Nicki Rae Crick (February 6, 1958 – October 28, 2012) was a psychologist and professor of child development and family studies known internationally for her research on relational aggression, defined as the use of relationships as agents of harm (e.g., via

gossip Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is also known as dishing or tattling. Gossip is a topic of research in evolutionary psychology, which has found gossip to be an important means ...

ing,

social exclusion Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...

, withdrawing affection). At the time of her death, she held the position of Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Psychology at the Institute of Child Development,

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. Crick received prestigious awards for her contributions as a scientist, including the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

Award for Distinguished Early Career Contributions to Psychology in 2002 and the Boyd McCandless Award from APA Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) in 1995. She was a Fellow of the

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...

and the American Psychological Association (Division 7).

Education and teaching

Crick received her B.A./B.S. degree in psychology and a master's degree in human development and family studies at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

. She went to graduate school at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

where she obtained her Ph.D. in

Clinical Psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

in 1992, under the supervision of Kenneth Dodge. After graduating, she joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

. In 1996, Crick moved to the University of Minnesota where she served on the faculty of the Institute of Child Development.

Research

Crick's research career aimed to promote

positive youth development Positive youth development (PYD) programs are designed to optimize youth developmental progress. ''Youth.gov'' states that "PYD is an intentional, prosocial approach that engages youth within their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, ...

. Her work on

peer victimization Peer victimization is the experience among children of being a target of the aggressive behavior of other children, who are not siblings and not necessarily age-mates. Background/overview Mass interest in the issue of peer victimization arose duri ...

has had a huge impact on society as a whole. Peer victimization is the experience among children of being a target of the aggressive behavior of other children, who are not siblings and not necessarily age-mates. Crick observed that forms of peer maltreatment that were common in boys' peer groups tended to occur much less frequently in girls' peer groups, and concluded that girls were more often relationally victimized, whereas boys were more overtly victimized. Crick published a number of influential articles on peer victimization including "An observational study of delivered and received aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment in preschool: "This White Crayon Doesn't Work ...". Crick's work on childhood aggression demonstrated that, as a group, boys are more physically aggressive than girls. Her study hypothesized that this finding reflects a lack of research on forms of aggression that are relevant to girls rather than an actual gender difference in levels of overall aggressiveness. The form of aggression hypothesized to be typical of girls, relational aggression, was assessed with a peer nomination instrument in third- through sixth-grade children. Results provided evidence for the validity and distinctiveness of the construct of relational aggression, defined as acts intended to harm others through deliberate manipulation of their social standing and relationships. In addition to finding that girls tended to be more relationally aggressive than boys, she found evidence that relationally aggressive children were at risk for serious adjustment difficulties. Crick's innovative research on relational aggression examined behaviors involving social exclusion or spreading malicious rumors. The research showed that girls are more likely to engage in relational forms of aggression than the physical forms of aggression that had previously captured the majority of empirical attention. Crick's research documented the harmful consequence of relation aggression for victims and perpetrators, which forced aggression researchers to expand their studies of aggressions to include a wider range of aggressive behaviors. At heart, she was an astute

methodologist In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

who took risks to develop reliable and reasonable measures. Her combination of theoretical and methodological intensity essentially changed the way that people study aggression today.

Death

Crick died on October 28, 2012, at the age of 54 from cancer.

Representative publications

* Cicchetti, D., & Crick, N. R. (Eds.). (2009). Precursors of and diverse pathways to personality disorder in children and adolescents: Part 1 pecial Issue ''Development and Psychopathology, 21'', 683–1030. * Crick, N. R., Casas, J. F., & Ku, H.-C. (1999). Relational and physical forms of peer victimization in preschool. ''Developmental Psychology, 35'', 376–385. * Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. ''Psychological Bulletin, 115''(1), 74–101. * Crick, N. R., & Grotpeter, J. K. (1995). Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment. '' Child Development, 66''(3), 710–722.

References

External links

Remembering Nicki R. Crick
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crick, Nicki R. 1958 births 2012 deaths American women psychologists University of Minnesota faculty Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences alumni Vanderbilt University alumni People from West Lafayette, Indiana American women academics 20th-century American psychologists