Contextualizing Aggression during the Middle School Transition: The Role of Social Goals within Friendship Networks

We investigated longitudinal relations between social goals, friendships, and aggression during students' middle school transition (N=48). Results suggest that higher agentic goals and poorer friendship quality predict greater aggression, and that youth with lower communal goals and worse friendship quality exhibited the greatest aggression. Findings implicate cognitive- and network-based interventions.