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Intercommunity differences in aggression among Zapotec children.

¹Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson 85721.

Child Development

|August 1, 1988

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Children

Area of Science:

Cross-cultural psychology
Developmental psychology
Social learning theory

Background:

Aggression patterns in children can reflect community violence levels.
Social learning theory posits that aggressive behaviors are learned through observation and imitation.
Previous research suggests a link between adult and child aggression, but cross-cultural comparisons are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare play and serious aggression in Zapotec children from communities with differing adult violence levels.
To test the hypothesis that children's agonistic behavior mirrors adult violence patterns, as predicted by social learning theory.
To investigate cultural transmission of aggression patterns across generations.

Main Methods:

Ethological observation of 48 Zapotec children aged 3-8 years.

Related Experiment Videos

Comparison of physical aggression (actual fighting, play fighting) and nonphysical threatening between two communities.

Quantitative analysis of observed agonistic behaviors.

Main Results:

Children in the more violent community exhibited significantly more actual fighting (p = .005) and play fighting (p = .0001).
Conversely, children in the less violent community displayed more noncontact threatening behaviors (p = .0001).
Agonistic behavior severity generally paralleled adult violence levels in the respective communities.

Conclusions:

Community-specific aggression patterns are learned by Zapotec children and perpetuated into adulthood.
Findings support social learning theory regarding the transmission of violence and aggression.
Play fighting and threatening behaviors may serve distinct social functions within different cultural contexts.