Aggression, Antisocial Behavior, and Violence Among Girls: Edited by Martha Putallaz and Karen L. Bierman. New York: The Guilford Press, 2004. 322 pp. $38.00 (hardcover).

Reviewed by Deborah Giorgi-Guarnieri, JD, MD

Last month I was given the dubious honor of speaking to my daughter's sixth grade class about cliques and popularity. As I was not up to date in these areas, I had to turn to my shelf of books waiting to be reviewed. (Yes, this is a subtle plea for help from the membership.) Fortunately, for the sixth grade class at Walsingham Academy and me, Putallaz and Bierman's Aggression, Antisocial Behavior, and Violence Among Girls was sitting among the unselected. It truly did not belong there. As I prepared for the talk, I shared much of what I was reading with my colleagues, the school faculty, and other parents. Everyone showed a keen interest in the assorted facts and philosophies. So, I have decided to share them with the journal readers.

Putallaz and Bierman divide their book into five parts. The first is “Setting the Stage: Understanding the Development of Gender Differences in Aggression and Antisocial Behavior.” Chapter 1 raises the question of whether we can or should distinguish sex and gender in aggression. It seems that boys are good at physical aggression and girls prefer social aggression. Social aggression means, “acts intended to inflict damage on a victim's social relationships or social status,” (p 15) such as gossip. The research is inconclusive about whether the bruised eye or the damaging rumor hurts more in the long run. Chapter 2 reviews all the biological suspects: testosterone, estrogen, adrenal androgens, oxytocin, and serotonin. Chapter 3, “All Things Interpersonal,” takes on the hypothesis that girls are socialized differently from boys. Interesting statements include: “father's use of control strategies (behavioral or psychological or both) predicted girls' (but not boys') use of physical or relational aggression” (p 54), and “eating family dinners together was linked to less aggression in both boys and girls, and to less delinquency in girls” (p 55). The chapter concludes that girls are socialized in a manner that creates greater social awareness and sensitivity to the rights of others, causing less physical violence.

Part II, “Aggression and Victimization among Girls in Childhood,” is my favorite. Girls use relational aggression, including “both direct and indirect acts, such as threatening to end a friendship unless a peer complies with a request, using social exclusion or the silent treatment to control or punish others, and spreading nasty rumors about someone so that others will reject him or her” (p 71). Chapter 4 explores the harm done by early childhood aggression to the victims and perpetrators. Apparently, neither group fares well. Chapter 5 explores “Girls Who Bully.” At risk of giving the punch line away, the authors discuss how patterns of power and aggression established in bullying may continue into opposite sex and life-long abusive relationships. The authors conclude that female bullying may be a more significant risk, in that relationships are of central importance to female children, adolescents, and adults. Chapter 6, “A Behavioral Analysis of Girls' Aggression and Victimization,” suggests some guidelines. Successful social aggression evades both responsibility and retaliation. Socially competent and popular girls are the least likely to be victimized. Contrary to popular wisdom, just ignoring it usually perpetuates the victimization. Details are in the book.

Parts III, IV, and V strike a more familiar note in the ears of the forensic psychiatrist. In Part III, Chapters 7 and 8 cover early disruptive behavior and sexually abused females. Chapter 9 provides a thought-provoking, long-term follow-up of serious adolescent offenders. Chapter 10 identifies trends in aggression and violent behavior in delinquent girls. The chapter “emphasizes the need to avoid both denial and demonization of girls' violence, and to seek to understand the context that produces girls' aggressive behavior” (p 216).

Part IV looks at conflictual relationships from different perspectives. Chapter 11 picks up on the idea that social aggression in childhood and adolescence may continue into adult abusive relationships. It reinforces that women play a much greater role than expected in the initiation and engagement in physical aggression in intimate relationships. Chapter 12 explores the inheritance of behavioral problems of the mother. Chapter 13 looks at the aggressive girl as a mother. Part V concludes the book with suggestions for intervention and policy.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Putallaz and Bierman's book. The talk went well, and I did not embarrass my daughter. The children asked many questions about how to avoid bullies and how to become popular. The parents asked the same questions. The teachers and guidance counselors have asked to borrow the book. My colleagues offered to review it, but not for this issue of the Journal. I am not certain it is an essential for every forensic psychiatrist's library, but it certainly deserves to be read.