SOCIAL-COGNITIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING OF SOCIAL CONFLICT IN FIFTH GRADE CHILDREN

ii Eric Dubow, Ph.D., Advisor The social-cognitive information-processing model explains decision-making processes and cognitive structures children use to respond to social conflict (Huesmann, 1998). The present study examined links between two steps in this model: the script search and retrieval step and the script evaluation step. In the first hypothesis, I predicted that fantasizing about aggression, believing aggressive responses will make repeated provocation stop, and approving of retaliation would predict the frequency of self- and teacher-reported actual direct aggression. In the second hypothesis, I predicted that the relations in the first hypothesis would be mediated by aggressive response selection, which was measured by the frequency with which children chose aggressive responses to hypothetical repeated provocation scenarios. The first hypothesis was supported and replicated previous research. The second hypothesis was not supported. A supplementary hypothesis was developed to explore the possibility that mediation was not observed because of differences in the level of measurement of the constructs. Crick an