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Can Self-Persuasion Reduce Hostile Attribution Bias in Young Children?

Can Self-Persuasion Reduce Hostile Attribution Bias in Young Children? Two experiments tested an intervention approach to reduce young children’s hostile attribution bias and aggression: self-persua- sion. Children with high levels of hostile attribution bias recorded a video-message advocating to peers why story characters who caused a negative outcome may have had nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), or they simply described the stories (control condition). Before and after the manipulation, hostile attribution bias was assessed using vignettes of ambiguous provocations. Study 1 (n =83, age 4–8) showed that self-persuasion reduced children’s hostile attribution bias. Study 2 (n = 121, age 6–9) replicated this finding, and further showed that self-persuasion was equally effective at reducing hostile attribution bias as was persuasion by others (i.e., listening to an experimenter advocating for nonhostile intentions). Effects on aggressive behavior, however, were small and only significant for one out of four effects tested. This research provides the first evidence that self-persuasion may be an effective approach to reduce hostile attribution bias in young children. . . . . Keywords Hostile attribution bias Self-persuasion Aggression Intervention Experiments Children’s daily social interactions abound with provocations by Dodge 1994). The present research tests an intervention approach peers, such as when they are physically hurt, laughed at, or ex- to reduce hostile attribution bias in young children. cluded from play. The exact reasons behind these provocations, Most interventions that effectively reduce children’s hostile and especially the issue of whether hostile intent was involved, attribution bias rely on attribution retraining techniques (e.g., are often unclear. Responding adequately to such ambiguous Coping Power, Lochman and Wells 2002; BrainPower, provocations is central to children’s social adjustment (Dodge Hudley and Graham 1993; Anger Control Training, et al. 1986). Children who tend to perceive ambiguous provoca- Sukhodolsky et al. 2005). Children taking part in these interven- tions in a hostile way (e.g., Bshe tripped me on purpose^)may tions typically are assembled in small groups to discuss ambig- often respond aggressively, which puts them at risk for psycho- uous peer provocations. During these discussions, therapists en- logical maladjustment (Weiss et al. 1992). Indeed, numerous courage children to question their hostile attributions and teach studies have shown that hostile attribution biases are linked to them to detect cues signaling that someone acted with benign aggressive behavior (for reviews, see: Dodge 2006;DeCastro intent (Hilt 2004). Meta-analytical work has shown that such et al. 2002), as early as the preschool years (Runions and Keating interventions tend to effectively reduce children’s aggressive 2007; Weiss et al. 1992). Accordingly, many intervention pro- behavior (i.e., weighed mean difference effect size = 0.26; grams aiming to prevent aggressive behavior problems include Wilson and Lipsey 2006). However, it is unknown to what techniques to reduce children’s hostile attribution bias (for a extent the attribution retraining component contributes to these review, see Wilson and Lipsey 2006). Such intervention efforts effects (rather than other intervention components such as anger may best commence in early childhood, when children’s hostile management or social problem solving). attribution bias are still relatively sensitive to change (Crick and Moreover, little is known of how attribution retraining is best delivered. The goal of attribution retraining is to reduce chil- dren’s hostile attribution bias by persuading them that peer provocations do not necessarily stem from hostile intentions (e.g., BIdon’t think she hurt you on purpose. See? She looks * Anouk van Dijk a.vandijk3@uu.nl sad.^). Such persuasion is not straightforward. Research in adults suggests that direct attempts at persuasion occasionally backfire: People may reject (rather than accept) such persuasion Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3508, TC Utrecht, The Netherlands when their own beliefs (1) are highly discrepant from the 990 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 persuasive message (i.e., when the message falls outside their moderation by gender. Boys engage in more direct aggression Blatitude of acceptance;^ Atkins et al. 1967), and (2) are strong- than girls (Card et al. 2008) and may thus benefit more from the ly held (Eagly and Telaak 1972; Schlenker and Trudeau 1990). self-persuasion assignment than do girls. Both these conditions may apply to children with hostile The study procedures were approved by the Ethics attribution biases. First, the notion that Bpeers may have be- Committee of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences nign intentions^ will often be discrepant from these children’s of Utrecht University. All materials, raw data and syntax can typical attribution of provocations as stemming from hostile be found online (Van Dijk et al. 2018). intentions. Second, hostile attribution biases often are strongly held. Children may have initially acquired a hostile attribution bias because others actually had hostile intentions and did Study 1 harm them (Dodge 2006; Frankenhuis and De Weerth 2013). Indeed, children holding a hostile attribution bias have Method often experienced social adversity in the past, such as harsh parenting or peer rejection (Dodge et al. 1995;Perren etal. Participants Participants were 83 Dutch children aged 4–8 2013; Weiss et al. 1992). Ingrained hostile attribution biases (58.7% boys; M =6.70, SD = 1.36; 92.2% Caucasian), re- age are less susceptible to persuasion by others, and thus limit the cruited from kindergarten (n = 23) and primary schools (first potential effectiveness of attribution retraining techniques. grade: n = 25; second grade: n = 35). We selected them from a Instead of trying to persuade children, therapists may also larger sample of 283 children (62.7% boys; M =6.84, SD = age adopt a more indirect approach to reduce children’shostile 1.29; 95.2% Caucasian) for having high levels of hostile attri- attribution bias: self-persuasion (Aronson 1999). Self- bution bias (see selection of participants). The schools were persuasion entails asking people to publicly advocate against located in five municipalities (16,000–206,000 inhabitants) their own beliefs. The resulting change in beliefs can be ex- serving middle-class communities (note that income inequality plained by cognitive dissonance processes (Festinger 1957): If in The Netherlands is low; OECD 2018). A priori power was people publicly espouse viewpoints that are discrepant from sufficient (0.80 for n = 70) to detect small-to-medium effects their privately held beliefs, they tend to later realign their beliefs (ƒ = 0.17) of self-persuasion on pre to post change in children’s with these viewpoints. In adults, self-persuasion has been hostile attribution bias. For all participants, informed consent shown to effectively lead individuals to accept and internalize was obtained from one of the parents (consent rate = 60.6%). belief-discrepant messages (Fazio et al. 1977). For instance, one study showed that individuals who strongly opposed the use of Pre-Assessment We conducted the pre-assessment of children’s marijuana later changed their beliefs if they had recorded a hostile attribution bias in the context of a larger study on social video message advocating the legalization of marijuana (Nel cognition and peer relationships (Van Dijk 2017). Children et al. 1969). Similarly, an effective attribution retraining ap- were individually interviewed in a quiet room in their school. proach may be to ask children themselves to advocate that peer The interview lasted 35–45 min and was conducted by the first provocateurs may have had nonhostile intentions. author or one of eight research assistants. We gave children To investigate the potential effectiveness of self-persuasion stickers to thank them for their voluntary participation. as an attribution retraining approach, we conducted two Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We measured hostile between-subjects experiments involving 4–9-year-old children attribution bias using four vignettes describing a hypothetical with high levels of hostile attribution bias. In Study 1 (n =83), interaction between the child and a same-gender protagonist. children recorded a video message (allegedly to be shown to The vignettes described ambiguous provocations—that is, the pupils from other schools) advocating why peer provocateurs in protagonist caused a negative outcome, but it was unclear a series of ambiguous provocation scenarios may have had whether this negative outcome was intended. Story themes nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), or they mere- were provocations familiar to young children: (1) being hurt, ly described the scenarios (control condition). Study 2 (n =121) (2) their drawing being ruined (3) being left out of play, and replicated Study 1, and also included a third condition to inves- (4) their toy being taken. We drew these themes from vignettes tigate whether self-persuasion is more effective than persuasion developed to measure hostile attribution bias (Feshbach 1989; by others (i.e., children listened to an experimenter advocating Dodge et al. 1985). Experimenters red the stories aloud, each why the provocateurs may have had nonhostile intentions). In supported by a set of line drawings (i.e., three 8 × 8 cm black- both studies, we used vignettes to assess children’s hostile attri- and-white line drawings per vignette; Fig. 1). bution bias before and after the manipulation. Moreover, to We measured attributions using two questions following investigate to what extent the predicted effect on hostile attri- each vignette. First, the experimenter asked: BWhy did the bution would generalize to aggressive behavior, we included an boy/girl [cause the negative outcome]?^ If children’s first re- in vivo provocation scenario to measure children’s aggression sponse did not reflect a hostile or benign attribution, the ex- perimenter probed them with a hostile and a benign option in an emotionally involving situation. We also explored J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 991 Fig. 1 Sample vignette (boys). BImagine that you walk into the classroom. Two boys are playing a board game. You ask if you can join the game, but one of the boys says Bno^ (36.7% of responses; e.g., Bdid the boy try to reject you, or their grade level (i.e., score > 0.50 for kindergarteners, and was it not possible for another player to join in?^). Second, the score > 0.25 for children from first and second grade), and experimenter asked: BWas the boy/girl trying to be mean or (2) their task comprehension was rated as sufficient by ex- not trying to be mean?^ (we counterbalanced the order of perimenters (n = 4 children had insufficient comprehen- response options across vignettes). sion, as indicated by their inability to respond in a mean- Two trained research assistants coded all responses into the ingful way, even after probing). In total, 83 children took following categories: (a) hostile attribution (e.g., Bhe doesn’tlike part in the study (n = 5 other children were absent on the me^); (b) benign attribution (e.g., Bthere were only two pawns in day of testing). Selected children scored significantly the game^); (c) ambiguity attribution (if children indicated that higher (M =0.58, SD = 0.18) than unselected children the protagonist’s intentions could both be hostile and benign, (M = 0.18, SD = 0.18) on hostile attribution bias, e.g., Bhe does not want me to join, or maybe the game is meant p < 0.001, but not on teacher-rated aggression, p =0.268. for two players); and (d) unclear (if children did not answer or if We randomly assigned selected children to either the self- it was unclear whether children’s response reflected hostile or persuasion (n = 43) or the control condition (n =40). benign intent; e.g., Bthey wanted to play together^). Inter-coder reliability was good (κ = 0.87 across vignettes). We resolved Experimental Manipulation Children participated in the exper- coding disagreements (8.1% of responses) by discussion, using iment approximately 1 month after the pre-assessment children’s scores on the hostile-or-benign probe question when (range = 25–48 days). This session lasted 10–15 min and available. We calculated hostile attribution bias scores as the was conducted by the first author. Children were asked to average across the eight questions, coding hostile and mean Bpublicly^ endorse nonhostile attributions in a video message, responses as 1 and all other responses as 0 (α = 0.70). Meta- allegedly to be shown to pupils from other schools. The ex- analytical work has shown that vignette-based assessments of perimenter made children the advocates of the nonhostile mes- hostile attribution bias are linked to aggressive behavior (r = sage, telling them that other children tend to unjustly attribute 0.24; De Castro et al. 2002), supporting concurrent validity. hostile intent: BI visit many schools to reduce conflicts Aggression (teacher-rated). The day after the pre-assess- amongst pupils. Children often become angry because they ment, we asked teachers to complete the Instrument for think that another child did something mean to them on pur- Reactive and Proactive Aggression (IRPA; Polman et al. pose. However, they cannot be sure that the child tried to be 2009). They rated the frequency of seven forms of aggressive mean; it may have been an accident.^ Next, the experimenter behavior (i.e., kicking, pushing, hitting, name calling, arguing, asked them to record a video message: BBecause you are a gossiping, and doing sneaky things) that their pupil engaged child, you can explain these things much better than I can. Of in within the last week, on a 5-point Likert scale (0 = never, course, you cannot join me to visit all these schools every day. 1= once,2= several times,3= every day,4= several times a So, instead, I would like you to record a video message. Is that day). We computed aggression scores as the average of the OK?^ In the control condition, the experimenter told children: seven items (α = 0.79). This measure shows positive associa- BI visit many schools to tell stories to the pupils. The stories tions with other (peer- and teacher-report) aggression mea- describe the things that children do at school^ and similarly sures (Polman et al. 2009) and effectively discriminates be- asked them to help the experimenter, in this case by recording tween children with disruptive behavior disorders and controls a video message to describe the stories. (Schoorl et al. 2016). We also obtained ratings of reactive and In both conditions, children received a picture book that proactive motives, but opted not to report these because the served as the basis of their video message. This picture book results were similar as for the frequency ratings. contained four stories of ambiguous provocations, depicting: (1) physical harm, (2) not sharing candy, (3) knocking over a Selection of Participants We selected children to take part in block tower, and (4) refusing someone to join a table. Each the experiment proper if (1) their hostile attribution bias story involved different characters (all gender-matched and score at pre-assessment was within the highest third for drawn with neutral facial expressions), and consisted of two 992 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 colorful A3-size drawings of the setting and the ambiguous Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). First, we measured provocation (Fig. 2). As the assessment of hostile attribution children’s hostile attribution bias using four vignettes that de- bias also consisted of ambiguous provocation stories, we min- scribed similar ambiguous provocations as the pre-assessment imized resemblance by using unique story themes and draw- vignettes (e.g., we described the situation of Bbeing left out of ings in a different format and style. play^ for a computer game instead of a board game). We Before recording each story, children described the scenar- coded attributions conform the pre-assessment (κ =0.73 io, and the experimenter prompted them in case they missed across vignettes) and averaged them across the four vignettes information important for the storyline (17.6% of responses). to create a single hostile attribution bias score (α =0.76). In the control condition, children recorded their message im- Hostile attribution bias and aggression (in vivo). We set mediately thereafter: BPlease record the story like you just told up an in vivo provocation scenario to measure children’spost- it.^ In the self-persuasion condition, the experimenter manipulation hostile intent attributions and aggression in an prompted children to come up with two attributions: BCan emotionally involving situation: Their toy was taken away by we be sure that the boy/girl tried to be mean? What else could an alleged peer. Children had chosen this toy to receive as a have happened?^ Most children mentioned benign attribu- gift before recording their video message. They had stored it tions (M =1.31, SD = 0.42); hostile attributions were rare in a name-labeled box, to be opened after completing the benign (M =0.11, SD = 0.18). All children generated benign at- vignette task. Upon finding out their toy was gone, the exper- hostile tributions for at least two stories; most children (69.8%) did so imenter neutrally stated: BThat’sstrange… It’s probably taken for all stories. If children mentioned no benign attribution by the boy/girl who was here just now.^ The experimenter (9.3% of responses) or just one (53.5% of responses), the encouraged children to pick another toy, not responding to experimenter helped them co-construct their video message any questions children asked about the alleged peer. by suggesting additional benign attributions (e.g., for the tow- First, we measured children’s aggression using a sticker er story: Bthe tower was wobbly,^ Bhe/she was not paying task (Slagt et al. 2017). The experimenter told children that attention^). Recording of the self-persuasion video messages the alleged peer would later receive some stickers, and told went well: Most children (74.4%) did so without needing an them that they could select the stickers their peer would re- instruction reminder. ceive. The experimenter handed them a box packed with Manipulation check. The first author and a trained re- stickers, saying: BSome stickers are torn, but you may as well search assistant who was blind for condition scored all videos pick those. Please select ten stickers and put them in this for the number of benign attributions (r = 0.90), and resolved envelope,^ and then left the room. We computed aggression coding disagreements by discussion. We computed benign scores as the proportion of torn stickers that children allocated attribution scores as the average across the four stories to their alleged peer. This measure has demonstrated moderate-to-strong stability over a 2-week interval (α = 0.89). (Spearman correlations between 0.35 < ρ <0.79) and is posi- Post-Assessment Directly following the experimental manip- tively associated with relevant variables in samples of pre- ulation, children went to another room in their school to com- schoolers, such as negative affect (0.13 < ρ <0.25) and anti- plete the post-assessment of hostile attribution bias (assessed social intentions (0.24 < ρ < 0.25) (Slagt et al. 2017). We in vivo and using vignettes) and aggression (assessed in vivo found no correlation between this measure and teacher-rated and by teachers). This session lasted 10–15 min and was con- aggression (Table 1), possibly reflecting a state/trait difference ducted by a research assistant who was blind for condition. between the measures (Anderson and Bushman 1997). Fig. 2 Picture book (girls). Ambiguous provocation story (presented on separate pages) J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 993 Table 1 Zero-Order Correlations 1 2 345 6 of Study 1 Variables (Above Diagonal, n = 83) and Study 2 1 Hostile attribution bias – Pre – 0.32** 0.57*** 0.20 0.31** −0.11 Variables (Below Diagonal, n = 121) 2 Aggression (teacher-rated) – Pre – 0.21 0.68*** 0.08 0.15 3 Hostile attribution bias – Post 0.28** – 0.18 0.28** 0.06 4 Aggression (teacher-rated) – Post – 0.10 0.07 5 Hostile attribution bias (in vivo) 0.07 0.22* – −0.03 6 Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers) 0.06 −0.03 0.22* – 7 Aggression (in vivo: evaluations) 0.04 0.10 0.17 0.16 a b c Assessed only in Study 1 (n =79); Correlations based on n = 81 in Study1and n = 118 in Study 2. Assessed * ** *** only in Study 2 (n =114). p <0.05, p <0.01, p <0.001 Next, we measured children’s attributions to their alleged grade, gender, age, vignette-measured hostile attribution bias, peer using two questions. First, upon returning to the room, and teacher-rated aggression (all ps > 0.05), indicating suc- the experimenter asked: BI wonder why the boy/girl took your cessful randomization. toy. What do you think?^ We coded these responses conform Manipulation check. The manipulation was effective the vignette assessments (κ = 0.95). Second, the experimenter (Table 2). Children in the self-persuasion condition made more benign attributions in their video message than children in the asked: BDo you think he/she was being unkind or not?^ We scored hostile and unkind responses as 1 and averaged them to control condition, F(1, 81) = 337.16, p <0.001, η =0.81. create a single in vivo hostile attribution bias score. This score Gender and age differences. Age was significantly corre- was significantly correlated with vignette-assessed hostile at- lated with vignette-assessed hostile attribution bias at pre- tribution bias, both at pre- and post-assessment (Table 1). assessment (r = −0.51, p < 0.001) and post-assessment (r = Meta-analytical work suggests that assessments of children’s −0.38, p < 0.001), teacher-rated aggression at pre-assessment hostile attribution bias using staged provocations yield strong (r = −0.34, p = 0.002), and in vivo hostile attribution bias (r = correlations with aggressive behavior (r = 0.55, De Castro −0.24, r 0.031). We found no moderation by age for the pri- et al. 2002), supporting concurrent validity. mary analyses. Last, we ensured that the provocation scenario was re- Boys allocated more torn stickers to the peer who had al- solved: The experimenter with whom children had recorded legedly taken their toy than girls, p <0.001, η =0.12. We the video message entered the room, explaining that she had observed no other gender differences, 0.078 < ps < 0.861. mistakenly taken the toy. Children got back their toy and We explored moderation by gender for all analyses, and report could select new stickers for their alleged peer. significant effects below. Aggression (teacher-rated). One week after the manipula- tion, we invited teachers to complete the IRPA, concerning Primary Analyses Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We pre- children’s aggressive behavior in the last week (α = 0.80). dicted that children in the self-persuasion condition would show Teachers received a gift-card to thank them for their stronger reductions in hostile attribution bias from pre- to post- participation. assessment than would children in the control condition. A 2 (Time) × 2 (Condition) ANOVA supported this prediction, Results yielding a significant interaction effect (depicted in Fig. 3,left panel), F(1, 80) = 19.80, p <0.001, η = 0.20. Thus, the inter- Preliminary Analyses Table 1 presents zero-order correlations vention effectively reduced children’s hostile attribution bias in and Table 2 presents descriptive statistics for the Study 1 response to vignettes of ambiguous peer provocations. variables. Hostile attribution bias (in vivo). We predicted that chil- Data preparation. We used pairwise deletion to handle dren in the self-persuasion condition (vs. children in the con- missing values (1.2%). We retained outliers (z > 3.29) in the trol condition) would be less likely to attribute hostile intent to analyses (results were virtually identical when excluding the peer who allegedly took their toy. However, an ordinal them). Most variables had a positively skewed distribution. regression analysis did not support this prediction, b(SE)= Hence, in addition to parametric analyses, we report bias- 0.31(0.46), p =0.507, Nagelkerke R =0.01. corrected accelerated (BCa) bootstrap 95% confidence inter- Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers). We predicted that chil- vals (5000 samples). dren in the self-persuasion condition would allocate less torn Equivalence of experimental conditions. At pre-assess- stickers to the alleged peer provocateur than would children in ment, children in the self-persuasion and control condition the control condition. This prediction was not supported. did not significantly differ from each other with regard to Although a one-way ANOVA yielded a significant effect of 994 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 Table 2 Range, Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Bootstrap 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI) of the Study 1 Variables for Children in the Self-Persuasion and Control Condition Separately, and—for In Vivo Aggression—for Boys and Girls Separately Self-persuasion Control Self-persuasion Control Range nM SD n M SD 95% CI 95% CI Benign attributions in video message 0.00–2.25 43 1.62 0.36 40 0.25 0.32 [1.51; 1.72] [0.16; 0.34]* Hostile attribution bias (vignettes) – Pre 0.38–1.00 43 0.58 0.18 40 0.58 0.18 [0.53; 0.63] [0.53; 0.64] – Post 0.00–1.00 43 0.28 0.29 40 0.49 0.25 [0.19; 0.36] [0.41; 0.56]* Hostile attribution bias (in vivo) 0.00–1.00 43 0.20 0.33 38 0.22 0.30 [0.11; 0.30] [0.14; 0.32] Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers) 0.00–1.00 43 0.17 0.22 38 0.32 0.32 [0.10; 0.24] [0.23; 0.42]† – Boys 0.00–1.00 27 0.22 0.24 23 0.43 0.30 [0.14; 0.31] [0.32; 0.55]* – Girls 0.00–1.00 16 0.08 0.16 15 0.15 0.28 [0.02; 0.17] [0.04; 0.30] Aggression (teacher-rated) – Pre 1.00–3.71 43 1.27 0.45 40 1.38 0.58 [1.16; 1.41] [1.23; 1.55] – Post 1.00–3.14 40 1.15 0.26 39 1.26 0.47 [1.08; 1.24] [1.14; 1.41] Missing scores resulted from experimenter error (n = 2; in vivo measures) or from teachers failing to complete the questionnaire (n = 4; aggression-post). * † indicates that 95% CIs do not overlap, indicates marginal overlap condition, F(1, 79) = 6.38, p =0.014, η =0.08, the aggres- Discussion sion variable was highly skewed, and so we should rely on the nonparametric bootstrap 95% confidence intervals. The inter- Study 1 provides evidence that self-persuasion may be used vals of the two conditions slightly overlapped, indicating that effectively to reduce children’s hostile attribution bias. the effect of condition was not significant (Fig. 3, right). Moreover, we found that, among boys, this approach may This result was qualified by gender, however. Using a 2 reduce aggressive behavior as assessed using a behavioral (condition) × 2 (gender) ANOVA, we found a significant in- measure following an in vivo provocation. We observed no teraction effect, F(2, 77) = 7.41, p =0.001, η = 0.16, indicat- aggression reduction as reported by teachers over the course ing that the effect of the self-persuasion manipulation on of the week following the self-persuasion manipulation. in vivo aggression was significant for boys but not for girls (i.e., the bootstrap 95% confidence intervals for boys do not overlap, whereas they do for girls; see Table 2). Boys in the Study 2 self-persuasion condition allocated almost half as many torn stickers to the alleged provocateur (22% of stickers) as did Study2buildsonStudy1inseveral ways:First,wewantedto boys in the control condition (43% of stickers). replicate the Study 1 findings for hostile attribution bias. Aggression (teacher-rated). Fourth, we predicted that chil- Second, given that in Study 1 we found little aggression among dren in the self-persuasion condition would show stronger reduc- girls on the in vivo task, in Study 2, we investigated the effects tions in teacher-rated aggression from pre- to post-assessment of self-persuasion on a second in vivo task designed to assess than would children in the control condition. However, a 2 relational aggression. Gender differences in the prevalence of (time) × 2 (condition) ANOVA did not support this prediction: relational aggression tend to be relatively small or non-existent The interaction was not significant, F(1, 77) = 1.18, p = 0.281, (Card et al. 2008). Third, following persuasion theory, we tested η = 0.02, and we found no gender moderation. whether self-persuasion leads to larger reductions in children’s 1.0 1.0 Fig. 3 Effects of the self- In vivo aggression Hostile attribution bias 0.9 persuasion manipulation on 0.9 (proportion torn stickers) (vignette scores) 0.8 children’s vignette-measured 0.8 hostile attribution bias (left) and 0.7 0.7 their allocation of torn stickers to 0.6 0.6 an alleged peer provocateur 0.5 Control 0.5 (right). Error bars represent 95% 0.4 0.4 bootstrap confidence intervals 0.3 0.3 Self-persuasion 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 Pre Post Self-persuasion Control J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 995 hostile attribution bias than persuasion by others. Direct at- We used the same instructions for the self-persuasion and con- tempts at persuasion may lead children to reject the interven- trol condition as in Study 1. Instructions in the other-persuasion tion’s message, whereas self-persuasion should promote own- condition were identical to the self-persuasion condition, except ership of the message (Aronson 1999; Atkins et al. 1967). By that children were told BIt is much better if pupils see how I directly comparing these approaches, we aimed to better under- explain these things to another pupil^ and were asked to watch stand how attribution retraining can be effectively delivered. the experimenter record the video message. Thus, children in the self- and other-persuasion conditions heard the same inter- Method vention message, but only children in the self-persuasion con- dition advocated for this message themselves. Participants Participants were 121 Dutch children aged 6–9 The other-persuasion manipulation took place as children pre- (49.6% boys; M =7.71, SD = 0.92; 95.0% Caucasian), re- pared their video message. The experimenter encouraged chil- age cruited from primary schools (first grade: n = 47; second dren to describe the story, and then asked: BWhy did the boy/girl grade: n = 43; third grade: n = 31). We selected them from a [cause the provocation]?^ If children mentioned hostile attribu- larger sample of 569 children (53.4% boys; M =7.83, SD = tions (75.6% of children did so at least once), the experimenter age 0.92; 90.2% Caucasian) for having high levels of hostile attri- restructured their hostile belief, saying: BDo you think so? Maybe bution bias (see selection of participants). The schools were he/she did not do it on purpose at all!^ Next, irrespective of located in nine municipalities (12,000–345,000 inhabitants) children’s own attributions, the experimenter provided two be- serving middle-class communities. A priori power was excel- nign attributions (e.g., for the tower story: BMaybe he just tried to lent (> 0.99 for n = 120) to replicate the hostile attribution bias help, or maybe the tower was just too high^). As in Study 1, effect obtained in Study 1 (ƒ = 0.50), and sufficient (0.80 for children in the self-persuasion condition generated their own n = 120) to replicate the main effect for condition on in vivo benign attributions (M = 1.32, SD = 0.40; M = 0.00), benign hostile aggression scores (ƒ = 0.29, as obtained for boys). Informed and children in the control condition described the storyline. consent was obtained from one of the parents of all individual Last, the video message was recorded. Children advocated participants included in the study (consent rate = 54.9%). why the story character may have had nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), listened to the experimenter advo- Pre-Assessment The pre-assessment lasted 10 min and was cating this message (other-persuasion condition), or described conducted by the first author or one of eight research assis- the stories (control condition). tants. We interviewed children individually in a quiet room in Manipulation check. A research assistant who was blind their school and gave them stickers to thank them for their for condition coded the number of benign attributions in chil- participation. dren’s video messages. To assess inter-coder reliability, the Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We measured hostile first author also coded a subset of 20% of the videos (r = attribution bias using the same vignette-procedure as in Study 0.92). We computed benign attribution scores as the average 1. All responses were coded by both the research assistant who across the four stories (α =0.92). conducted the assessment and the first author. Inter-coder reli- ability was good for all coders (0.80 < κ <0.96). We scored Post-Assessment Directly following the experimental manipu- hostile responses as 1, and averaged them across vignettes to lation, children went to another room in their school. The post- create a single hostile attribution bias score (α =0.66). assessment lasted 20–25 min and was conducted by one of four trained research assistants who were blind for condition. Selection of Participants The large size of the screened sample Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). First, we measured allowed us to raise our Study 1 inclusion criterion. In Study 2, children’s hostile attribution bias using the same post- we selected children to participate in the experiment proper if assessment vignettes as in Study 1. Inter-coder reliability they (1) scored ≥ 0.50 on hostile attribution bias, and (2) had was good for all coders (0.81 < κ <0.87) and internal consis- sufficient task comprehension (n = 5 children did not). We ex- tency reliability was sufficient (α =0.64). cluded two children with an autism spectrum disorder diagno- Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers). We used the same sis, and 15 other children were absent on the day of testing. In in vivo provocation scenario as in Study 1, again assessing total, 121childrentookpartinthe study. We randomly assigned aggression as the proportion of torn stickers that children them to the self-persuasion condition (n = 41), the other- allocated to the peer who allegedly had taken their toy persuasion condition (n = 41), or the control condition (n =39). away. Aggression (in vivo: negative evaluations). Next, children Experimental Manipulation Approximately 1 month after the were provided with the opportunity to relationally aggress pre-assessment (range = 14–52 days) children took part in the towards the alleged peer by providing a negative evaluation experimental manipulation, which lasted 10–15 min and was of the peer to a third party (i.e., participants’ friend). This conducted by the first author or one of four research assistants. measure was modeled after the Negative Evaluation Task, 996 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 which is linked with hostile cognitions in adults (β = 0.35; DeWall et al. 2009), and was adapted for use with young children. The experimenter explained that the alleged peer and their friend would be cooperating on a task, and would therefore need some information about each other. The exper- imenter asked children to indicate for both their friend and the alleged peer how Bnice^ and Bstupid^ they were. First, chil- dren rated their friend on a note containing two 4-point scales, for each scale circling one of four squares of increasing size. Next, they rated the alleged peer, and then put the note in an envelope to be passed on to their friend before meeting the alleged peer. Children’s Bstupid^ ratings for the alleged peer indexed aggression (scale 0–3). Hostile attribution bias (in vivo). We measured children’s attributions of the alleged peer’s behavior using the same two questions as in Study 1. In Study 2, if children did not reply to the open-ended attribution question, we asked a follow-up question: BDid the boy/girl not know that the toy was yours, or did he/she just take it?^ Inter-coder reliability was sufficient for all coders (0.64 < κ <1.00). We scored hostile and unkind responses as 1 and averaged them to create a single hostile attribution bias score. This score was significantly positively associated with vignette-assessed hostile attribution bias at post-assessment (Table 1). Last, the provocation scenario was resolved: One experi- menter explained that she had mistakenly taken the toy, whereupon the other experimenter tossed the evaluation notes and gave children the opportunity to select new stickers for their alleged peer. Children also completed a 4-item question- naire about their self-perceived competence for making intent attributions, but this scale was dropped from the analyses be- cause it was unreliable (α =0.40). Results Preliminary Analyses Table 1 presents zero-order correlations and Table 3 presents descriptive statistics for the Study 2 variables. Data preparation. We used pairwise deletion to handle miss- ing values (1.8%). There were no outliers (z > 3.29). Most vari- ables had a positively skewed distribution. Hence, in addition to parametric analyses, we report bias-corrected accelerated (BCa) bootstrap 95% confidence intervals (5000 samples). Equivalence of experimental conditions. At pre-assess- ment, children in the self-persuasion, other-persuasion, and control conditions did not significantly differ with regard to gender, age, and hostile attribution bias (all ps > 0.05), indi- cating that randomization was successful. Manipulation check. The manipulation was effective (Table 3). Children in the self-persuasion condition made more benign attributions in their video message than children in the control and other-persuasion conditions, F(2, 118) = 271.46, p <0.001, η =0.82. Table 3 Range, Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Bootstrap 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI) of the Study 2 Variables for Childreninthe Self-Persuasion, Other-Persuasion, and Control Condition Separately Self-persuasion Other-persuasion Control Self-pers. Other-pers. Control Range n M SD n M SD n M SD 95% CI 95% CI 95% CI Benign attributions in video 0.00–3.25 41 1.47 0.50 41 0.00 0.00 39 0.15 0.19 [1.32; 1.63] [0.10; 0.21]* Hostile attribution bias (vignettes) – Pre 0.50–1.00 41 0.60 0.15 41 0.62 0.14 39 0.58 0.11 [0.56; 0.66] [0.58; 0.66] [0.55; 0.62] – Post 0.00–1.00 41 0.25 0.22 41 0.26 0.21 39 0.52 0.21 [0.19; 0.32] [0.20; 0.33] [0.45; 0.59]* Hostile attribution bias (in vivo) 0.00–1.00 40 0.33 0.45 40 0.29 0.39 38 0.47 0.45 [0.19; 0.46] [0.17; 0.41] [0.33; 0.62] Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers) 0.00–1.00 40 0.27 0.19 40 0.27 0.26 38 0.32 0.24 [0.22; 0.33] [0.19; 0.35] [0.24; 0.40] Aggression (in vivo: evaluations) 0.00–3.00 37 1.08 0.80 39 0.97 0.78 38 1.37 0.94 [0.83; 1.33] [0.74; 1.23] [1.08; 1.67] Missing scores resulted from experimenter error (n = 3; in vivo measures) and from children not understanding the task (n = 4; relational aggression). indicates that 95% CIs of the self- and other- persuasion versus control condition do not overlap J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 997 Gender and age differences. We observed no gender dif- the ANOVA showed no effect of condition, F(2, 111) = 2.25, ferences for any of the study variables. Age was significantly p =0.111, η = 0.04. Planned contrasts showed no significant correlated with in vivo hostile attribution bias (r =0.22, p = differences between the self-persuasion and the control (p = 0.016) but not with other variables. We found no moderation 0.194), or other-persuasion (p = 0.582) conditions (Fig. 4, effects of gender or age in the primary analyses. right). Primary Analyses Discussion Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We used planned con- trasts to test whether children in the self-persuasion condition Study 2 provides evidence that self-persuasion and other- showed stronger reductions in hostile attribution bias from persuasion are equally effective at reducing children’shostile pre- to post-assessment compared to (1) the control condition, attribution bias. We observed no effects of self- or other- and (2) the other-persuasion condition. The 2 (Time) × 2 persuasion on children’s in vivo aggression. (Condition) ANOVA yielded the predicted interaction effect, F(2, 118) = 27.10, p <0.001, η = 0.32. Planned contrasts re- vealed that children in the self-persuasion condition showed General Discussion stronger reductions in hostile attribution bias than did children in the control condition (p < 0.001), thus replicating the main Reducing children’s hostile attribution bias is challenging. finding of Study 1. However, they did not show stronger re- Although attribution retraining techniques can effectively re- ductions in hostile attribution bias than did children in the duce children’s aggressive behavior (Wilson and Lipsey other-persuasion condition (p = 0.771). Self- and other- 2006), little is known of how such retraining is best delivered. persuasion were equally effective at reducing children’shos- Persuasion theory suggests that children may readily reject the tile attribution bias (Fig. 4,left). message that Bother people may have nonhostile intentions,^ Hostile attribution bias (in vivo). We used an ordinal re- to the extent that they perceive this message as too discrepant gression analysis to test whether children in the self- from their own beliefs (Atkins et al. 1967). To investigate this persuasion condition were less likely to attribute hostile intent issue, two experiments tested the potential effectiveness of to the peer who allegedly took their toy than children in each self-persuasion to reduce children’s hostile attribution bias; of the other conditions. Using dummy variables to code these an approach that, as research in adults has shown, can be used contrasts, we found no significant differences in children’s effectively to persuade people of belief-discrepant messages in vivo hostile attributions between the self-persuasion and (Fazio et al. 1977). control condition, b(SE) = 0.71(0.44), p = 0.106, or the other- Both experiments (Study 1 and 2) showed that self-persuasion persuasion condition, b(SE) = 0.08(0.45), p =0.861. effectively reduced hostile attribution bias as assessed using a Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers & negative evaluations). well-established vignette-based procedure. Study 2 further We used planned contrasts to test potential differences be- showed that self-persuasion was equally effective at reducing tween conditions in in vivo aggression, assessed both as allo- hostile attribution bias as was persuasion by others. Whereas cating torn stickers and as spreading negative evaluations. We we expected self-persuasion to be more effective than persuasion found no such differences. For allocating torn stickers, the by others, this finding suggests that the two attribution retraining ANOVA showed no condition effect, F(2, 115) = 0.55, p = approaches may be valuable complementary strategies. Our ex- 0.578, η < 0.01. Planned contrasts showed no significant periments show that self-persuasion leads to short-term reduc- differences between the self-persuasion condition versus the tions in young children’s hostile attribution bias. Future research control condition (p = 0.391), or the other-persuasion condi- is needed to investigate the potential long-term effects and ex- tion (p = 0.923). Similarly, for spreading negative evaluations, plore the relevance of self-persuasion for clinical practice. In vivo aggression Hostile attribution bias Fig. 4 Effects of the self- (vignette scores) (negative evaluation scores) persuasion and other-persuasion 1.0 2.00 manipulation on children’s 0.9 1.75 vignette-measured hostile 0.8 1.50 attribution bias (left) and their 0.7 negative evaluations of the 1.25 0.6 alleged peer provocateur (right). Control 0.5 1.00 Error bars represent 95% 0.4 0.75 bootstrap confidence intervals 0.3 Other-persuasion 0.50 0.2 Self-persuasion 0.25 0.1 0.0 0.00 Pre Post Self-persuasion Control Other-persuasion 998 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 We also investigated whether self-persuasion would de- children’s sense of autonomy or competence, which may con- crease children’s aggression. The effects were limited. Study tribute to their well-being (Ryan and Deci 2000). This may be 1 showed that boys, but not girls, who recorded a self- especially relevant when treating hostile attribution biases in persuasion message (vs. a control message) were less likely aggressive children, who tend to resist influence by authority to engage in in vivo aggression (i.e., allocating torn stickers to figures and prefer taking on agentic roles (Ellis et al. 2016; a peer who allegedly took their toy). However, Study 2 did not Salmivalli et al. 2005). Second, self-persuasion encourages replicate this effect, nor showed effects on a second in vivo children to reflect on the possibility of making benign attribu- aggression task designed to tap relational aggression (i.e., tions, rather than Bcorrecting^ their hostile attributions. As spreading negative evaluations of the alleged peer). These such, self-persuasion has the advantage that it does not trigger findings suggest that single instances of self- or other- children’s existing hostile knowledge base (Anderson and persuasion may affect children’s cognition more than their Bushman 2002), nor affirm their identity of being someone behavior—which is further supported by the fact that we who misperceives social situations (Swann Jr. 2011). found no effects of self-persuasion on teacher-reported aggres- Our research has both strengths and limitations. Strengths sion (measured in Study 1). It is possible that more extensive include our replication of the self-persuasion effect on hostile persuasion techniques are required to effectuate change in attribution bias across studies, and the inclusion of an active children’s ingrained behavior patterns, perhaps particularly control condition, which enabled us to rule out potential alter- in emotionally engaging situations such as losing a valued native explanations of the study findings (such as that chil- gift. Future research will need to test this possibility, and ad- dren’s hostile attribution bias decreased due to repeated expo- dress the cognition-behavior discrepancy in our findings. sure to social provocation scenarios). A limitation is that the The self-persuasion effect on hostile attribution bias as self-persuasion manipulation and hostile attribution bias as- assessed using the vignette-based paradigm did not generalize sessments inevitably covered the same content (i.e., ambigu- to children’s hostile attributions for the in vivo, real-time peer ous social provocations). Although we used unique story provocation scenario. Generalization to ecologically valid set- themes and different visual presentation formats, we cannot tings is important, but it is also challenging. Our in vivo attribu- rule out the possibility that demand effects at post-assessment tion measure was correlated with vignette-assessed hostile attri- have contributed to the observed effects. Further, although we bution bias, supporting its convergent validity. That said, we sampled children with high scores on hostile attribution bias, assessed children’s attributions using two questions only, to avoid we did not target children with clinically elevated levels of the possibility that children would infer that the provocation was aggressive behavior. In theory, these children might benefit staged. The downside of this approach is that it reduced assess- more from self-persuasion, because they tend to have stronger ment sensitivity, which might have accounted for this null-result. hostile attribution biases (Dodge 2006), and may thus be par- Our results inform self-persuasion theory, which predicts that ticularly resistant to persuasion by others (Schlenker and self-persuasion will often be more powerful at changing beliefs Trudeau 1990). This idea may be tested in future research. than persuasion by others (Aronson 1999). Although self- In sum, our experiments suggest that self-persuasion persuasion was generally effective at changing children’s hostile maybe aneffectiveapproachtoreducehostileattribu- attributions, we found no evidence that it was more effective than tion bias in young children. We hope this research will persuasion by others. One possible explanation is that the limita- encourage efforts to further investigate self-persuasion tions of persuasion by others are less potent in young children techniques as a promising intervention approach, and compared to adults. Research in adults has shown that individ- help young children to persuade themselves away from uals are more likely to reject a persuasive message if they accept their biased hostile attributions. a limited range of views as compatible with their own (Eagly and Telaak 1972). However, children may generally have wider lat- Funding This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for itudes of acceptance. As they have just started to construct their Scientific Research (grant number 022.003.021). knowledge of the social world, they may accept a wider range of informationtobe true(Crickand Dodge 1994). Accordingly, the Compliance with Ethical Standards All procedures performed relative effectiveness of self-persuasion compared to persuasion in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the by others might increase as children grow older—a possibility ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or com- that should be tested in future work. parable ethical standards. Although we found that self-persuasion and other- persuasion were equally effective in reducing children’shos- Informed Consent was obtained from one of the parents of all individ- tile attribution bias, self-persuasion may have additional at- ual participants included in the study. tractive features. 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Can Self-Persuasion Reduce Hostile Attribution Bias in Young Children?

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Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by The Author(s)
Subject
Psychology; Child and School Psychology; Neurosciences; Public Health
ISSN
0091-0627
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1573-2835
DOI
10.1007/s10802-018-0499-2
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Abstract

Two experiments tested an intervention approach to reduce young children’s hostile attribution bias and aggression: self-persua- sion. Children with high levels of hostile attribution bias recorded a video-message advocating to peers why story characters who caused a negative outcome may have had nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), or they simply described the stories (control condition). Before and after the manipulation, hostile attribution bias was assessed using vignettes of ambiguous provocations. Study 1 (n =83, age 4–8) showed that self-persuasion reduced children’s hostile attribution bias. Study 2 (n = 121, age 6–9) replicated this finding, and further showed that self-persuasion was equally effective at reducing hostile attribution bias as was persuasion by others (i.e., listening to an experimenter advocating for nonhostile intentions). Effects on aggressive behavior, however, were small and only significant for one out of four effects tested. This research provides the first evidence that self-persuasion may be an effective approach to reduce hostile attribution bias in young children. . . . . Keywords Hostile attribution bias Self-persuasion Aggression Intervention Experiments Children’s daily social interactions abound with provocations by Dodge 1994). The present research tests an intervention approach peers, such as when they are physically hurt, laughed at, or ex- to reduce hostile attribution bias in young children. cluded from play. The exact reasons behind these provocations, Most interventions that effectively reduce children’s hostile and especially the issue of whether hostile intent was involved, attribution bias rely on attribution retraining techniques (e.g., are often unclear. Responding adequately to such ambiguous Coping Power, Lochman and Wells 2002; BrainPower, provocations is central to children’s social adjustment (Dodge Hudley and Graham 1993; Anger Control Training, et al. 1986). Children who tend to perceive ambiguous provoca- Sukhodolsky et al. 2005). Children taking part in these interven- tions in a hostile way (e.g., Bshe tripped me on purpose^)may tions typically are assembled in small groups to discuss ambig- often respond aggressively, which puts them at risk for psycho- uous peer provocations. During these discussions, therapists en- logical maladjustment (Weiss et al. 1992). Indeed, numerous courage children to question their hostile attributions and teach studies have shown that hostile attribution biases are linked to them to detect cues signaling that someone acted with benign aggressive behavior (for reviews, see: Dodge 2006;DeCastro intent (Hilt 2004). Meta-analytical work has shown that such et al. 2002), as early as the preschool years (Runions and Keating interventions tend to effectively reduce children’s aggressive 2007; Weiss et al. 1992). Accordingly, many intervention pro- behavior (i.e., weighed mean difference effect size = 0.26; grams aiming to prevent aggressive behavior problems include Wilson and Lipsey 2006). However, it is unknown to what techniques to reduce children’s hostile attribution bias (for a extent the attribution retraining component contributes to these review, see Wilson and Lipsey 2006). Such intervention efforts effects (rather than other intervention components such as anger may best commence in early childhood, when children’s hostile management or social problem solving). attribution bias are still relatively sensitive to change (Crick and Moreover, little is known of how attribution retraining is best delivered. The goal of attribution retraining is to reduce chil- dren’s hostile attribution bias by persuading them that peer provocations do not necessarily stem from hostile intentions (e.g., BIdon’t think she hurt you on purpose. See? She looks * Anouk van Dijk a.vandijk3@uu.nl sad.^). Such persuasion is not straightforward. Research in adults suggests that direct attempts at persuasion occasionally backfire: People may reject (rather than accept) such persuasion Department of Psychology, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3508, TC Utrecht, The Netherlands when their own beliefs (1) are highly discrepant from the 990 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 persuasive message (i.e., when the message falls outside their moderation by gender. Boys engage in more direct aggression Blatitude of acceptance;^ Atkins et al. 1967), and (2) are strong- than girls (Card et al. 2008) and may thus benefit more from the ly held (Eagly and Telaak 1972; Schlenker and Trudeau 1990). self-persuasion assignment than do girls. Both these conditions may apply to children with hostile The study procedures were approved by the Ethics attribution biases. First, the notion that Bpeers may have be- Committee of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences nign intentions^ will often be discrepant from these children’s of Utrecht University. All materials, raw data and syntax can typical attribution of provocations as stemming from hostile be found online (Van Dijk et al. 2018). intentions. Second, hostile attribution biases often are strongly held. Children may have initially acquired a hostile attribution bias because others actually had hostile intentions and did Study 1 harm them (Dodge 2006; Frankenhuis and De Weerth 2013). Indeed, children holding a hostile attribution bias have Method often experienced social adversity in the past, such as harsh parenting or peer rejection (Dodge et al. 1995;Perren etal. Participants Participants were 83 Dutch children aged 4–8 2013; Weiss et al. 1992). Ingrained hostile attribution biases (58.7% boys; M =6.70, SD = 1.36; 92.2% Caucasian), re- age are less susceptible to persuasion by others, and thus limit the cruited from kindergarten (n = 23) and primary schools (first potential effectiveness of attribution retraining techniques. grade: n = 25; second grade: n = 35). We selected them from a Instead of trying to persuade children, therapists may also larger sample of 283 children (62.7% boys; M =6.84, SD = age adopt a more indirect approach to reduce children’shostile 1.29; 95.2% Caucasian) for having high levels of hostile attri- attribution bias: self-persuasion (Aronson 1999). Self- bution bias (see selection of participants). The schools were persuasion entails asking people to publicly advocate against located in five municipalities (16,000–206,000 inhabitants) their own beliefs. The resulting change in beliefs can be ex- serving middle-class communities (note that income inequality plained by cognitive dissonance processes (Festinger 1957): If in The Netherlands is low; OECD 2018). A priori power was people publicly espouse viewpoints that are discrepant from sufficient (0.80 for n = 70) to detect small-to-medium effects their privately held beliefs, they tend to later realign their beliefs (ƒ = 0.17) of self-persuasion on pre to post change in children’s with these viewpoints. In adults, self-persuasion has been hostile attribution bias. For all participants, informed consent shown to effectively lead individuals to accept and internalize was obtained from one of the parents (consent rate = 60.6%). belief-discrepant messages (Fazio et al. 1977). For instance, one study showed that individuals who strongly opposed the use of Pre-Assessment We conducted the pre-assessment of children’s marijuana later changed their beliefs if they had recorded a hostile attribution bias in the context of a larger study on social video message advocating the legalization of marijuana (Nel cognition and peer relationships (Van Dijk 2017). Children et al. 1969). Similarly, an effective attribution retraining ap- were individually interviewed in a quiet room in their school. proach may be to ask children themselves to advocate that peer The interview lasted 35–45 min and was conducted by the first provocateurs may have had nonhostile intentions. author or one of eight research assistants. We gave children To investigate the potential effectiveness of self-persuasion stickers to thank them for their voluntary participation. as an attribution retraining approach, we conducted two Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We measured hostile between-subjects experiments involving 4–9-year-old children attribution bias using four vignettes describing a hypothetical with high levels of hostile attribution bias. In Study 1 (n =83), interaction between the child and a same-gender protagonist. children recorded a video message (allegedly to be shown to The vignettes described ambiguous provocations—that is, the pupils from other schools) advocating why peer provocateurs in protagonist caused a negative outcome, but it was unclear a series of ambiguous provocation scenarios may have had whether this negative outcome was intended. Story themes nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), or they mere- were provocations familiar to young children: (1) being hurt, ly described the scenarios (control condition). Study 2 (n =121) (2) their drawing being ruined (3) being left out of play, and replicated Study 1, and also included a third condition to inves- (4) their toy being taken. We drew these themes from vignettes tigate whether self-persuasion is more effective than persuasion developed to measure hostile attribution bias (Feshbach 1989; by others (i.e., children listened to an experimenter advocating Dodge et al. 1985). Experimenters red the stories aloud, each why the provocateurs may have had nonhostile intentions). In supported by a set of line drawings (i.e., three 8 × 8 cm black- both studies, we used vignettes to assess children’s hostile attri- and-white line drawings per vignette; Fig. 1). bution bias before and after the manipulation. Moreover, to We measured attributions using two questions following investigate to what extent the predicted effect on hostile attri- each vignette. First, the experimenter asked: BWhy did the bution would generalize to aggressive behavior, we included an boy/girl [cause the negative outcome]?^ If children’s first re- in vivo provocation scenario to measure children’s aggression sponse did not reflect a hostile or benign attribution, the ex- perimenter probed them with a hostile and a benign option in an emotionally involving situation. We also explored J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 991 Fig. 1 Sample vignette (boys). BImagine that you walk into the classroom. Two boys are playing a board game. You ask if you can join the game, but one of the boys says Bno^ (36.7% of responses; e.g., Bdid the boy try to reject you, or their grade level (i.e., score > 0.50 for kindergarteners, and was it not possible for another player to join in?^). Second, the score > 0.25 for children from first and second grade), and experimenter asked: BWas the boy/girl trying to be mean or (2) their task comprehension was rated as sufficient by ex- not trying to be mean?^ (we counterbalanced the order of perimenters (n = 4 children had insufficient comprehen- response options across vignettes). sion, as indicated by their inability to respond in a mean- Two trained research assistants coded all responses into the ingful way, even after probing). In total, 83 children took following categories: (a) hostile attribution (e.g., Bhe doesn’tlike part in the study (n = 5 other children were absent on the me^); (b) benign attribution (e.g., Bthere were only two pawns in day of testing). Selected children scored significantly the game^); (c) ambiguity attribution (if children indicated that higher (M =0.58, SD = 0.18) than unselected children the protagonist’s intentions could both be hostile and benign, (M = 0.18, SD = 0.18) on hostile attribution bias, e.g., Bhe does not want me to join, or maybe the game is meant p < 0.001, but not on teacher-rated aggression, p =0.268. for two players); and (d) unclear (if children did not answer or if We randomly assigned selected children to either the self- it was unclear whether children’s response reflected hostile or persuasion (n = 43) or the control condition (n =40). benign intent; e.g., Bthey wanted to play together^). Inter-coder reliability was good (κ = 0.87 across vignettes). We resolved Experimental Manipulation Children participated in the exper- coding disagreements (8.1% of responses) by discussion, using iment approximately 1 month after the pre-assessment children’s scores on the hostile-or-benign probe question when (range = 25–48 days). This session lasted 10–15 min and available. We calculated hostile attribution bias scores as the was conducted by the first author. Children were asked to average across the eight questions, coding hostile and mean Bpublicly^ endorse nonhostile attributions in a video message, responses as 1 and all other responses as 0 (α = 0.70). Meta- allegedly to be shown to pupils from other schools. The ex- analytical work has shown that vignette-based assessments of perimenter made children the advocates of the nonhostile mes- hostile attribution bias are linked to aggressive behavior (r = sage, telling them that other children tend to unjustly attribute 0.24; De Castro et al. 2002), supporting concurrent validity. hostile intent: BI visit many schools to reduce conflicts Aggression (teacher-rated). The day after the pre-assess- amongst pupils. Children often become angry because they ment, we asked teachers to complete the Instrument for think that another child did something mean to them on pur- Reactive and Proactive Aggression (IRPA; Polman et al. pose. However, they cannot be sure that the child tried to be 2009). They rated the frequency of seven forms of aggressive mean; it may have been an accident.^ Next, the experimenter behavior (i.e., kicking, pushing, hitting, name calling, arguing, asked them to record a video message: BBecause you are a gossiping, and doing sneaky things) that their pupil engaged child, you can explain these things much better than I can. Of in within the last week, on a 5-point Likert scale (0 = never, course, you cannot join me to visit all these schools every day. 1= once,2= several times,3= every day,4= several times a So, instead, I would like you to record a video message. Is that day). We computed aggression scores as the average of the OK?^ In the control condition, the experimenter told children: seven items (α = 0.79). This measure shows positive associa- BI visit many schools to tell stories to the pupils. The stories tions with other (peer- and teacher-report) aggression mea- describe the things that children do at school^ and similarly sures (Polman et al. 2009) and effectively discriminates be- asked them to help the experimenter, in this case by recording tween children with disruptive behavior disorders and controls a video message to describe the stories. (Schoorl et al. 2016). We also obtained ratings of reactive and In both conditions, children received a picture book that proactive motives, but opted not to report these because the served as the basis of their video message. This picture book results were similar as for the frequency ratings. contained four stories of ambiguous provocations, depicting: (1) physical harm, (2) not sharing candy, (3) knocking over a Selection of Participants We selected children to take part in block tower, and (4) refusing someone to join a table. Each the experiment proper if (1) their hostile attribution bias story involved different characters (all gender-matched and score at pre-assessment was within the highest third for drawn with neutral facial expressions), and consisted of two 992 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 colorful A3-size drawings of the setting and the ambiguous Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). First, we measured provocation (Fig. 2). As the assessment of hostile attribution children’s hostile attribution bias using four vignettes that de- bias also consisted of ambiguous provocation stories, we min- scribed similar ambiguous provocations as the pre-assessment imized resemblance by using unique story themes and draw- vignettes (e.g., we described the situation of Bbeing left out of ings in a different format and style. play^ for a computer game instead of a board game). We Before recording each story, children described the scenar- coded attributions conform the pre-assessment (κ =0.73 io, and the experimenter prompted them in case they missed across vignettes) and averaged them across the four vignettes information important for the storyline (17.6% of responses). to create a single hostile attribution bias score (α =0.76). In the control condition, children recorded their message im- Hostile attribution bias and aggression (in vivo). We set mediately thereafter: BPlease record the story like you just told up an in vivo provocation scenario to measure children’spost- it.^ In the self-persuasion condition, the experimenter manipulation hostile intent attributions and aggression in an prompted children to come up with two attributions: BCan emotionally involving situation: Their toy was taken away by we be sure that the boy/girl tried to be mean? What else could an alleged peer. Children had chosen this toy to receive as a have happened?^ Most children mentioned benign attribu- gift before recording their video message. They had stored it tions (M =1.31, SD = 0.42); hostile attributions were rare in a name-labeled box, to be opened after completing the benign (M =0.11, SD = 0.18). All children generated benign at- vignette task. Upon finding out their toy was gone, the exper- hostile tributions for at least two stories; most children (69.8%) did so imenter neutrally stated: BThat’sstrange… It’s probably taken for all stories. If children mentioned no benign attribution by the boy/girl who was here just now.^ The experimenter (9.3% of responses) or just one (53.5% of responses), the encouraged children to pick another toy, not responding to experimenter helped them co-construct their video message any questions children asked about the alleged peer. by suggesting additional benign attributions (e.g., for the tow- First, we measured children’s aggression using a sticker er story: Bthe tower was wobbly,^ Bhe/she was not paying task (Slagt et al. 2017). The experimenter told children that attention^). Recording of the self-persuasion video messages the alleged peer would later receive some stickers, and told went well: Most children (74.4%) did so without needing an them that they could select the stickers their peer would re- instruction reminder. ceive. The experimenter handed them a box packed with Manipulation check. The first author and a trained re- stickers, saying: BSome stickers are torn, but you may as well search assistant who was blind for condition scored all videos pick those. Please select ten stickers and put them in this for the number of benign attributions (r = 0.90), and resolved envelope,^ and then left the room. We computed aggression coding disagreements by discussion. We computed benign scores as the proportion of torn stickers that children allocated attribution scores as the average across the four stories to their alleged peer. This measure has demonstrated moderate-to-strong stability over a 2-week interval (α = 0.89). (Spearman correlations between 0.35 < ρ <0.79) and is posi- Post-Assessment Directly following the experimental manip- tively associated with relevant variables in samples of pre- ulation, children went to another room in their school to com- schoolers, such as negative affect (0.13 < ρ <0.25) and anti- plete the post-assessment of hostile attribution bias (assessed social intentions (0.24 < ρ < 0.25) (Slagt et al. 2017). We in vivo and using vignettes) and aggression (assessed in vivo found no correlation between this measure and teacher-rated and by teachers). This session lasted 10–15 min and was con- aggression (Table 1), possibly reflecting a state/trait difference ducted by a research assistant who was blind for condition. between the measures (Anderson and Bushman 1997). Fig. 2 Picture book (girls). Ambiguous provocation story (presented on separate pages) J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 993 Table 1 Zero-Order Correlations 1 2 345 6 of Study 1 Variables (Above Diagonal, n = 83) and Study 2 1 Hostile attribution bias – Pre – 0.32** 0.57*** 0.20 0.31** −0.11 Variables (Below Diagonal, n = 121) 2 Aggression (teacher-rated) – Pre – 0.21 0.68*** 0.08 0.15 3 Hostile attribution bias – Post 0.28** – 0.18 0.28** 0.06 4 Aggression (teacher-rated) – Post – 0.10 0.07 5 Hostile attribution bias (in vivo) 0.07 0.22* – −0.03 6 Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers) 0.06 −0.03 0.22* – 7 Aggression (in vivo: evaluations) 0.04 0.10 0.17 0.16 a b c Assessed only in Study 1 (n =79); Correlations based on n = 81 in Study1and n = 118 in Study 2. Assessed * ** *** only in Study 2 (n =114). p <0.05, p <0.01, p <0.001 Next, we measured children’s attributions to their alleged grade, gender, age, vignette-measured hostile attribution bias, peer using two questions. First, upon returning to the room, and teacher-rated aggression (all ps > 0.05), indicating suc- the experimenter asked: BI wonder why the boy/girl took your cessful randomization. toy. What do you think?^ We coded these responses conform Manipulation check. The manipulation was effective the vignette assessments (κ = 0.95). Second, the experimenter (Table 2). Children in the self-persuasion condition made more benign attributions in their video message than children in the asked: BDo you think he/she was being unkind or not?^ We scored hostile and unkind responses as 1 and averaged them to control condition, F(1, 81) = 337.16, p <0.001, η =0.81. create a single in vivo hostile attribution bias score. This score Gender and age differences. Age was significantly corre- was significantly correlated with vignette-assessed hostile at- lated with vignette-assessed hostile attribution bias at pre- tribution bias, both at pre- and post-assessment (Table 1). assessment (r = −0.51, p < 0.001) and post-assessment (r = Meta-analytical work suggests that assessments of children’s −0.38, p < 0.001), teacher-rated aggression at pre-assessment hostile attribution bias using staged provocations yield strong (r = −0.34, p = 0.002), and in vivo hostile attribution bias (r = correlations with aggressive behavior (r = 0.55, De Castro −0.24, r 0.031). We found no moderation by age for the pri- et al. 2002), supporting concurrent validity. mary analyses. Last, we ensured that the provocation scenario was re- Boys allocated more torn stickers to the peer who had al- solved: The experimenter with whom children had recorded legedly taken their toy than girls, p <0.001, η =0.12. We the video message entered the room, explaining that she had observed no other gender differences, 0.078 < ps < 0.861. mistakenly taken the toy. Children got back their toy and We explored moderation by gender for all analyses, and report could select new stickers for their alleged peer. significant effects below. Aggression (teacher-rated). One week after the manipula- tion, we invited teachers to complete the IRPA, concerning Primary Analyses Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We pre- children’s aggressive behavior in the last week (α = 0.80). dicted that children in the self-persuasion condition would show Teachers received a gift-card to thank them for their stronger reductions in hostile attribution bias from pre- to post- participation. assessment than would children in the control condition. A 2 (Time) × 2 (Condition) ANOVA supported this prediction, Results yielding a significant interaction effect (depicted in Fig. 3,left panel), F(1, 80) = 19.80, p <0.001, η = 0.20. Thus, the inter- Preliminary Analyses Table 1 presents zero-order correlations vention effectively reduced children’s hostile attribution bias in and Table 2 presents descriptive statistics for the Study 1 response to vignettes of ambiguous peer provocations. variables. Hostile attribution bias (in vivo). We predicted that chil- Data preparation. We used pairwise deletion to handle dren in the self-persuasion condition (vs. children in the con- missing values (1.2%). We retained outliers (z > 3.29) in the trol condition) would be less likely to attribute hostile intent to analyses (results were virtually identical when excluding the peer who allegedly took their toy. However, an ordinal them). Most variables had a positively skewed distribution. regression analysis did not support this prediction, b(SE)= Hence, in addition to parametric analyses, we report bias- 0.31(0.46), p =0.507, Nagelkerke R =0.01. corrected accelerated (BCa) bootstrap 95% confidence inter- Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers). We predicted that chil- vals (5000 samples). dren in the self-persuasion condition would allocate less torn Equivalence of experimental conditions. At pre-assess- stickers to the alleged peer provocateur than would children in ment, children in the self-persuasion and control condition the control condition. This prediction was not supported. did not significantly differ from each other with regard to Although a one-way ANOVA yielded a significant effect of 994 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 Table 2 Range, Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Bootstrap 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI) of the Study 1 Variables for Children in the Self-Persuasion and Control Condition Separately, and—for In Vivo Aggression—for Boys and Girls Separately Self-persuasion Control Self-persuasion Control Range nM SD n M SD 95% CI 95% CI Benign attributions in video message 0.00–2.25 43 1.62 0.36 40 0.25 0.32 [1.51; 1.72] [0.16; 0.34]* Hostile attribution bias (vignettes) – Pre 0.38–1.00 43 0.58 0.18 40 0.58 0.18 [0.53; 0.63] [0.53; 0.64] – Post 0.00–1.00 43 0.28 0.29 40 0.49 0.25 [0.19; 0.36] [0.41; 0.56]* Hostile attribution bias (in vivo) 0.00–1.00 43 0.20 0.33 38 0.22 0.30 [0.11; 0.30] [0.14; 0.32] Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers) 0.00–1.00 43 0.17 0.22 38 0.32 0.32 [0.10; 0.24] [0.23; 0.42]† – Boys 0.00–1.00 27 0.22 0.24 23 0.43 0.30 [0.14; 0.31] [0.32; 0.55]* – Girls 0.00–1.00 16 0.08 0.16 15 0.15 0.28 [0.02; 0.17] [0.04; 0.30] Aggression (teacher-rated) – Pre 1.00–3.71 43 1.27 0.45 40 1.38 0.58 [1.16; 1.41] [1.23; 1.55] – Post 1.00–3.14 40 1.15 0.26 39 1.26 0.47 [1.08; 1.24] [1.14; 1.41] Missing scores resulted from experimenter error (n = 2; in vivo measures) or from teachers failing to complete the questionnaire (n = 4; aggression-post). * † indicates that 95% CIs do not overlap, indicates marginal overlap condition, F(1, 79) = 6.38, p =0.014, η =0.08, the aggres- Discussion sion variable was highly skewed, and so we should rely on the nonparametric bootstrap 95% confidence intervals. The inter- Study 1 provides evidence that self-persuasion may be used vals of the two conditions slightly overlapped, indicating that effectively to reduce children’s hostile attribution bias. the effect of condition was not significant (Fig. 3, right). Moreover, we found that, among boys, this approach may This result was qualified by gender, however. Using a 2 reduce aggressive behavior as assessed using a behavioral (condition) × 2 (gender) ANOVA, we found a significant in- measure following an in vivo provocation. We observed no teraction effect, F(2, 77) = 7.41, p =0.001, η = 0.16, indicat- aggression reduction as reported by teachers over the course ing that the effect of the self-persuasion manipulation on of the week following the self-persuasion manipulation. in vivo aggression was significant for boys but not for girls (i.e., the bootstrap 95% confidence intervals for boys do not overlap, whereas they do for girls; see Table 2). Boys in the Study 2 self-persuasion condition allocated almost half as many torn stickers to the alleged provocateur (22% of stickers) as did Study2buildsonStudy1inseveral ways:First,wewantedto boys in the control condition (43% of stickers). replicate the Study 1 findings for hostile attribution bias. Aggression (teacher-rated). Fourth, we predicted that chil- Second, given that in Study 1 we found little aggression among dren in the self-persuasion condition would show stronger reduc- girls on the in vivo task, in Study 2, we investigated the effects tions in teacher-rated aggression from pre- to post-assessment of self-persuasion on a second in vivo task designed to assess than would children in the control condition. However, a 2 relational aggression. Gender differences in the prevalence of (time) × 2 (condition) ANOVA did not support this prediction: relational aggression tend to be relatively small or non-existent The interaction was not significant, F(1, 77) = 1.18, p = 0.281, (Card et al. 2008). Third, following persuasion theory, we tested η = 0.02, and we found no gender moderation. whether self-persuasion leads to larger reductions in children’s 1.0 1.0 Fig. 3 Effects of the self- In vivo aggression Hostile attribution bias 0.9 persuasion manipulation on 0.9 (proportion torn stickers) (vignette scores) 0.8 children’s vignette-measured 0.8 hostile attribution bias (left) and 0.7 0.7 their allocation of torn stickers to 0.6 0.6 an alleged peer provocateur 0.5 Control 0.5 (right). Error bars represent 95% 0.4 0.4 bootstrap confidence intervals 0.3 0.3 Self-persuasion 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 Pre Post Self-persuasion Control J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 995 hostile attribution bias than persuasion by others. Direct at- We used the same instructions for the self-persuasion and con- tempts at persuasion may lead children to reject the interven- trol condition as in Study 1. Instructions in the other-persuasion tion’s message, whereas self-persuasion should promote own- condition were identical to the self-persuasion condition, except ership of the message (Aronson 1999; Atkins et al. 1967). By that children were told BIt is much better if pupils see how I directly comparing these approaches, we aimed to better under- explain these things to another pupil^ and were asked to watch stand how attribution retraining can be effectively delivered. the experimenter record the video message. Thus, children in the self- and other-persuasion conditions heard the same inter- Method vention message, but only children in the self-persuasion con- dition advocated for this message themselves. Participants Participants were 121 Dutch children aged 6–9 The other-persuasion manipulation took place as children pre- (49.6% boys; M =7.71, SD = 0.92; 95.0% Caucasian), re- pared their video message. The experimenter encouraged chil- age cruited from primary schools (first grade: n = 47; second dren to describe the story, and then asked: BWhy did the boy/girl grade: n = 43; third grade: n = 31). We selected them from a [cause the provocation]?^ If children mentioned hostile attribu- larger sample of 569 children (53.4% boys; M =7.83, SD = tions (75.6% of children did so at least once), the experimenter age 0.92; 90.2% Caucasian) for having high levels of hostile attri- restructured their hostile belief, saying: BDo you think so? Maybe bution bias (see selection of participants). The schools were he/she did not do it on purpose at all!^ Next, irrespective of located in nine municipalities (12,000–345,000 inhabitants) children’s own attributions, the experimenter provided two be- serving middle-class communities. A priori power was excel- nign attributions (e.g., for the tower story: BMaybe he just tried to lent (> 0.99 for n = 120) to replicate the hostile attribution bias help, or maybe the tower was just too high^). As in Study 1, effect obtained in Study 1 (ƒ = 0.50), and sufficient (0.80 for children in the self-persuasion condition generated their own n = 120) to replicate the main effect for condition on in vivo benign attributions (M = 1.32, SD = 0.40; M = 0.00), benign hostile aggression scores (ƒ = 0.29, as obtained for boys). Informed and children in the control condition described the storyline. consent was obtained from one of the parents of all individual Last, the video message was recorded. Children advocated participants included in the study (consent rate = 54.9%). why the story character may have had nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), listened to the experimenter advo- Pre-Assessment The pre-assessment lasted 10 min and was cating this message (other-persuasion condition), or described conducted by the first author or one of eight research assis- the stories (control condition). tants. We interviewed children individually in a quiet room in Manipulation check. A research assistant who was blind their school and gave them stickers to thank them for their for condition coded the number of benign attributions in chil- participation. dren’s video messages. To assess inter-coder reliability, the Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We measured hostile first author also coded a subset of 20% of the videos (r = attribution bias using the same vignette-procedure as in Study 0.92). We computed benign attribution scores as the average 1. All responses were coded by both the research assistant who across the four stories (α =0.92). conducted the assessment and the first author. Inter-coder reli- ability was good for all coders (0.80 < κ <0.96). We scored Post-Assessment Directly following the experimental manipu- hostile responses as 1, and averaged them across vignettes to lation, children went to another room in their school. The post- create a single hostile attribution bias score (α =0.66). assessment lasted 20–25 min and was conducted by one of four trained research assistants who were blind for condition. Selection of Participants The large size of the screened sample Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). First, we measured allowed us to raise our Study 1 inclusion criterion. In Study 2, children’s hostile attribution bias using the same post- we selected children to participate in the experiment proper if assessment vignettes as in Study 1. Inter-coder reliability they (1) scored ≥ 0.50 on hostile attribution bias, and (2) had was good for all coders (0.81 < κ <0.87) and internal consis- sufficient task comprehension (n = 5 children did not). We ex- tency reliability was sufficient (α =0.64). cluded two children with an autism spectrum disorder diagno- Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers). We used the same sis, and 15 other children were absent on the day of testing. In in vivo provocation scenario as in Study 1, again assessing total, 121childrentookpartinthe study. We randomly assigned aggression as the proportion of torn stickers that children them to the self-persuasion condition (n = 41), the other- allocated to the peer who allegedly had taken their toy persuasion condition (n = 41), or the control condition (n =39). away. Aggression (in vivo: negative evaluations). Next, children Experimental Manipulation Approximately 1 month after the were provided with the opportunity to relationally aggress pre-assessment (range = 14–52 days) children took part in the towards the alleged peer by providing a negative evaluation experimental manipulation, which lasted 10–15 min and was of the peer to a third party (i.e., participants’ friend). This conducted by the first author or one of four research assistants. measure was modeled after the Negative Evaluation Task, 996 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 which is linked with hostile cognitions in adults (β = 0.35; DeWall et al. 2009), and was adapted for use with young children. The experimenter explained that the alleged peer and their friend would be cooperating on a task, and would therefore need some information about each other. The exper- imenter asked children to indicate for both their friend and the alleged peer how Bnice^ and Bstupid^ they were. First, chil- dren rated their friend on a note containing two 4-point scales, for each scale circling one of four squares of increasing size. Next, they rated the alleged peer, and then put the note in an envelope to be passed on to their friend before meeting the alleged peer. Children’s Bstupid^ ratings for the alleged peer indexed aggression (scale 0–3). Hostile attribution bias (in vivo). We measured children’s attributions of the alleged peer’s behavior using the same two questions as in Study 1. In Study 2, if children did not reply to the open-ended attribution question, we asked a follow-up question: BDid the boy/girl not know that the toy was yours, or did he/she just take it?^ Inter-coder reliability was sufficient for all coders (0.64 < κ <1.00). We scored hostile and unkind responses as 1 and averaged them to create a single hostile attribution bias score. This score was significantly positively associated with vignette-assessed hostile attribution bias at post-assessment (Table 1). Last, the provocation scenario was resolved: One experi- menter explained that she had mistakenly taken the toy, whereupon the other experimenter tossed the evaluation notes and gave children the opportunity to select new stickers for their alleged peer. Children also completed a 4-item question- naire about their self-perceived competence for making intent attributions, but this scale was dropped from the analyses be- cause it was unreliable (α =0.40). Results Preliminary Analyses Table 1 presents zero-order correlations and Table 3 presents descriptive statistics for the Study 2 variables. Data preparation. We used pairwise deletion to handle miss- ing values (1.8%). There were no outliers (z > 3.29). Most vari- ables had a positively skewed distribution. Hence, in addition to parametric analyses, we report bias-corrected accelerated (BCa) bootstrap 95% confidence intervals (5000 samples). Equivalence of experimental conditions. At pre-assess- ment, children in the self-persuasion, other-persuasion, and control conditions did not significantly differ with regard to gender, age, and hostile attribution bias (all ps > 0.05), indi- cating that randomization was successful. Manipulation check. The manipulation was effective (Table 3). Children in the self-persuasion condition made more benign attributions in their video message than children in the control and other-persuasion conditions, F(2, 118) = 271.46, p <0.001, η =0.82. Table 3 Range, Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Bootstrap 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI) of the Study 2 Variables for Childreninthe Self-Persuasion, Other-Persuasion, and Control Condition Separately Self-persuasion Other-persuasion Control Self-pers. Other-pers. Control Range n M SD n M SD n M SD 95% CI 95% CI 95% CI Benign attributions in video 0.00–3.25 41 1.47 0.50 41 0.00 0.00 39 0.15 0.19 [1.32; 1.63] [0.10; 0.21]* Hostile attribution bias (vignettes) – Pre 0.50–1.00 41 0.60 0.15 41 0.62 0.14 39 0.58 0.11 [0.56; 0.66] [0.58; 0.66] [0.55; 0.62] – Post 0.00–1.00 41 0.25 0.22 41 0.26 0.21 39 0.52 0.21 [0.19; 0.32] [0.20; 0.33] [0.45; 0.59]* Hostile attribution bias (in vivo) 0.00–1.00 40 0.33 0.45 40 0.29 0.39 38 0.47 0.45 [0.19; 0.46] [0.17; 0.41] [0.33; 0.62] Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers) 0.00–1.00 40 0.27 0.19 40 0.27 0.26 38 0.32 0.24 [0.22; 0.33] [0.19; 0.35] [0.24; 0.40] Aggression (in vivo: evaluations) 0.00–3.00 37 1.08 0.80 39 0.97 0.78 38 1.37 0.94 [0.83; 1.33] [0.74; 1.23] [1.08; 1.67] Missing scores resulted from experimenter error (n = 3; in vivo measures) and from children not understanding the task (n = 4; relational aggression). indicates that 95% CIs of the self- and other- persuasion versus control condition do not overlap J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 997 Gender and age differences. We observed no gender dif- the ANOVA showed no effect of condition, F(2, 111) = 2.25, ferences for any of the study variables. Age was significantly p =0.111, η = 0.04. Planned contrasts showed no significant correlated with in vivo hostile attribution bias (r =0.22, p = differences between the self-persuasion and the control (p = 0.016) but not with other variables. We found no moderation 0.194), or other-persuasion (p = 0.582) conditions (Fig. 4, effects of gender or age in the primary analyses. right). Primary Analyses Discussion Hostile attribution bias (vignettes). We used planned con- trasts to test whether children in the self-persuasion condition Study 2 provides evidence that self-persuasion and other- showed stronger reductions in hostile attribution bias from persuasion are equally effective at reducing children’shostile pre- to post-assessment compared to (1) the control condition, attribution bias. We observed no effects of self- or other- and (2) the other-persuasion condition. The 2 (Time) × 2 persuasion on children’s in vivo aggression. (Condition) ANOVA yielded the predicted interaction effect, F(2, 118) = 27.10, p <0.001, η = 0.32. Planned contrasts re- vealed that children in the self-persuasion condition showed General Discussion stronger reductions in hostile attribution bias than did children in the control condition (p < 0.001), thus replicating the main Reducing children’s hostile attribution bias is challenging. finding of Study 1. However, they did not show stronger re- Although attribution retraining techniques can effectively re- ductions in hostile attribution bias than did children in the duce children’s aggressive behavior (Wilson and Lipsey other-persuasion condition (p = 0.771). Self- and other- 2006), little is known of how such retraining is best delivered. persuasion were equally effective at reducing children’shos- Persuasion theory suggests that children may readily reject the tile attribution bias (Fig. 4,left). message that Bother people may have nonhostile intentions,^ Hostile attribution bias (in vivo). We used an ordinal re- to the extent that they perceive this message as too discrepant gression analysis to test whether children in the self- from their own beliefs (Atkins et al. 1967). To investigate this persuasion condition were less likely to attribute hostile intent issue, two experiments tested the potential effectiveness of to the peer who allegedly took their toy than children in each self-persuasion to reduce children’s hostile attribution bias; of the other conditions. Using dummy variables to code these an approach that, as research in adults has shown, can be used contrasts, we found no significant differences in children’s effectively to persuade people of belief-discrepant messages in vivo hostile attributions between the self-persuasion and (Fazio et al. 1977). control condition, b(SE) = 0.71(0.44), p = 0.106, or the other- Both experiments (Study 1 and 2) showed that self-persuasion persuasion condition, b(SE) = 0.08(0.45), p =0.861. effectively reduced hostile attribution bias as assessed using a Aggression (in vivo: torn stickers & negative evaluations). well-established vignette-based procedure. Study 2 further We used planned contrasts to test potential differences be- showed that self-persuasion was equally effective at reducing tween conditions in in vivo aggression, assessed both as allo- hostile attribution bias as was persuasion by others. Whereas cating torn stickers and as spreading negative evaluations. We we expected self-persuasion to be more effective than persuasion found no such differences. For allocating torn stickers, the by others, this finding suggests that the two attribution retraining ANOVA showed no condition effect, F(2, 115) = 0.55, p = approaches may be valuable complementary strategies. Our ex- 0.578, η < 0.01. Planned contrasts showed no significant periments show that self-persuasion leads to short-term reduc- differences between the self-persuasion condition versus the tions in young children’s hostile attribution bias. Future research control condition (p = 0.391), or the other-persuasion condi- is needed to investigate the potential long-term effects and ex- tion (p = 0.923). Similarly, for spreading negative evaluations, plore the relevance of self-persuasion for clinical practice. In vivo aggression Hostile attribution bias Fig. 4 Effects of the self- (vignette scores) (negative evaluation scores) persuasion and other-persuasion 1.0 2.00 manipulation on children’s 0.9 1.75 vignette-measured hostile 0.8 1.50 attribution bias (left) and their 0.7 negative evaluations of the 1.25 0.6 alleged peer provocateur (right). Control 0.5 1.00 Error bars represent 95% 0.4 0.75 bootstrap confidence intervals 0.3 Other-persuasion 0.50 0.2 Self-persuasion 0.25 0.1 0.0 0.00 Pre Post Self-persuasion Control Other-persuasion 998 J Abnorm Child Psychol (2019) 47:989–1000 We also investigated whether self-persuasion would de- children’s sense of autonomy or competence, which may con- crease children’s aggression. The effects were limited. Study tribute to their well-being (Ryan and Deci 2000). This may be 1 showed that boys, but not girls, who recorded a self- especially relevant when treating hostile attribution biases in persuasion message (vs. a control message) were less likely aggressive children, who tend to resist influence by authority to engage in in vivo aggression (i.e., allocating torn stickers to figures and prefer taking on agentic roles (Ellis et al. 2016; a peer who allegedly took their toy). However, Study 2 did not Salmivalli et al. 2005). Second, self-persuasion encourages replicate this effect, nor showed effects on a second in vivo children to reflect on the possibility of making benign attribu- aggression task designed to tap relational aggression (i.e., tions, rather than Bcorrecting^ their hostile attributions. As spreading negative evaluations of the alleged peer). These such, self-persuasion has the advantage that it does not trigger findings suggest that single instances of self- or other- children’s existing hostile knowledge base (Anderson and persuasion may affect children’s cognition more than their Bushman 2002), nor affirm their identity of being someone behavior—which is further supported by the fact that we who misperceives social situations (Swann Jr. 2011). found no effects of self-persuasion on teacher-reported aggres- Our research has both strengths and limitations. Strengths sion (measured in Study 1). It is possible that more extensive include our replication of the self-persuasion effect on hostile persuasion techniques are required to effectuate change in attribution bias across studies, and the inclusion of an active children’s ingrained behavior patterns, perhaps particularly control condition, which enabled us to rule out potential alter- in emotionally engaging situations such as losing a valued native explanations of the study findings (such as that chil- gift. Future research will need to test this possibility, and ad- dren’s hostile attribution bias decreased due to repeated expo- dress the cognition-behavior discrepancy in our findings. sure to social provocation scenarios). A limitation is that the The self-persuasion effect on hostile attribution bias as self-persuasion manipulation and hostile attribution bias as- assessed using the vignette-based paradigm did not generalize sessments inevitably covered the same content (i.e., ambigu- to children’s hostile attributions for the in vivo, real-time peer ous social provocations). Although we used unique story provocation scenario. Generalization to ecologically valid set- themes and different visual presentation formats, we cannot tings is important, but it is also challenging. Our in vivo attribu- rule out the possibility that demand effects at post-assessment tion measure was correlated with vignette-assessed hostile attri- have contributed to the observed effects. Further, although we bution bias, supporting its convergent validity. That said, we sampled children with high scores on hostile attribution bias, assessed children’s attributions using two questions only, to avoid we did not target children with clinically elevated levels of the possibility that children would infer that the provocation was aggressive behavior. In theory, these children might benefit staged. The downside of this approach is that it reduced assess- more from self-persuasion, because they tend to have stronger ment sensitivity, which might have accounted for this null-result. hostile attribution biases (Dodge 2006), and may thus be par- Our results inform self-persuasion theory, which predicts that ticularly resistant to persuasion by others (Schlenker and self-persuasion will often be more powerful at changing beliefs Trudeau 1990). This idea may be tested in future research. than persuasion by others (Aronson 1999). Although self- In sum, our experiments suggest that self-persuasion persuasion was generally effective at changing children’s hostile maybe aneffectiveapproachtoreducehostileattribu- attributions, we found no evidence that it was more effective than tion bias in young children. We hope this research will persuasion by others. One possible explanation is that the limita- encourage efforts to further investigate self-persuasion tions of persuasion by others are less potent in young children techniques as a promising intervention approach, and compared to adults. Research in adults has shown that individ- help young children to persuade themselves away from uals are more likely to reject a persuasive message if they accept their biased hostile attributions. a limited range of views as compatible with their own (Eagly and Telaak 1972). However, children may generally have wider lat- Funding This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for itudes of acceptance. As they have just started to construct their Scientific Research (grant number 022.003.021). knowledge of the social world, they may accept a wider range of informationtobe true(Crickand Dodge 1994). Accordingly, the Compliance with Ethical Standards All procedures performed relative effectiveness of self-persuasion compared to persuasion in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the by others might increase as children grow older—a possibility ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or com- that should be tested in future work. parable ethical standards. Although we found that self-persuasion and other- persuasion were equally effective in reducing children’shos- Informed Consent was obtained from one of the parents of all individ- tile attribution bias, self-persuasion may have additional at- ual participants included in the study. tractive features. 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Published: Dec 4, 2018

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