Effects of a violence prevention program on the aggressive scripts and prosocial behavior of "high risk" students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a school-based violence prevention program, Project SAFE, which was designed to decrease beliefs supporting the use of aggression in response to conflict, as measured by decreases in a Beliefs Supporting Aggression (BSA) scale and an Attitudes Toward Conflict (ATC) scale. This study further examined how changes in beliefs supporting aggression impacted changes in prosocial behavior, and the impact of gender on all of these relationships. Data used for this project included 219 students in 2nd through 6th grades. Students involved in this program came from primarily low-income neighborhoods, and the average rate of free/reduced lunches provided at these schools was 88.9% (67.0% - 99.4). Results suggested that this program was effective in decreasing beliefs supporting aggression, and also that decreased beliefs supporting aggression, measured by the BSA scale, resulted in increased prosocial behavior. However, initial ATC scores predicted overall changes in behavior, with lower ATC scores predicting fewer changes in behavior. These conflicting results are further examined in the discussion. Boys were consistently found to have higher beliefs supporting aggression and lower prosocial behavior than boys at all levels of analysis, but there was no differential impact of the program based on gender.