ingratiate themselves with their ab-users,9 reduced sociability, withdrawal, and even suicide.
The case that put relational aggression into the national spotlight involved Phoebe Prince, a 2009 teenage immigrant from Ireland tormented to the point of committing suicide in January 2010. The four girls and two boys involved were indicted as adults on felony charges including violation of civil rights, assault, criminal harassment, stalking, and statutory rape. In May 2011, all the defendants agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges and received varying combinations of probation and community service.
The case accelerated the attention given to bullying in state legislatures.
As of 2011, 47 states have passed anti-bullying legislation, the first being Georgia in 1999 well before the Prince incident (Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota are the exceptions). In the Prince case, school staff members knew generally of the situation, but were found not guilty of criminal liability. While easy to condemn after the fact, the verdict recognized that it is extremely difficult for school staff to distinguish harmless teasing from serious aggression before the consequences appear—particularly as much of it occurs off-campus. Schools have initiated programs addressing the issue such as one for third graders based on Eleanor Estes’s The Hundred Dresses and the related classroom guide by Cheryl Russell. Recently, television channels aimed at children have been running public service announcements concerning bullying, including one specifically targeting relational aggression in girls as a form of bullying.In adult women, relational aggression becomes the “queen bee syndrome,” identified in the 1970s by Staines, Jayaratne, and Tavris who exmined promotion rates and the impact of the women’s movement on the workplace. They found that women who achieved success were at times likely to oppose the rise of other women, largely they though because they were obsessed with maintaining their authority. Far from nurturing younger women, they view them as competitors so undermine their self-confidence and professional standing.10