Aggression in childhood: the causes of aggression in children

Developmental psychology shows us the factors and causes of aggression in children.

The aggression is behavior carried out with the intention of harming a living being who wishes to avoid this treatment. The intention of the actor 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 aggressionwhen the aggressor's main goal is to gain access to objects, space or privileges.

Origins of aggression in infancy

Infants less than 1 year old may become irritable, although they do not aggress (there is no intention). By age 1 year, children show rivalry over toys and, by age 2 years, are more likely to resolve disputes through negotiation and participation. This process can be adaptive, as it teaches children to achieve their goals without violence.

Developmental trends in aggression

With age, children's aggression changes dramatically:

• Between 2 to 3 years physical aggression is instrumental, as children focus on toys, candy, etc.

• Between the ages of 3 to 5 yearsthe aggression becomes verbal rather than physical.

• Between the ages 4 to 7 yearsaggression begins to be hostile. The acquisition of skills to consider the point of view of others (they infer if the intention is harmful) brings with it revenge. It is from primary school onwards that 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 testosterone production. Despite this, the social factor plays a very important role in determining male and female aggressiveness. From the age of one and a half years, gender typing, 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 rudely and aggressively, those who reward their antisocial actions, or even give them gifts, encourage their unfavorable behaviors.

The Biological basis of aggressive behavior

It can be hypothesized that aggressive behavior is adaptive in environments where competitiveness is a determining factor in the allocation of limited resources. Both hostile and instrumental aggression may result from (and lead to) power relationships in which there is a dominated and a dominator, both entering into a dynamic in which the natural selection becomes evident. It should be noted, however, that in the case of humans, behavior is modulated by a moral behavior is modulated by a morality that is not that is not present in the rest of the species. This morality, like the expressions of genes that may be involved in triggering aggressive behavior, has a biological substrate that is modified by interaction with the environment and with other beings.

The shift from an ego-centered ethic to one focused on social responsibility is a profoundly complex and dynamic process. complex and dynamic from the point of view of biology, but there is a certain consensus that the prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex 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 projected temporally 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 postponing certain rewards for the sake of a temporarily projected benefit that affects the collectivity. According to Fuster (2014), for example, part of the unsocial behavior of children and young people is explained by a prefrontal cortex that has not yet matured sufficiently and is not sufficiently connected with the neuronal groups of the hindbrain that mediate the creation of emotions and need-oriented behavior (this connection is established later at the pace of the biological clock, and will reach its peak during the third decade of life, between the ages of 25 - 30).

In addition, neural groups whose activation evokes general ethical principles and abstract concepts find in the prefrontal cortex a mediator that will allow them to play a role in decision making. From this point of view, a good development of the prefrontal lobe usually leads to a reduction in the expression of aggressive behavior.

From aggression to antisocial behavior

A peak in antisocial behavior is shown during adolescence and then declines. Girls use relational aggression (humiliation, exclusion, rumors to damage self-esteem, etc.), while boys use stealing, truancy, and sexual misbehavior.

Is aggressiveness a stable attribute?

Indeed: aggressiveness is a stable attribute. Children who are relatively aggressive at an early age tend to be aggressive at later ages. Clearly, the learning capacity and plasticity of the brain (capacity to change according to interactions with the environment) mean that this is not always the case. The epigenetic factor must also be taken into account.

Individual differences in aggressive behavior

Only a small minority can be considered chronically aggressive (involved in most conflicts). Research points to 2 classes of highly aggressive children:

• Proactive aggressors.children who find it easy to engage in aggressive acts and who rely on aggression as a means of solving social problems or achieving personal goals.

• Reactive Aggressorschildren who exhibit high levels of hostile retaliatory aggression because they attribute excessive hostile intentions to others and cannot control their anger sufficiently to seek nonaggressive solutions to social problems.

Each of these groups processes information about their perceptions and their own behaviors differently, which causes their decision-making style to have a distinct style as well.

Dodge's Social Information Processing Theory of Aggression

When faced with the ambiguity of a conflict, aggressive children employ an attributional bias.

• Reactive children employ a hostile attributional bias by 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 an instrumental goal. instrumental goal (e.g., "I will teach careless peers to be more careful with me").

Perpetrators and victims of peer aggression.

Habitual bullies are individuals who have not experienced abuse of their own, but at home have witnessed it. They think they will be able to make a lot of profit from their victims with little effort.

Victims are of 2 types:

• Passive victims.weak people who hardly put up any resistance.

• Provocative victims: restless people, opponents who irritate their harassers. They usually have a hostile attribution bias and have been abused at home.

Victims are at serious risk of social adjustment.

Cultural and subcultural influences on aggression

Some cultures and subcultures are more aggressive than others.

Spain, followed by the USA and Canada are the most aggressive industrialized countries.

Social classes also have an influence, where the lower social class is more aggressive. There are several possible causes:

• Frequent use of punishment

• Approval of aggressive solutions to conflicts.

• Parents who lead stressful lives are less in control of their children.

Individual differences also affect the development of aggression.

Coercive family environments: breeding grounds for aggression and delinquency.

Aggressive children often live in coercive environments where most interactions between family members are an attempt to get the other to stop irritating them. Coercive interactions are maintained by negative reinforcement (any stimulus whose removal or termination as the consequence of the act increases the likelihood that the act will be repeated).

Over time, problem children become resistant to punishment and manage to get the attention of parents who do not show them affection.

It is difficult to break this cycle because of its multidimensional influence (it affects all family members).

Coercive environments as contributors to chronic delinquency

A coercive environment contributes to a hostile attribution bias and a chain of self-limitation that leads to rejection by other children. As a result, they often end up isolated from other children in the school and grouped with others of the same condition. The interaction between them often ends up 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

→ Creating non-aggressive environments

A simple approach is to create play areas that minimize the likelihood of conflict such as eliminating toys like guns or tanks, providing ample space for vigorous play, etc.

→ Eliminating rewards for aggression

Parents or teachers can reduce the frequency of aggression by identifying and eliminating its reinforcing consequences and encouraging alternative means of achieving personal goals. They could use two methods:

• Incompatible response technique: A non-punitive method of behavior modification whereby adults ignore undesirable behavior while reinforcing the actions that are incompatible with those responses.

• Time-out technique: method in which children who behave in an aggressive manner are forced to remove themselves from the setting until they are deemed ready to act appropriately.

→ Cognitive social interventions

These techniques help them to:

• Regulate their anger.

• Increase their ability to empathize in order to avoid attribution biases.

Any technique may be ineffective if they are undermined by coercive family environments or hostile friendships.