Antisocial behavior: disruptive, hostile, or aggressive behavior that violates social norms or rules and that harms or takes advantage of clothes
Aggression: subcategory of antisocial behavior that involves acts intended to physically or emotionally harm others
The Development of Antisocial Behaviors
Before 12 months – aggression over desirable possessions – especially behaviors such as trying to tug objects away from each other – does not involve bodily contact
18 months – physical aggression normative in development and increases in frequency until about age 2 or 3
Growth of language skills, physical aggression decreases, and verbal aggression increases
Most frequent in preschool years – conflicts between peers over possessions and conflict between siblings over almost anything
Instrumental aggression: aggression motivated by the desire to obtain a concrete goal, such as gaining possession of a toy or getting a better place in line
Relational aggression
Also used by preschool children
Linked to theory of mind skills, particularly for children with low levels of prosocial skills
Theory of mind skills at age 5 predicted levels of relational aggression 1 year later, but only for children who were rated a low to average on prosocial behavior
Physical aggression
Drop also due to their developing ability to use language to resolve or pursue conflicts and to control their own emotions and actions
Children who engage in physical aggression tend to also engage in relational aggression
The frequency of physical aggression decreases for most teenagers, at least after mid-adolescence
Serious acts of violence increase markedly in mid-adolescents, as do property offenses and status offenses
There is considerable consistency in individuals differences in both girls and boys aggression
Children who are the most aggressive and prone to antisocial behavior in middle childhood tend to be more aggressive and delinquent in adolescents – holds true especially for boys
Many children who are aggressive from early in life have neurological deficits
Deficit may become marked with age and can result on troubles relations
Problems with attention are particularly likely to have this effect because they make it difficult for aggressive children to carefully consider all the relevant information in a social situation before deciding how to act;
Youth who develop problem behaviors in adolescence typically engaging in antisocial behavior later in adolescence or early adulthood
Those will low impulse control, poor regulation of aggression and a weak orientation toward to the future continue to engage
The Origins of Aggression and Antisocial Behavior
Biological Factors
Twin studies – suggest that antisocial behavior runs in families and is partially due to genetics
Heredity appears to play a stronger role in aggression in early childhood and adulthood than it does in adolescence, when environmental factors are a major contributor to it
In terms of stability of individual differences in aggression and the association of aggression with psychopathic traits, the influence of heredity is greater for proactive aggression
Difficult temperament
The biological correlates of aggression are most likely neither necessary nor sufficient to cause aggressive behavior in most children
Genetic, neurological, or hormonal characteristics many put a child at risk for developing aggressive and antisocial behavior
But whether a child becomes aggressive will depend on numerous factors
Social Cognition
Children’s aggressive behaviors are often in reaction to how they interpret social situations
Their goal in such social encounters are also more likely to be hostile and inappropriate to the situations, typically involving attempts to intimidate or get back at a peer
Most children are more likely to describe their own aggressive behavior as a natural reaction to the behaviors of others than they are to describe their helping behaviors as such
Aggressive children and adolescents are also inclined to evaluate aggressive responses more favorably and prosocial responses less favorably
Not all aggressive children exhibit the same biases in social cognition
Reactive aggression: emotionally driven, antagonistic aggression sparked by one’s perception that other people’s motive are hostile
Proactive aggression: unemotional aggression aimed at fulfilling a need or desire
Anticipate more positive social consequences for aggression
Family Influences on Aggression and Antisocial Behavior
Children who experience harsh or uninvolved parenting are at greater risk of becoming aggressive/antisocial
Parental punitiveness
Often use harsh but non-abusive physical punishment are prone to problem behaviors in early years, aggression in childhood and, criminality in adolescence and adulthood
Research found that there is no difference in relation between physical punishment and children's antisocial behavior across racial, ethnic and cultural groups
Harsh or abusive punishment is also consistently associated with the development of antisocial tendencies
There is probably a reciprocal relation between children’s behavior and their parent’s punitive discipline, especially when parents model aggression for their children by using physical punishment to discipline them
Ineffective discipline is often evident in the patterns of troubled family interaction
Coercive cycles
Especially probable in the case of out-of-control children, who are much more likely than other children to react negatively to their parents’ attempts to discipline them
Have genetic component
Punitive parenting can be linked to antisocial and aggressive behavior in children both directly through genes and indirectly through a conflictual and punitive home environment
Twin studies – indicate that the relation between punitive parenting and children’s antisocial behavior is not entirely due to hereditary factors
Punitive parenting environment is more influential then genes in predicting problematic child behavior
Poor parental monitoring
Important because it reduced the likelihood that older children and adolescents will associate with deviant, antisocial peers
Also makes it more likely that parents will know whether their children are engaging in antisocial behavior
Once adolescents begin engaging in aggressive and antisocial behaviors, they become even harder to monitor
Parental conflict
Frequently exposed children to verbal/physical violence between parents tend to more antisocial and aggressive
Embattles parents model aggressive behavior for children
Children whose mothers are physically abused tend to believe that violence is an acceptable, even natural part of family interactions
Also been found in families with adopted children
Socioeconomic status and children’s antisocial behavior
Low-income families – more antisocial and aggressive children
One major factor – greater number of stressors experienced by children in low-income families
May stressors – parents living near or below the federal poverty line – more likely to be rejecting and low in warmth
Low-income neighborhood – linked to higher rate of violence/crime
Peer Influences on Aggression and Antisocial Behavior
The expression of a genetic tendency towards aggression is stronger for individuals who have aggressive friends
Members of the larger peer group with whom older children and adolescents socialize may influence aggression even more than their close friends do
Associating with delinquent peers tends to increase delinquency because these peers model and reinforce antisocial behavior in the peer group
Children’s susceptibility to peer pressure to become involved in antisocial behavior increases in elementary school years peaks at about 8th or 9th grade and declines thereafter
Peer approval of relational aggression increases in middle school, and students in peer groups that are supportive of relational aggression become increasingly aggressive
Biology and socialization: their joint influence on children’s antisocial behavior
Often it's a combination of genetic and environmental factors that predict children’s antisocial, aggressive behavior and that some children are more sensitive to the quality of parenting than are others
Such gene variants are related to higher risk for aggression in adverse situations like maltreatment and divorce but are not related to aggression in the absence of the adverse conditions
Seems clear that the degree of aggression is affected by a combination of heredity and the environment
Interventions for Aggressive and Antisocial Children
Can be successfully treated with individual psychotherapy or with a combination of psychotherapy and drug therapy
Also often useful and even necessary to involve parents
Interventions that teach parents how to better manage their own behavior when interacting with their children can help reduce children’s aggression and antisocial behavior
Community-based programs that aim to reduce antisocial behavior by increasing positive behavior through an approach called positive youth development
Schools can also be settings for effective intervention with this population – Fast Track Program
Numerous other programs have been used to combat bullying in schools, and many appear to reduce the incidence of bullying considerably; the more effective programs target adolescents rather than younger children