Talk:Relational aggression

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article was nominated for deletion on 15 January 2006. The result of the discussion was KEEP. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

I added external links and a summaries of what seems to be balanced here. For all those people who research this topic please weigh in. (Note: I used 'sex' versus 'gender' here because 'gender' is code word that some (self-described-Stalinist) 'gender' feminists use to push their agendas. Please use terms here accepted by both men and women so some sort of consensus is possible because there is much debate about many basic gender-feminist assumptions) I hope to see this article include all known forms of relational aggression in all possible settings with distinct distinctions that separate other forms of aggression from relational aggression. Anacapa 06:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Rewrite Thoughts 2 Confused 3 Books and movies on relational agression 4 Slight error in the last revision? 5 Female Bullying 6 Family bullying 7 Abusive relationship

[edit] Rewrite Thoughts

The best definitions I can find (e.g., http://jea.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/24/3/303 ) start off by describign what relationship aggression is outside of it's (alleged, but perhaps true) most common occurance in school-age female children. This seems a possibly productive way to begin writing a better article for relational aggression, then proceeding to talk about the sorts of places where it's commonly seen.

The existing article also seems to focus, quite a bit, on male/female differences. That information is important, but I'd like to see it be cohesive and citation-based, right now it feels a bit off-the-cuff, which is great for a stub (hey, we've got an article at all!), but not what I'd like to eventually see. --Joe Decker 08:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Joe, please glance at the other links on this article especially the UK Bullies in the Family link. I think you will notice that adults use relational aggression too. I want to make sure we don't blame school kids for something that adults do and model to kids. The focus on male female differences is, I believe, important as Relational Aggression is a preferred form of aggression for females since it uses psychological rather than physical violence. However, I am concerned that people refrain from steoreotyping all females or all males. Obviously some females can and do commit physical aggression and some males can and do commit psychological aggression. As for citations I too would like to see much more and broader sourcing here. I will do what I can as I have time.Anacapa 01:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Sorry for the delayed reply, I will try and dig up that link. I've tried to simplify and shorten the statement that relational aggression is not age- or sex-exclusive. I see some literature as I look today that seems to suggest that there's not really that great a gender difference, e.g., the Project Ophielia FAQ--right now I'm thinking it's appropriate to note that the term "female bullying" is used for that, to note that RA does come from different ages and sexes, and (hopefully) put future work more into providing a better explanation, perhaps with even more examples, of the types of behavior. I've also tried to source a bunch more of what the article says, and start converting refs over to the ref-tag system. Comments and criticisms are very welcome.--Joe Decker 19:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

I read through this article, and call me stupid, but I still don't have a clear idea of what it's talking about. Maybe some examples would help. User:Zaorish

'A' tells a lie about 'B' behind 'B's' back to 'C' so 'B' becomes seen as a 'bad' girl. shunning is a great example of relational aggression by whole groups against a one a few people. In the Chinese Red Revolution group-shaming was used to such effect that by time the Maoists actually murdered their victims they were often stripped of everything that made them human and their actual murder was merely a sideshow.

I've added a couple examples that may help here, in a new paragraph that describes that older kids tend towards more covert styles of RA.--Joe Decker 19:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Books and movies on relational agression

I don't have time right now to link the rash of recent books that have come out on this topic such as Queen Bees and Wannabes. However, I will when I can and I suggest an Amazon Books survey to those editors who need a clearer idea about this topic. The movie Mean Girls is I believe a movie about this theme but I haven't seen it.

[edit] Slight error in the last revision?

Also known (now in 2006) as covert bullying, social aggression, male bullying, female bullying, or family bullying it is a cruel, cunning, and covert form of aggression.

Is male bullying really a synonym for relational aggression? I think male bullying usually referes to other forms of aggression. Maybe delete both male and female bullying if want to avoid mentioning only female bullying.

no as far as I know no one in the research setting uses male bullying in to label relational aggression algthough men do indeed indulge in relational aggression as well. I deleted 'male bullying' and changed female to 'female' to prevent perjorative meanings.

I had to delete "male bullying" as well just now. While "female bullying" is used in the citations as a synonym for relational aggression, not only have I not seen "male bullying" as a synonym for relational aggression, I've seen it many times used as an antonym. [1]. Wikipedia is not a primary or secondary source, it is a tertiary source, and relies on compiling the usage of these terms as they are in fact used in the literature. In my work with male and female victims of all types of abuse I've seen relational aggression used by men and women, and used against men and women, however, that is irrelevant to the point at hand. --Joe Decker 07:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Female Bullying

As near as I can tell, one or more editors here are understandably trying to establish that relational aggression is not necessarily male or female (which is entirely reasonable), however, in doing so they are taking issue with the arguably sexist language that refers to relational aggression as "female bullying" but not "male bullying". In the last two days I've effectively reverted two such efforts, one an attempt to include the term "male bullying" as a synonym, the other an attempt to redact the term "female bullying". As an additional note, the second such edit was made with a note that the editor would explain their reasoning here on the Talk page, I don't see the reasoning here, so I figured I'd start a section, and start a discussion on the subject.

Let me be clear, Wikipedia is not a place for original research. (see WP:NOR) While this article needs work and additional specific citations for the words it uses. As per that policy, Wikipedia is a "tertiary" source, statements made in Wikipedia should be verifiable (see WP:V) from reliable sources (WP:RS). The term "female bullying" is commonly used in the literature as a synonym for relational aggression, the term "male bullying" is used as a synonym for something quite different. The citation I have provided on the term "female bullying" in the article introduction is clear (as are other sources) on these usages. That I find the use of those terms somewhat misleading (since of course both forms of bullying are perpetrated by members of both sexes, albeit at different frequencies) is absolutely moot to the question of what terms we should use here. Moreover, I defend the Wikipedia policy not only on the grounds of "the rule is the rule", but on the grounds that, whether I have a problem with it or not, the term "female bullying" is in fact in common usage, it appears in several books and articles studying the general problem of relational aggression, readers looking for information on relational aggression are likely to have heard the term and are going to want citations describing what it means, that is what Wikipedia is for. --Joe Decker 18:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To the anonymous, United Kingdom-based editor who re-added the "male bullying" with a citation to the article at [2] as of 19 February 2007--the article, as I read it, does not include the word "bullying" at all, much less the term "male bullying". Therefore, the citation you gave does not in fact evidence the term "male bullying" as being used synonymously with "relational aggression." However, I have produced references which use the terms, e.g., [3]. So far I've been working under the belief that you are editing Wikipedia in Good Faith, if you continue to engage in an edit war without discussion you may lead me to believe that your edits are more intentionally destructive. --Joe Decker 22:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Family bullying

In the contexts I've researched so far, family bulling doesn't seem to be consistently used to refer to specifically "relational aggression" styles of bullying. If someone can provide a reference that does define it that way, I'll include it, otherwise I'm removing the statement as unsourced. --Joe Decker 18:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found such a reference. Will restore it. --Joe Decker 19:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abusive relationship

I'm going to be WP:BOLD and merge this stub into this article. Bearian 00:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)