HHS HealthBeat (October 29, 2008)

Mean boys

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Think boys hit and girls act mean? A researcher looked into this, and found that boys act mean, too.

Noel Card of the University of Arizona, and colleagues at the universities of Kansas and North Carolina at Chapel Hill reviewed studies on almost 74,000 children. The studies examined direct aggression – physical stuff – and indirect aggression, aimed at a kid’s social status.

Boys were somewhat more likely to be physically aggressive, but boys and girls were socially aggressive.

Card says directly aggressive kids are more likely to have delinquency problems and be rejected by their peers.

``The indirectly aggressive kids – they tend to more often suffer internalizing problems such as depression and anxiety.’’ (6 seconds)

The study in the journal Child Development was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October, 29 2008