The 10 Strategies Identified by Adolescent Girls for Managing Peer Conflict

Many parents, teachers and teaching assistants will know that children and young adults will often fall out and argue. As children develop and reach puberty, these issues become increasingly complex and divisive. Additionally, adult intervention can sometimes serve to exacerbate the situation (Huntley and Owens 2013).

Recent research by Huntley and Owens (2013) has successfully identified 10 possible strategies, developed by adolescent girls, that may prove useful in managing peer conflict. Seventy-five girls, aged between 14 and 15, were encouraged to engage in a series of focus groups.

Huntley and Owens (2013) found three areas of concern identified by the participants were:

1. The problems with groups with dominant leaders.
2. The power of non-verbal communication to exclude and intimidate.
3. Girls not feeling confident enough to have a voice and speak up for themselves.

 After further analysis and research Huntley and Owen (2013) proposed the following list, written in the words of the participants, as potential strategies for managing conflict:

1. Develop a wide circle of friends; don't just stick with one or two people. Then if something goes wrong with your group, you have other people to hang out with.
2.  Decide what is important and what is not, what you will take a stand for and what you will let go. If you feel strongly enough about an issue it is worth speaking up.
3. Walk away from conflict if it is getting out of hand – do not stay and be humiliated. Walk away and think about how you will deal with the situation.
4. If you feel comfortable talk to whoever is upsetting you one-on-one. See if you can sit down and work it out, without involving others. Let them know that you don't like what is happening.
5. Remove yourself from gossip, bitchiness and back stabbing. If you stay away from this type of behavior you cannot be accused of doing or saying something which could be seen as offensive. This also applies to texting comments, emails, My Space, Facebook and MSN.
6. Be clear about where your boundaries (limits) are if you are feeling uncomfortable. Do not let the peer group make decisions for you – otherwise you will finish up participating in things that you do not want to do.
7. Find friends who are mostly like you and do not do drugs or drink. That way if you go out, having a friend with you who does not drink or do drugs makes it easier to withstand the pressure from the peer group.
8. If it is important to voice your opinion, ask for advice from a trusted friend outside the friendship group. Enlist help from your parents if dealing with the peer group is too difficult. Speak to the school counsellors if you don't know what to do.
9. Ignore the evil eye, daggers, the stare and the cold shoulder. Do not repeat the negative behaviours that have been done to you or that you have seen operating within your group. Ignoring immature behavior is the best thing to do.
10. If you are pressured by the group to do something you don't want to do or go somewhere that you don't want to go, and you don't feel comfortable voicing your opinion, you can say that your parents will not allow you out (but make sure your parents know what the situation is about).

References:

Huntley J. & Owens L. (2013). Collaborative conversations: adolescent girls' own strategies for managing conflict within their friendship groups, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 18 (4) 236-247. DOI: 10.1080/02673843.2012.690933

The Effect of Violent Video Games on Aggression

I have always personally felt that there was no link between video games and violence. I even watched the Penn and Teller: Bullsh!t episode (which can be found here) and agreed with them. Yet what exactly does the research say?

I conducted a brief search on ScienceDirect and found the following:

Gentile, Lynch, Linder and Walsh (2004) assessed the link between video games and violence on 607 8th and 9th grade students. They found that those exposed to more violence were more likely to get into arguments with teachers, be involved in fights, and have lower grades at school. The article appeared in a special edition of the Journal of Adolescence published in 2004 which focused on violent video games. Many other articles also claimed to find a link between violent video games and aggression (see Journal of Adolescence).

However, Ferguson, San Miguel, Garza and Jerabeck (2012) state that in 2011 the US Supreme Court found that previous research had been flawed. Furthermore, they conducted a longitudinal study over 3 years with 165 participants. They found that there was no link between violent video games and aggression. In contrast, they maintain that depression, antisocial personality traits, family violence and peer influence were the most likely predictors of violence. Simiarly, Valadez and Ferguson (2012) also found there was no relationship between violence or depression and video games or the length of time spent playing them.

Although recent evidence suggests that there may not be a link between video games and observed violent behaviour, Engelhardt, Bartholow, Kerr and Bushman (2011) suggest that video games may result in neuronal desensitisation. Engelhardt et al (2011) observed the brain activity of participants whilst they played violent or non-violent video games then viewed violent or non-violent photos. They found that:

Participants low in previous exposure to video game violence who played a violent (relative to a nonviolent) game showed a reduction in the P3 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) to violent images (indicating physiological desensitization), and this brain response mediated the effect of video game content on subsequent aggressive behavior.

Clearly there needs to be further research assessing the relationship between brain activity and actual observed violent behaviour.


References:

Engelhardt C.R., Bartholow B.D., Kerr G.T. & Bushman B.J. (2011). This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47 (5) 1033-1036. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.03.027
 
Ferguson C.J., San Miguel C., Garza A. & Jerabeck J.M. (2012). A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents, Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46 (2) 141-146. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.10.014

Gentile D.A., Lynch P.J., Linder J.R. & Walsh D.A. (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance, Journal of Adolescence, 27 (1) 5-22. DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.002  

Valadez J.J. & Ferguson C.J. (2012). Just a game after all: Violent video game exposure and time spent playing effects on hostile feelings, depression, and visuospatial cognition, Computers in Human Behavior, 28 (2) 608-616. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.006