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- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Psychologists
said Sunday they had helped explain why some boys become bullies -- because
aggressive behavior may make boys popular with their playmates.
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- A study of 452 boys in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades
-- ages 9 through 12 -- showed about a third of them were popular while
showing antisocial behavior.
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- ``These findings suggest that highly aggressive boys
can be among the most popular and socially connected children in elementary
classrooms,'' the researchers wrote in the American Psychological Association's
journal Developmental Psychology.
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- ``These boys may internalize the idea that aggression,
popularity and control naturally go together, and they may not hesitate
to use physical aggression as a social strategy because it has always worked
in the past,'' Philip Rodkin of Duke University in North Carolina, who
led the study, said in a statement.
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- ``Obviously, there will come a point in these boys' lives
when this turns from an adaptive and fun to a lonely and potentially dangerous
characteristic.''
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- Still, sometimes aggressive behavior carries them into
successful careers, he added. ``They may not be loved, but they are powerful
and have status, prestige and social/professional connections,'' he said.
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- The researchers compared ``model'' boys in 59 classrooms
in Chicago and North Carolina to ``tough'' boys. They found that both well-behaved
and aggressive boys could be popular.
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- ``Peers perceived model boys as cool, athletic, leaders,
cooperative, studious, not shy and nonaggressive,'' the researchers wrote.
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- ``Peers perceived tough boys as cool, athletic and antisocial.''
Teachers said these boys tended to argue, be disruptive, get into trouble
and start fights.
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- They found a clear racial factor. ``Tough boys were disproportionately
African-American, particularly when African- Americans were a minority
in their classrooms,'' they wrote.
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- They said being ``tough'' could be a way black children
make up for a disadvantaged background, as the classrooms studied were
made up mostly of white children.
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- ``Society effectively says that some kinds of aggression
and rebelliousness are legitimate to express and are culturally rewarded,''
Rodkin said.
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- The study concerned only boys, but other studies have
shown that the same does not apply to girls. Aggressive behavior usually
makes girls unpopular, experts say.
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