An attribution retraining program to reduce aggression in elementary school students

Abstract

The BrainPower Program, an attribution retraining intervention to reduce peer directed aggression, was implemented in four elementary schools in Southern California. We collected measures of children's behavior and self-reports of attributions for 12 months following the intervention to assess changes in social cognition and social behavior. Results suggest that improvements in behavior are related to changes in subjects' attributions. The intervention effects are moderate to strong for many students but not evident at all for some students. Further, treatment effects diminished over time. Results are discussed in terms of the role of psychological theory in intervention research. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.