Longitudinal Associations Between Meta-Perceptions of Friends’ Reactions and Physical and Relational Aggression Perpetration During Early Adolescence

Peer contexts can support or deter aggressive behavior perpetration in early adolescence. Relatively little is known, though, about how an individual’s expectations of their friends’ reactions to aggressive and non-aggressive behaviors inform physical and relational aggression perpetration. Participants (N = 527) were middle schoolers recruited from three schools in the Southeastern United States as part of a larger violence prevention program. Students completed self-report measures of meta-perceptions and recent relational and physical aggression perpetration at four timepoints across two academic years. We specified separate random intercept cross-lagged panel models for each subtype of aggression. We found evidence for stable between-person associations. Within-person fluctuations in meta-perceptions did not predict subsequent aggression perpetration, nor vice versa. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing individual differences from dynamic change processes in the study of aggressive behavior during early adolescence.