Relational Aggression in Russian Adolescents: Gender, Age, and Behavior and Emotional Correlates

The ways of expressing aggression may differ by gender and change with advancing age becoming more indirect or covert. In contrast to other types of aggression, boys and girls may be similar in their use of relational aggression (RA), which may replace other types of aggression by adolescence. Despite this, the relationships between RA and other types of aggression by gender and age are underexplored. This study aimed to compare RA in adolescents from Northwestern Russia and to explore its associations with other types of aggression, related emotions and cognitions, and peer victimization, taking into account the interaction effects between RA, gender, and age. The analytic sample consisted of 2,838 participants, aged 13 to 17 years (57.9% female; 95.8% ethnic Russian). RA, physical, verbal, and proactive aggression, anger rumination, trait anger, and peer victimization were assessed by self-reports. A full path analysis was conducted to explore the associations between the variables. The prevalence of RA was largely similar by gender. Boys reported higher levels of overt aggressive behavior and peer victimization, but lower anger and anger rumination, as compared to girls. Girls and boys with greater RA similarly engaged in a wide range of other types of aggression and experienced more peer victimization, but some gender-specific patterns associated with RA were also found. Increasing age was associated with greater anger rumination and lower peer victimization. This is the first study among Russian adolescents to explore RA in relation to other types of aggression and its emotional correlates by gender. The greater variety of aggressive behavior in more relationally aggressive youth is worrying, given that chronic engagement in multiple forms of aggression carries a greater risk for subsequent problems in social adjustment. The results were in line with those from North American populations, indicating that the findings may be generalizable to other cultures.