Upsides and Downsides of the Darkside: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Social Costs and Benefits of Youth Aggression for Peer Relationships

Past research and theory suggest that youth aggression is maladaptive, caused by factors such as cognitive bias, personal defect, or frustration. We sought to identify the extent and circumstances in which aggression is socially adaptive in the school context, by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of the links between youth aggression and peer nominations of popularity and likeability. Bayesian multilevel meta-analysis was used to analyse 1,133 effects from 255 studies with a total of 556,363 participants in elementary, middle, and high school. Aggression was negatively associated with likability: -0.28 [95% credibility interval (CrI): -0.41 -0.13] and positively associated with popularity: 0.16 [95% CrI: 0.06 0.25], regardless of the type of aggression and several other possible moderators. We discuss the implications of these findings for aggression interventions and highlight the importance of acknowledging the upsides of aggression for youth, measuring, and targeting indirect aggression.