Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale

Abstract

The Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale (frequently designated in developmental psychopathology literature as the Peer-Nomination Inventory or Peer-Nomination of Aggression Scale [PNAS]) represents one of the foundational, most methodologically robust sociometric assessment instruments in developmental psychology and behavioral psychometrics. Initially operationalized in the seminal longitudinal investigations directed by Leonard D. Eron, L. Rowell Huesmann, Leopold O. Walder, and Monroe M. Lefkowitz, this instrument was engineered to bypass the pervasive self-presentation distortions, social desirability biases, and limited behavioral self-awareness that frequently undermine self-report methodologies in youth populations. Configured primarily for elementary school children spanning grades 1 through 6 (ages 6 to 12), the instrument employs a class-wide roster nomination methodology administered in structured group sessions wherein pupils identify peers who exhibit observable behavioral manifestations across multiple social and behavioral dimensions.

While historically centered on the quantification of multidimensional aggression—encompassing direct physical confrontation, verbal assault, relational hostility, and rule defiance—the contemporary standardized inventory comprises 24 distinct sociometric queries tapping six discrete, psychometrically validated domains: Aggression (10 items), Prosocial Behavior (4 items), Popularity (2 items), Rejection (2 items), Victimization (2 items), and Hyperactivity (2 items), alongside 2 non-scored orienting and proximity calibration queries. Sociometric scoring operates on bounded proportion metrics ranging from 0.00 to 1.00, derived by dividing the total number of peer nominations received by the child within each behavioral domain by the total number of possible classroom peer nominators. Extensive longitudinal investigations spanning multiple decades demonstrate exceptional psychometric robustness, including internal consistency reliability coefficients ($lpha$) typically ranging from .88 to .96 for the aggression composite, remarkable 1-year to 10-year rank-order stability coefficients (.50 to .75), robust convergent validity with teacher ratings, behavioral observation protocols, and criminal record data across adulthood, alongside confirmed structural invariance across diverse socio-demographic cohorts. This comprehensive treatise provides an exhaustive psychometric, theoretical, operational, and clinical profile of the instrument.

Keywords

Peer nomination, sociometrics, aggression, peer rejection, victimization, prosocial behavior, hyperactivity, childhood conduct, behavioral assessment, psychometrics, longitudinal stability, social-cognitive script theory.

Authors

The architectural conception, psychometric operationalization, and empirical refinement of the sociometric peer-nomination methodology for aggression assessment represent the collaborative work of prominent behavioral scientists across several decades:

• Leonard D. Eron, Ph.D. (1920–2007): Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research; pioneering investigator in the developmental etiology of aggression and media violence effects.
• L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D.: Amos N. Tversky Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies and Psychology, and Director of the Aggression Research Group at the Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Corresponding Authority: Research Center for Group Dynamics, 5030 Institute for Social Research, 426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248; Email: [email protected].
• Monroe M. Lefkowitz, Ph.D.: Former Principal Research Scientist, New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and Professor of Psychology, Long Island University.
• Leopold O. Walder, Ph.D.: Clinical and developmental psychologist, Behavior Service Consultants and University of Maryland, co-principal investigator of the landmark Columbia County Longitudinal Study.
• Nancy G. Guerra, Ed.D.: Professor of Psychology and Dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine; instrumental collaborator in extending the peer-nomination battery to urban, multiethnic populations and integrating cognitive-ecological models of antisocial behavior.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale is to establish an objective, ecologically valid, and socially aggregated index of aggressive and disruptive conduct among youth embedded within naturalistic educational settings. In developmental psychopathology, measuring externalizing behaviors via standard self-report instruments presents severe empirical challenges. Preadolescent children frequently lack the meta-cognitive capacity to accurately calibrate their own behavioral extremity relative to population norms, systematically minimize antisocial acts to avoid disciplinary sanction, or hyper-inflate aggressive prowess due to subcultural peer reinforcement mechanisms. Similarly, teacher ratings—while valuable—are circumscribed by adult surveillance limits, as significant aggressive transactions (particularly clandestine relational sabotage, subtle bullying, and verbal micro-aggressions) transpire in unstructured contexts such as playgrounds, lunchrooms, hallways, and transit corridors away from adult scrutiny.

The peer-nomination sociometric strategy solves these observational impediments by leveraging the collective perceptual consensus of the entire classroom peer group. In a class of 20 to 30 students, each child is evaluated independently by dozens of daily social interaction partners who maintain continuous, ecologically unfiltered exposure to that child’s interpersonal behavioral repertoire across multiple social contexts. By aggregating these multiple perspectives, idiosyncratic observer error, transient individual biases, and individual peer animosities are statistically canceled out, yielding an aggregate proportion score characterized by remarkably elevated signal-to-noise ratios.

Beyond the quantification of aggression, the purpose of the 24-item operationalization is to situated antisocial actions within the child’s broader sociometric ecosystem. Aggressive behavior does not unfold in a social vacuum; its developmental trajectory is intimately modulated by whether the aggressive child is simultaneously accepted, socially marginalized (rejected), subjected to retributive hostility (victimized), or capable of compensating prosocial overtures. The scale therefore concurrently maps the intersections between aggression, social status (sociometric popularity versus peer rejection), behavioral dysregulation (hyperactivity), and protective peer competencies (prosociality). This granular taxonomy allows clinical child psychologists, school intervention specialists, and developmental researchers to:

• Screen and identify children exhibiting clinically elevated risk trajectories toward conduct disorder, chronic delinquency, and oppositional defiant behavior prior to the formal consolidation of severe antisocial patterns.
• Differentiate distinct behavioral subtypes, such as aggressive-rejected youths (who bear the highest longitudinal risk for severe psychiatric and criminal outcomes) versus popular-aggressive youths (who leverage Machiavellian or bistrategic social dominance).
• Identify “bully-victims” who register elevations on both the Aggression and Victimization subscales, a subgroup marked by extreme affective dysregulation and internalizing comorbidities.
• Evaluate the longitudinal efficacy of school-wide violence prevention curricula, social-emotional learning (SEL) programs, and targeted behavioral modification programs through pre- and post-intervention sociometric mapping.

Psychological Construct

The psychometric architecture of the Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale articulates six primary behavioral and sociometric constructs, grounded in empirical behavioral typologies observed throughout middle childhood. These dimensions encompass both overt actions and the resulting peer-group valuations:

1. Aggression (10 Items)

The aggression dimension represents the conceptual core of the instrument. It operationalizes aggression as intentional behavior enacted toward others that causes physical harm, psychological distress, property deprivation, or social disruption. The 10 items capture a balanced spectrum of aggressive modalities:

• Direct Physical Aggression: Marked by overt somatic attacks and forceful boundary violations, captured by items such as Item 20 (“Who pushes or shoves other children?”) and Item 19 (“Who starts a fight over nothing?”).
• Verbal and Affective Hostility: Reflected in hostile verbalizations, denigration, and non-verbal contempt, exemplified by Item 22 (“Who says mean things?”), Item 6 (“Who often says ‘Give me that!’?”), and Item 11 (“Who gives dirty looks or sticks out their tongue at other children?”).
• Relational and Deceptive Aggression: Entails covert manipulation of the peer social structure and instrumental deceit to inflict reputational or institutional injury, operationalized by Item 12 (“Who makes up stories and lies to get other children in trouble?”).
• Rule-Breaking and Antisocial Dominance: Captures violations of structured classroom norms and unauthorized material acquisition, measured by Item 5 (“Who does not obey the teacher?”), Item 21 (“Who is always getting into trouble?”), Item 23 (“Who takes other children’s things without asking?”), and Item 13 (“Who does things that bother other children?”).

2. Prosocial Behavior (4 Items)

Prosocial behavior reflects voluntary, socially competent behaviors directed toward benefiting, assisting, and harmonizing interactions with peers. In developmental trajectories, prosocial competencies operate as primary developmental buffers against externalizing liabilities. This construct is measured by Item 4 (“Who likes to share with others?”), Item 7 (“Who gets along well with others?”), Item 14 (“Who helps other kids?”), and Item 24 (“Who does nice things to help other people?”). Rather than serving merely as the inverse of aggression, prosociality represents an independent, orthogonal behavioral dimension; children can theoretically manifest low aggression and low prosociality (socially withdrawn/neglected) or, conversely, utilize prosocial strategies selectively alongside instrumental aggression.

3. Sociometric Popularity (2 Items)

Sociometric popularity measures peer preference, social attraction, and positive valence within the classroom group. It operationalizes desired social proximity and friendship seeking through Item 3 (“Who would you like to sit next to in class?”) and Item 15 (“Who are the children you would like to have for your best friends?”). This dimension captures the elective positive affinity a child elicits from classmates.

4. Peer Rejection (2 Items)

Peer rejection quantifies active social aversion, peer-directed antipathy, and marginalization from group activities. Measured through Item 8 (“Who are the children who are usually chosen last to join in group activities?”) and Item 16 (“Who are the children that you really don’t like?”), this construct operationalizes the negative valence dimension of sociometric status. Chronic peer rejection is widely documented as an independent pathogen that exacerbates emotional dysregulation, depressive symptomatology, and reactive aggressive retaliations.

5. Peer Victimization (2 Items)

Victimization captures the experience of being the target of peer maltreatment, harassment, and coercive physical dominance. It is indexed by Item 9 (“Who gets picked on by other kids?”) and Item 18 (“Who gets hit and pushed by other kids?”). Integrating victimization nominations alongside aggressive nominations is critical for delineating purely aggressive perpetrators from aggressive victims (“provocative victims” or “bully-victims”), who present uniquely volatile psychiatric profiles.

6. Hyperactivity / Motor Disinhibition (2 Items)

The hyperactivity dimension captures visible motoric restlessness, impulse-control deficits, and physical disinhibition within the structured classroom context. It is assessed via Item 10 (“Who gets out of their seat a lot?”) and Item 17 (“Who wiggles or moves around in their seat a lot?”). This construct captures externalizing neurodevelopmental manifestations that frequently co-occur with early-onset conduct difficulties, enabling empirical differentiation between neurogenic motor restlessness and purposive interpersonal hostility.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale is grounded in three major psychological frameworks: Social Learning Theory, Social-Cognitive Information Processing Theory, and Sociometric Field Theory.

Social Learning and Longitudinal Stability Paradigms

The origin of the instrument within the Columbia County Longitudinal Study (Eron, Walder, & Lefkowitz, 1971) was anchored in early social learning theory, subsequently advanced by Albert Bandura. Eron and colleagues posited that aggression is an acquired behavioral repertoire shaped through vicarious modeling (e.g., exposure to parental corporal punishment, domestic conflict, and violent mass media), instrumental reinforcement, and lack of socialization toward nonviolent conflict resolution. Crucially, the authors conceptualized aggression as a persistent behavioral trait. The stability hypothesis proposed that once an aggressive behavioral schema is habituated in early childhood, it functions as a stable behavioral disposition analogous to psychometric intelligence.

In their historic 22-year and 40-year longitudinal follow-ups, Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz, and Walder (1984) demonstrated that peer-nominated aggression measured at age 8 significantly predicted criminal arrests, domestic violence, severe physical punishments inflicted on offspring, and traffic violations at age 30. This degree of cross-temporal and cross-generational stability required an assessment methodology free of transient developmental self-biases—a requirement fulfilled uniquely by peer sociometrics.

Social-Cognitive Information Processing and Cognitive Script Theory

In subsequent decades, Huesmann (1988, 1998) and colleagues integrated the instrument into a modern social-cognitive framework: Cognitive Script Theory. This model postulates that social behavior is mediated by internal cognitive structures: scripts, world schemas, and normative beliefs. A child repeatedly confronted with interpersonal conflict retrieves behavioral scripts from memory that dictate behavioral sequences. Aggressive children possess highly accessible, automated aggressive scripts, coupled with normative beliefs that aggression is acceptable and expected.

Simultaneously, the social information processing (SIP) model formulated by Kenneth Dodge and Nicki Crick posits that children proceed through five sequential mental steps prior to behavioral execution: encoding social cues, interpreting cues (e.g., displaying hostile attributional bias), clarifying goals, accessing behavioral responses, and evaluating response efficacy. Because the Peer-Nomination scale includes items indexing reactive provocation (Item 19: “starts a fight over nothing”), proactive instrumental theft (Item 23: “takes things without asking”), and relational deceit (Item 12: “tells lies to get kids in trouble”), it directly maps the observable behavioral outputs resulting from distorted social-cognitive processing steps.

Sociometric Field Theory

Originating from Jacob L. Moreno’s foundational work on sociometry, peer-nomination methodology recognizes the classroom as a dynamic psychological ecosystem. Individual development is profoundly governed by the collective structure of attractions, repulsions, and behavioral reputations within this bounded peer ecology. According to sociometric status theory (Coie, Dodge, & Coppotelli, 1982), a child’s sociometric profile emerges from the orthogonal intersection of social preference (nominations for best friend minus nominations for disliked peer) and social impact (the sum of positive and negative nominations). By embedding aggression within popularity, rejection, and victimization queries, the PNAS captures the dynamic feedback loops wherein aggressive behavior induces peer rejection, which in turn deprives the child of normalizing social learning experiences, thereby reinforcing subsequent antisocial conduct.

Validity

The Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale has amassed comprehensive empirical validation across five decades of psychometric, developmental, and criminological research.

Construct and Structural Validity

Construct validity has been verified through extensive confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) across diverse multi-ethnic urban and suburban student bodies (e.g., Huesmann et al., 1994; Guerra et al., 1995). The 10 aggression items demonstrate profound internal convergence, with all items exhibiting standardized factor loadings exceeding .70 (typically spanning .74 to .91) on a general latent Aggression construct. Multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) evaluations confirm that peer-nominated aggression forms a distinct empirical latent entity that is robustly separable from teacher ratings of internalizing distress, observer counts of off-task play, and academic performance indices.

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

Convergent validity is documented via strong, statistically significant correlations with alternative, independent measurement modalities:

• Teacher Ratings: Studies evaluating cross-informant convergence (e.g., Huesmann, Eron, Guerra, & Crawshaw, 1994) report correlation coefficients between peer-nominated aggression scores and standardized teacher rating inventories (such as the Child Behavior Checklist [CBCL] Teacher Report Form and the Conners Teacher Rating Scale) ranging from $r = .65$ to $r = .82$ ($p < .001$).
• Direct Observational Protocols: Naturalistic behavioral coding across playground, cafeteria, and physical education environments yields convergent correlations between observed physical/verbal aggressive incidents and peer-nomination aggression scores ranging from $r = .48$ to $r = .69$.
• Self-Report Concordance: Correlations with self-reported aggression are moderate ($r = .35$ to $r = .52$), consistent with psychometric expectations that self-evaluations contain substantial social desirability suppression that peer consensus overcomes.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

The predictive validity of the scale is among the most thoroughly documented in the annals of clinical psychology. In the landmark Columbia County Longitudinal Study:

• Peer-nominated aggression at age 8 correlated significantly ($r = .38$ for males, $p < .001$) with adult criminal records (including convictions for violent felonies, assault, and robbery) documented at age 30 via official state and federal registry databases.
• Childhood aggression scores predicted adult spouse abuse, self-reported physical aggression, punitive disciplinary aggression directed toward their own children, and moving traffic violations three decades later, controlling for baseline socioeconomic status and childhood IQ.
• In prospective intervention evaluations (e.g., the Metropolitan Chicago Schools Project; Guerra et al., 1995), elevations in baseline peer-nominated aggression reliably predicted escalations in self-reported violent delinquency and weapon carrying across early adolescence.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity is supported by the empirical decoupling of the Aggression subscale from non-externalizing domains. The Aggression proportion score shares minimal variance with general cognitive ability ($r = -.10$ to $-.18$) and indices of academic achievement when socio-economic parameters are statistically controlled. Furthermore, the correlation between Aggression and Prosocial Behavior is consistently negative ($r = -.35$ to $-.58$), confirming that the two subscales measure divergent, non-redundant behavioral dimensions rather than simple semantic opposites.

Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale has been comprehensively documented using internal consistency, split-half, inter-rater, and test-retest reliability metrics across multiple developmental stages.

Internal Consistency

The 10-item Aggression subscale routinely demonstrates superior internal consistency across elementary school cohorts:

• Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients for the Aggression composite across grades 1 through 6 consistently range between .92 and .96.
• The 4-item Prosocial Behavior subscale achieves Cronbach’s alpha values typically spanning .84 to .89.
• The 2-item subscales (Popularity, Rejection, Victimization, Hyperactivity) yield inter-item Spearman-Brown corrected reliability estimates ranging from .76 to .86, remarkably high for two-item sociometric indices.

Inter-Rater Consensus and Split-Half Agreement

Because peer nomination utilizes the entire classroom as raters, inter-rater reliability is conceptualized through split-half rater consensus procedures. When classrooms are randomly bifurcated into two equal subgroups of raters, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the aggregate nomination proportions generated by the two halves typically exceeds ICC = .90 for the Aggression composite and ICC = .82 for the remaining subscales. This confirms that the derived scores are properties of the child’s observable behavioral reputation rather than the idiosyncratic composition of the participating nominators.

Test-Retest Stability

Short-term and long-term stability coefficients establish exceptional longitudinal robustness:

• Short-Term Stability (2 to 6 Months): Test-retest reliability across an academic semester yields stability coefficients ranging from $r = .80$ to $r = .91$ for Aggression, even when subtle shifts in classroom seating or peer group cliques occur.
• Medium-Term Stability (1 to 3 Years): Across consecutive grade levels with newly constituted classroom rosters, stability coefficients remain exceptionally high, spanning $r = .65$ to $r = .75$.
• Long-Term Stability (10 to 22 Years): Over multi-decade intervals spanning from childhood (age 8) through late adolescence (age 19) and adulthood (age 30), latent trait continuity coefficients for aggression remain between $r = .46$ and $r = .60$, illustrating stability comparable to established psychometric measures of cognitive intelligence.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the 24-item peer-nomination battery has been evaluated across exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and multi-group confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) across diverse educational contexts (e.g., Eron et al., 1971; Huesmann et al., 1994; Boxmeyer et al., 2007).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring with oblimin (promax) oblique rotation consistently extracts a clear six-factor solution accounting for approximately 64% to 72% of total shared variance across the 22 scored items:

• Factor 1: Aggression (Eigenvalue typically > 8.5; accounts for ~38–44% of variance). All 10 designated items load cleanly onto this primary factor. Primary loadings include: Item 20 (“pushes or shoves”; $lambda = .88$), Item 19 (“starts a fight over nothing”; $lambda = .86$), Item 22 (“says mean things”; $lambda = .84$), and Item 21 (“always getting into trouble”; $lambda = .82$). Items 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, and 23 display loadings between .68 and .79. Cross-loadings onto prosocial or popularity factors remain negligible ($< .15$).
• Factor 2: Prosocial Competence (Eigenvalue ~ 2.8; ~12% of variance). Items 4, 7, 14, and 24 exhibit primary factor loadings between .76 and .88, displaying inverse moderate correlations with Factor 1 ($r pprox -.42$).
• Factor 3: Hyperactivity / Motor Restlessness (Eigenvalue ~ 1.8; ~7% of variance). Item 10 (“gets out of their seat a lot”) and Item 17 (“wiggles or moves around in seat a lot”) load cleanly ($lambda = .82$ and $.86$, respectively). While moderately correlated with Aggression ($r pprox .48$), cross-loadings are minimal, validating the structural distinction between physical restlessness and intentional hostile aggression.
• Factor 4: Sociometric Popularity (Eigenvalue ~ 1.4; ~5% of variance). Items 3 and 15 demonstrate high unique loadings ($lambda = .81$ and $.85$), mapping positive peer affinity.
• Factor 5: Peer Rejection (Eigenvalue ~ 1.2; ~4% of variance). Items 8 and 16 load at $lambda = .79$ and $.83$. Rejection correlates positively with Aggression ($r pprox .45$) and negatively with Popularity ($r pprox -.52$).
• Factor 6: Victimization (Eigenvalue ~ 1.1; ~3.5% of variance). Items 9 and 18 load strongly ($lambda = .83$ and $.87$). Victimization exhibits a mild positive correlation with Rejection ($r pprox .41$) and a moderate correlation with Aggression ($r pprox .30$), cleanly isolating the targeted victims of peer hostility.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Measurement Invariance

Confirmatory factor analytic modeling confirms the superiority of the six-factor correlated model over competing one-factor (general behavioral deviance) or three-factor (externalizing, internalizing, prosocial) models. Standard model fit indices routinely surpass conventional thresholds for excellent fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $ge .95$ (typically .962 to .978).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $ge .94$ (typically .954 to .971).
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $le .048$ ($90%\text{ CI } [.041, .055]$).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $le .039$.

Multi-group CFA evaluations further establish full metric and scalar measurement invariance across biological sex (boys versus girls) and across grade cohorts (Grade 1–2 early elementary versus Grade 3–6 late elementary), confirming that the items function identically across developmental and demographic strata.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration, formatting parameters, scoring algorithms, and structural properties of the Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale are detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale (PNAS / Peer Nomination Inventory).
• Target Population: School-aged children enrolled in Grades 1 through 6 (approximate ages 6 to 12 years). Adaptable with modified administration protocols for early middle school (Grades 7–8).
• Administration Modality: Standardized group-administered classroom assessment. Each child receives a personalized test booklet containing the 24 questions. Under each question is a printed roster of all participating classmates in the classroom, strictly stratified into two columns: “Boys” and “Girls”. In addition to student names, standardized non-peer options—”No Boy” and “No Girl”—are explicitly provided for each item to avoid forced nominations when a student believes no classmate fits the prompt.
• Administration Procedure: A trained examiner reads each question aloud to the entire classroom simultaneously, ensuring that reading-level limitations do not confound responses. Children are instructed to mark an “X” or draw a line through the name of every child in the class who fits the behavioral description read aloud. Children are instructed that they may nominate as few or as many peers as they feel fit the description, or mark “No Boy” / “No Girl”. Administration requires approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Total privacy and strict confidentiality are enforced; desks are spaced apart, and privacy shields are utilized where possible.
• Total Item Count: 24 Items total:
  • Warm-up & Spatial Calibration Items (Non-Scored; 2 items): Item 1 (“Who are you?”) serves as a self-identification check to verify roster comprehension; Item 2 (“Who are the children who always sit around you?”) controls for physical proximity biases.
  • Aggression Subscale (10 items): Items 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23.
  • Prosocial Behavior Subscale (4 items): Items 4, 7, 14, and 24.
  • Popularity Subscale (2 items): Items 3 and 15.
  • Rejection Subscale (2 items): Items 8 and 16.
  • Victimization Subscale (2 items): Items 9 and 18.
  • Hyperactivity Subscale (2 items): Items 10 and 17.
• Scoring Mechanism and Mathematical Formulas:

  Raw nomination frequencies are fundamentally biased by varying classroom enrollments (a child nominated by 5 peers in a class of 10 exhibits vastly higher behavioral extremity than a child nominated by 5 peers in a class of 30). Consequently, all subscale scores are converted into standardized proportion scores bounded between $0.00$ and $1.00$.

  Let $N$ equal the total number of valid peer nominators participating in the classroom session on the day of testing (excluding the target child if self-nominations are censored, or including total respondents). For any child $i$ on any subscale $S$ containing $k$ items, the proportion score ($P_{i,S}$) is calculated as:

  P_{i,S} = frac{sum_{j=1}^{k} text{Nominations Received on Item } j}{k times N}

  Where:

  • Aggression Proportion Score: Sum of nominations received across the 10 aggression items divided by $(10 \times N)$. A score of $1.00$ signifies that the child was nominated for every single aggressive act by every single classmate in the room. A score of $0.00$ signifies that the child received zero aggressive nominations from any peer.
  • Prosocial Proportion Score: Sum of nominations across the 4 prosocial items divided by $(4 \times N)$.
  • Popularity Proportion Score: Sum of nominations across Items 3 and 15 divided by $(2 \times N)$.
  • Rejection Proportion Score: Sum of nominations across Items 8 and 16 divided by $(2 \times N)$.
  • Victimization Proportion Score: Sum of nominations across Items 9 and 18 divided by $(2 \times N)$.
  • Hyperactivity Proportion Score: Sum of nominations across Items 10 and 17 divided by $(2 \times N)$.

  In standard psychometric research protocols, these proportion scores are subsequently converted to standardized z-scores ($z = \frac{P_{i} – \mu_{class}}{\sigma_{class}}$) within each classroom to eliminate between-class baseline grading variance.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The conceptual framework and initial item pool for the Peer-Nomination of Aggression scale were first published in 1971 in the foundational monograph Learning of Aggression in Children (Eron, Walder, & Lefkowitz, 1971), with major psychometric refinements, stability tracking, and standardization published across subsequent decades (Huesmann et al., 1984; Huesmann et al., 1992; Huesmann, Eron, Guerra, & Crawshaw, 1994). The full instrument, administration instructions, and scoring protocols are documented in the public health compendium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools (Dahlberg, Toal, Swahn, & Behrens, 2005, pp. 173–174).

The scale items and psychometric operationalizations are copyrighted by the primary authors. The instrument is generally accessible without commercial fee for scholarly, academic, and non-profit educational research purposes, provided that formal attribution is rendered and formal permission is requested prior to implementation. Investigators seeking authorization to reproduce, digitize, or translate the scale must contact:

L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D.
Research Center for Group Dynamics
5030 Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248
Telephone: (734) 764-8385 | Fax: (734) 763-1202
Email: [email protected]

Ethical implementation requires active or passive parental consent and youth assent in accordance with institutional review board (IRB) standards governing classroom sociometric testing.

References

Boxmeyer, C. L., Lochman, J. E., Powell, N., & Barry, T. D. (2007). Peer sociometrics and teacher ratings: Psychometric properties and construct validity of aggression dimensions. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 36(4), 582–595. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374410701662766

Coie, J. D., Dodge, K. A., & Coppotelli, H. (1982). Dimensions of types of social status: A cross-age perspective. Developmental Psychology, 18(4), 557–570. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.18.4.557

Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74

Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., Swahn, M., & Behrens, C. B. (2005). Measuring violence-related attitudes, behaviors, and influences among youths: A compendium of assessment tools (2nd ed., pp. 173–174). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED486261.pdf

Eron, L. D., Walder, L. O., & Lefkowitz, M. M. (1971). Learning of aggression in children. Little, Brown and Company.

Guerra, N. G., Huesmann, L. R., Tolan, P. H., Van Acker, R., & Eron, L. D. (1995). Stressful events and achievement in the prevention of aggressive behavior. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(4), 513–536. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02506967

Huesmann, L. R. (1988). An information processing model for the development of aggressive behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 14(1), 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012278805-5/50005-5

Huesmann, L. R., Eron, L. D., & Guerra, N. G. (1992, May). Victimization and aggression. Paper presented at the Society for Life History Research, Philadelphia, PA.

Huesmann, L. R., Eron, L. D., Guerra, N. G., & Crawshaw, V. B. (1994). Measuring children’s aggression with teachers’ predictions of peer-nominations. Psychological Assessment, 6(4), 329–336. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.6.4.329

Huesmann, L. R., Eron, L. D., Lefkowitz, M. M., & Walder, L. O. (1984). Stability of aggression over time and generations. Developmental Psychology, 20(6), 1120–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.20.6.1120

Lefkowitz, M. M., Eron, L. D., Walder, L. O., & Huesmann, L. R. (1977). Growing up to be violent: A longitudinal study of the development of aggression. Pergamon Press.

Items of the Scale