ATTRIBUTIONAL AND EMOTIONAL DETERMINANTS OF AGGRESSION AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND LATINO YOUNG ADOLESCENTS

Attribution theorists propose that negative actions of others perceived as intended elicit anger, and anger then functions as a motivator of hostile behavior. We examined the understanding of these attribution-affect-action linkages among young ethnic minority adolescents. Forty-four Latino and African-American middle-school children labeled as aggressive and a matched group of nonaggressives read causally ambiguous scenarios describing negative outcomes initiated by a hypothetical peer. They then made judgments about the peer's intentions, their own feelings of anger, and the likelihood that they would behave aggressively toward that peer. Concerning the relations between these variables, the data supported a mediational model of emotion as postulated by attribution theory. The implications of these findings for attributional change were discussed.