Social Information Processing and Aggressive Behavior: A Transactional Perspective

Transactional theory articulates an ongoing reciprocal exchange between the self and one's experiences with his or her social world. Although the self in this theory has been typically operationalized as behavior, it clearly must include cognitive operations. Social-information processing (SIP) theory posits that behavior toward others in childhood and adolescence develops as a function of the outputs of complex sets of on-line social-cognitive operations. In transactional turn, behavior leads to social consequences that inform future SIP. In this way, SIP and interactions with others may influence each other across development. One set of SIP operations that appears to be particularly important to adolescent development is called response evaluation and decision (RED). RED processing is an advanced stage of SIP in which an individual evaluates alternative responses across multiple domains in order to decide how to respond to cues during social interaction. This chapter presents a conceptual model of the transactional development of SIP with special application to understanding antisocial behavior in youth. The role of RED in this developmental exchange during adolescence is highlighted, and we identify future directions for research on the development of social cognition and antisocial behavior reciprocations.

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