Intercommunity differences in aggression among Zapotec children.
Patterns of play aggression and serious aggression were compared in 2 neighboring Zapotec Indian communities that have different levels of adult violence. Social learning theory provided the basis for predicting that levels of agonistic behavior among children would parallel levels of violence among adults. Ethological methods were employed to observe 3-8-year-old children (N = 48). An examination of physical aggression and nonphysical threatening showed that agonism generally was more severe among the children of the more aggressive community. That is, children from the more aggressive community engaged in more actual fighting (p = .005) and play fighting (p = .0001) than their counterparts from the other community. On the other hand, children from the less aggressive community used more noncontact threatening than the children from the more aggressive community (p = .0001). These findings suggest that community differences in levels of violence are perpetuated as Zapotec children learn community-appropriate patterns for expressing aggression and continue to express these patterns as adults. Possible functions of play fighting are also discussed.