Socioeconomic status and early childhood aggression: moderation by theory of mind for relational, but not physical, aggression

ABSTRACT

With nearly half of all children under age six living in poverty, it is imperative to explore the development of income-related childhood aggression. Here, we specifically examine how family socioeconomic status (SES) relates to children’s physical and relational aggression, and how this relation may be moderated by burgeoning social cognition. Preschool-age children (n = 89; ages 3–6 years), who were reported by teachers as behaving aggressively at least some of the time, completed theory of mind (ToM) measures, and parents provided family demographic information. Multivariate moderation analyses revealed that low-SES children earned higher scores on relational aggression compared to high-SES children. ToM moderated this relation; children from impoverished backgrounds received higher scores on relational aggression if they underperformed on ToM, but at high levels of ToM there were no differences in aggression by SES. Implications and limitations are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational aggression
• physical aggression
• early childhood
• theory of mind
• socioeconomic status

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Erin Ruth Baker is an Assistant Professor at SUNY-Albany in the department of Educational and Counseling Psychology. Her areas of research involve socio-moral decision-making in early childhood.

Cjersti Jayne Jensen is a doctoral candidate at Bowling Green State University in the Psychology Department. Her areas of research interests focus on the development of social categorization processes, such as prejudice, identity development, and conceptualization of social categories and intergroup attitudes.

Dr Mariola Moeyaert is an Assistant Professor at SUNY-Albany in the department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, and her major areas of research are in the field of multilevel analysis, meta-analysis and single-case experimental data.

Samantha Bordoff is a doctoral candidate at SUNY-Albany in the department of Educational and Counseling Psychology. Her research focuses on learning and literacy applications for autistic individuals.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.