Aggression in childhood: the causes of aggression in children
The aggression It is the behavior carried out with the intention of harming a living being that wishes to avoid this treatment. The actor's intention defines the “aggressive act”, not the consequences.
Development of aggression in childhood
Aggressive acts fall into two categories:
- Hostile aggression: when the aggressor's goal is harm or injury to the victim.
- Instrumental assault: when the main goal of the attacker is to gain access to objects, space or privileges.
Origins of aggression in childhood
Babies less than 1 year old can be irritated, although they do not attack (no intention). By one year, children show rivalry for toys, and by age 2, they are more likely to resolve disputes through negotiation and participation. This process can be adaptive, as it teaches minors to achieve their goals without violence.
Developmental trends in aggression
With age, children's aggression changes dramatically:
Between 2 and 3 years physical aggression is instrumental, as children focus on toys, candy, etc.
Between the 3 and 5 years, becomes verbal rather than physical.
Between the 4 and 7 years, the aggressiveness begins to be hostile. The acquisition of skills to consider the point of view of others (infer if the intention is harmful) brings revenge. It is from elementary school when children are vindictive.
Sex differences in the development of aggression
The genetic factor explains part of the fact that boys have a greater propensity for aggressive behavior due to the production of testosterone. Despite this, the social factor plays a very important role in determining male and female aggressiveness. As of the year and a half, gender typification, which is a socially consensual construct, marks the differences between individuals and the way of expressing hostile behaviors.
Parents also influence the development of aggressiveness, since those who play more roughly and aggressive, those who reward their antisocial actions, or even give them gifts, encourage their behaviors unfavorable.
The biological bases of aggressive behavior
It can be hypothesized that aggressive behavior is adaptive in environments in which competitiveness is a determining factor when sharing limited resources. Both hostile and instrumental aggression can be the result of (and lead to) power relations in which there is a dominated and a dominator, both entering a dynamic in which the natural selection it becomes clear. However, it should be noted that in the case of humans the behavior is modulated by a morality that does not occur in the rest of the species. This morality, as well as the expressions of the genes that can intervene in the triggering of aggressive behaviors, has a biological substrate that is modified by interaction with the environment and with others beings.
The move from an ethic centered on one's own ego to one focused on social responsibility is a profoundly complex and dynamic from the point of view of biology, but there is a certain consensus that it plays a determining role in the prefrontal cortex, located in the anterior part of the brain. This brain region plays an important role in decision-making and the initiation of planned activities with a goal temporarily projected into the future. Thanks to the prefrontal cortex, the human being is able to set goals beyond immediate gratification, and to make decisions based on the most abstract concepts.
Therefore, it also plays an important role when it comes to socializing, since living in society means, among other things, defer certain rewards for the sake of a benefit projected temporarily and affecting the community. According to Fuster (2014), for example, part of the non-social behavior of children and young people is explained by a prefrontal cortex that has not yet matured enough and is not sufficiently connected with the neural groups of the later brain that mediate the creation of emotions and behavior oriented towards the satisfaction of needs (this The connection is established later to the rhythm of the biological clock, and will reach its peak during the third decade of life, between 25 - 30 years).
Furthermore, neuronal groups whose activation evokes general ethical principles and abstract concepts find the prefrontal cortex a mediator that will allow them to play a role in making decisions. From this point of view, a good development of the prefrontal lobe usually leads to a reduction in the expression of aggressive behaviors.
From aggression to antisocial behavior
During adolescence there is a peak in antisocial behavior and then it decreases. Girls use relational aggression (humiliation, exclusion, rumors to damage self-esteem, etc.), while boys choose to steal, skip class, and misbehavior.
Is aggressiveness a stable attribute?
Indeed: aggressiveness is a stable attribute. Children who are relatively aggressive at an early age tend to be at a higher age. Clearly, the learning capacity and plasticity of the brain (the ability to change according to interactions with the environment) mean that this is not always the case. The epigenetic factor.
Individual differences in aggressive behavior
Only a small minority can be considered chronically aggressive (involved in most conflicts). Research indicates 2 classes of very aggressive children:
Proactive offenders- Children who find it easy to perform aggressive acts and who rely on aggression as a means of solving social problems or achieving personal goals.
Reactive aggressors: children who exhibit high levels of hostile retaliatory aggression due to attributing excessive hostile intentions others and cannot control their anger enough to seek non-aggressive solutions to problems social.
Each of these groups processes information about their perceptions and their own behavior different way, which makes his decision-making style also have a style differentiated.
Dodge's Social Information Processing Theory of Aggression
When faced with the ambiguity of a conflict, aggressive children use an attributional bias.
Reactive children use a hostile attribution bias thinking that others are hostile to them. This causes them to be rejected by teachers and peers, which accentuates their bias.
Proactive children are more inclined to meticulously formulate a instrumental goal (for example: “I will teach careless classmates to be more careful with me”).
Perpetrators and victims of peer aggression
The usual harassers are people who have not suffered self-abuse, but have been witnesses at home. They think that they will be able to get a lot of benefit from their victims with little effort.
The victims are of 2 types:
Passive victims: weak people who hardly put up resistance.
Provocative victims: restless people, opponents who irritate their harassers. They tend to have hostile attribution bias and have suffered abuse at home.
Victims run a serious risk of social adaptation.
Cultural and subcultural influences on aggression
Some cultures and subcultures are more aggressive than others.
Spain, followed by the US and Canada are the most aggressive industrialized countries.
Social classes also play a role, where the lower social class is more aggressive. Several can be the causes:
They use punishment frequently
Approval of aggressive solutions in conflicts
Parents who lead stressful lives are less controlling of their children
Individual differences also affect the development of aggressiveness.
Coercive family environments: breeding grounds for aggression and crime
Aggressive children often live in coercive environments where most interactions between family members are an attempt to stop the other from irritating them. Coercive interactions are maintained thanks to negative reinforcement (any stimulus whose elimination or termination as a consequence of the act increases the probability that the act will be repeat).
Over time, problem children become resistant to punishment and gain the attention of parents who show no affection.
It is difficult to break this circle due to its multidimensional influence (it affects all members of the family).
Coercive environments as contributors to chronic crime
A coercive environment contributes to a hostile attribution bias and a chain of self-restraint that leads to rejection from other children. Consequently, they tend to end up isolated from the other children in the school and together with others of the same condition. The interaction between them usually ends in the formation of groups with bad habits.
Once in adolescence it is more difficult to correct these people, prevention is the best bet to control it.
Methods to control aggression and antisocial behavior
→ Creation of non-aggressive environments
A simple approach is to create play areas that minimize the likelihood of conflict such as example, remove toys like guns or tanks, provide ample space for play vigorous, etc.
→ Elimination of rewards for aggression
Parents or teachers can reduce the frequency of aggression by identifying and eliminating its reinforcing consequences and by encouraging alternative means of achieving personal goals. They could use two methods:
Incompatible response technique: non-punitive method of behavior modification whereby adults ignore undesirable behavior, while reinforcing harassments that are inconsistent with those responses.
Time out technique: A method in which children who behave in an aggressive manner are forced to withdraw from the stage until they are deemed ready to act appropriately.
→ Social cognitive interventions
These techniques help them:
Regulate your anger.
Increase your ability to empathize in order to avoid attribution bias.
Any technique can be ineffective if after coercive family environments or hostile friendships they undermine them.