What is Relational Aggression?
Relational aggression is covert aggressive behavior that is intended to harm someone by damaging or manipulating his or her relationships with others (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). Although relational aggression tends to be more common among females in female peer groups in childhood (Crick, 1995, 1996), in college, males tend to report using more peer reactive relational aggression (Lento-Zwolinski, 2007), and they tend to report more relational victimization by romantic partners (Lento, 2006). Although relational aggression tends to be more common than physical aggression overall in college students, a number of shared and unique adjustment difficulties have been associated with both forms of aggression in young adults (Loudin, Loukas, & Robinson, 2003; Storch et al., 2004; Werner & Crick, 1999). Two distinctions of relational aggression include proactive and reactive aggression: • Proactive behaviors are a means for achieving a goal (e.g. may need to exclude someone to maintain your own
