Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour Overview

Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour

• Aggression: Deliberate behaviour intended to harm others. Instrumental aggression is goal-directed, while relational aggression targets interpersonal relationships.

• Antisocial Behaviour: Actions violating societal norms and rules. Conduct problems are a broader term.

• Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour Connection: These behaviours are not always mutually exclusive; they can overlap and are not direct opposites. They have differing predictors and developmental patterns.

Early Aggression

• Early Indicators: Physical aggression is seen in toddlers as early as 18 months. Tugging and using bodily force are early signs.

• Developmental Trajectory: Physical aggression decreases around age 3, possibly correlated to language development. Relational aggression sees an increase in this stage. Adolescents experience a peak in antisocial behaviour before the behaviour declines.

Continuity of Aggressive Behaviour

• Stability: Physical aggression typically stays consistent at low levels in most toddlers. A smaller subgroup continues to display physically aggressive behaviours throughout childhood.

Risk Factors for Aggression

• Gender Differences: Boys are more likely to exhibit aggression, especially direct aggression. Girls, while less likely to exhibit physical aggression, engage more frequently in relational aggression.

Importance of Genetic Factors

• Twin Studies: Genetic factors contribute to aggression, though are not sole contributors (around 40% of variance attributable to genetics).

• Environmental Factors: Environmental factors are likely a greater influence.

Early and Prenatal Risk Factors

• Maternal Factors: Maternal age and stress during pregnancy are associated with increased childhood aggression. Prenatal depression also increases risk by twofold.

Individual Factors

• Temperament: Difficult temperament is linked to later aggression and delinquency.

• Emotional Recognition: Children with conduct problems often struggle to identify negative emotions (such as anger and fear). This is associated with reduced empathy.

• Social Cognition: Hostile attributional bias (interpreting ambiguous situations as hostile) is common in aggressive children, leading them to react accordingly. Children with aggressive tendencies misinterpret signals as more threatening.

Family Factors: Parenting

• Parental Factors: Poor monitoring, punitive parenting, and inconsistent parenting are all linked to higher aggression in children.

• Bidirectional Relationships: Challenging or aggressive children impact parenting behaviours, thereby creating a cyclical pattern

Societal Factors

• Neighbourhood Effects: Children in violent neighbourhoods exhibit greater likelihood of violent acts than children in non-violent neighbourhoods.

• Community-Level Influences: Violent neighbourhoods correlate with higher violent behaviour in children.

Violent Media and Aggression

• Correlation: Viewing violent media has been linked to violent behaviour; however, multiple studies have indicated that results are extremely small and often inconclusive.

Classroom

• Social Status: Socially rejected and aggressive children often remain consistently rejected. Rejected children tend to stay consistently rejected over time. Socially non-deviant children who end up in deviancy-promoting classrooms show a steeper rise in aggression over time.

• Early Aggression: Socially rejected/aggressive children are more likely to be part of deviant groups

Explore the concepts of aggression and antisocial behaviour, including their definitions, indicators, and developmental patterns. This quiz covers early signs of aggression in toddlers and the continuity of aggressive behaviours into adolescence. Understand the relationship between these behaviours and their societal impacts.