Longitudinal Relations Between Aggression, Emotion Dysregulation, and Social Skills Across Middle Childhood: A Study of Within-Person Effects

This study examines whether increased emotion dysregulation and decreased social skills predict increased aggression. A sample from two birth cohorts of children (<i>n</i> = 840; 49.8% boys; 92.1% of mothers were Western) in Trondheim, Norway was assessed biennially from age 6 to 12 based on teacher reports. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that increased emotion dysregulation-but not decreased social skills-predicted increased aggression from age 6 to 8 and 8 to 10 but not from age 10 to 12, whereas from age 10 to 12, increased aggression predicted increased emotion dysregulation and impaired social skills. No significant differences in these relations regarding proactive versus reactive aggression or boys versus girls were found. Reducing emotion dysregulation might enhance the effectiveness of efforts to reduce aggression.