Aggressive Behavior最新文献

Despite growing awareness of the social and psychological issues linked with animal abuse, there is a lack of large-scale research on the multidimensional factors at play in relation to such abuse in the adult population. In this first survey on animal abuse carried out in higher education in France and based on a highly powered sample (N = 55,040 participants), we investigated the relative weight of risk factors pertaining to major criminological dimensions in a multivariate model controlling for relevant demographics: General Strain Theory (GST), Social Bond Theory (SBT), and Generalized Deviance Theory (GDT), as well as three key psychological dimensions: Callousness, Sensation seeking, and Impulse control difficulties. We observed that 6.4% of the participants declared having perpetrated animal abuse in the past, with males having done so about three times more often than females. Animal abuse was linked with callousness, difficulties in impulse control and sensation seeking. Participants who reported a climate of violence in their family, or who had witnessed acts of violence by their father against their mother, were particularly prone to abuse animals, which supported GST predictions. To a lesser extent, in line with SBT, animal abuse was higher among students with lower attachment to their mother, and who had a weaker belief in justice. Finally, animal abuse was perpetrated significantly more often by participants reporting higher alcohol consumption, as predicted by GDT. In summary, animal harm is related to a combination of risk factors pertaining to major criminological and psychological perspectives on aggression and violence, knowledge of which is useful in prioritizing future research directions and prevention strategies.

Psychiatric inpatient aggression is a concern as it poses a threat to safety of both patients and staff. While psychosocial and behavioral approaches are often put forward, the role of biological factors remains underexplored in a clinical context such as psychiatric hospitals. The dual-hormone hypothesis (DHH) posits that low levels of cortisol combined with high levels of testosterone promote status-seeking behaviors with some differences between sexes. This has yet to be studied among psychiatric inpatients. To explore the joint association of the DHH (cortisol and testosterone) and sex with psychiatric inpatient aggression. The sample included 375 psychiatric inpatients (206 women) from the Signature Biobank in Canada. Following their admission in a psychiatric hospital, participants provided hair and saliva for cortisol and testosterone analysis, respectively. Aggressive behaviors from the clinical files were reviewed from admission to discharge. Men with high salivary testosterone combined with low hair cortisol had higher odds of displaying aggression compared to men with high salivary testosterone and high hair cortisol. Men with low salivary testosterone and low hair cortisol had lower odds to perpetrate aggression compared to men with low salivary testosterone and high hair cortisol levels. The cortisol and testosterone interaction was not significant in women. Findings are consistent with the DHH for men. Given that the context hospitalization may trigger status-seeking behaviors, actions could be taken such as identifying specific hormonal profiles at the time of admission to identify patients at risk of aggression, allowing for tailored care protocols.

Studies examining the frequency of sexual aggression and victimization in schools have compared different groups of respondents based on age, gender, or involvement in other types of school aggression. Between-group comparisons assume measurement equality. We examine this assumption of measurement equality using a MixIRT analysis, which combines a latent profile analysis with a Rating Scale Model Item Response Theory analysis to determine whether sexual aggressors and victims can be divided into latent classes and whether the latent traits of sexual aggression or victimization have configural, metric and scalar equivalence and through an examination of differential item functioning (DIF). This is a secondary analysis of 3746 Israeli adolescents responding to a self-report questionnaire regarding sexual aggression and victimization. Data analyses proceeded in five steps, and the unit of analysis was each respondent's responses to the aggressor and victim scales. We conducted a series of exploratory and confirmatory analyses of the aggression/victimization scale to examine configural equivalence, followed by a series of Latent Profile Analyses to determine metric and scalar equivalence. Finally, we examined DIF and Wright Maps using a Rating Scale IRT model. Four latent classes were identified. All items showed configural equivalence and most exhibited metric and scalar equivalence. An examination of DIF and Wright Maps showed that the structures of the latent traits for each latent class were fairly similar. However, for all latent classes, measures of sexual aggression and victimization failed to sample the full range of item difficulty (or endorseability).

This study evaluated the bidirectional associations between peer defending and social status (perceived popularity and likability) as well as gender and grade differences in these associations. Cross-lagged panel models were used to assess these longitudinal relationships in a sample comprised of elementary school students (Grades 5–8, N = 301, M_age = 12.38, collected in May and November 2019) and high school students (Grades 9–12, N = 296, M_age = 15.69, collected in November 2022 and May 2023) collected from five schools in southern Ontario, Canada. Findings revealed that overall, popularity and likability predicted future peer defending, and students who defended others became more liked over time. Additionally, our exploratory analyses indicated that boys in elementary school who defended became more popular overtime. These findings extend previous investigations into the bidirectional associations between social status and peer defending, while considering the impacts of gender and cohort. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of their novelty and considerations for bullying prevention programs.

Reputational peer nominations are a common method for measuring involvement in aggression-related behaviors, encompassing the roles of aggressor, victim, and defender, but may be influenced by students' affective (dis)liking relationships. This social network study investigated whether dyad- and group-level (dis)liking relationships affect perceptions of classmates' involvement in physical aggression and explored the moderating roles of classroom moral disengagement and defending norms. The study employed a longitudinal design with two time points 6 months apart, encompassing 27 classrooms and 632 early adolescents. Using multiplex stochastic actor-oriented modeling, we found that liking, but not disliking, significantly influenced perceptions. Liking a classmate increased the likelihood of perceiving them as a defender. Moreover, students' own perceptions (aggressor, victim, and defender nominations) were shaped by the perceptions of classmates they liked, while classroom moral disengagement reduced this influence for defender nominations. Results on classroom defending norms were mixed. Our findings underscore the importance of accounting for students' liking relationships and classroom-level norms to reduce bias in peer nominations and improve the accuracy of assessments of aggression-related behaviors.

Trait aggression is often separated into two functional dimensions: reactive and proactive tendencies. Reactive aggression is the tendency to engage in emotionally driven aggressive responses to perceived provocation, whereas proactive aggression is the tendency to engage in premeditated aggressive behaviors in the service of goal attainment. To date, the majority of empirical investigations examining these interrelated constructs have done so using cross-sectional data that have important limitations (e.g., recall bias). In the current study, we used an experience-sampling approach to investigate similarities and differences in reactive and proactive aggression's relations with affective and interpersonal constructs in a sample of 477 US undergraduate students. Our results indicated that baseline reactive and proactive aggression scores were predictive of aggression-related behavior, cognition, and affect in real-world dyadic encounters. Additionally, although reactive aggression showed stronger relations with investigated maladaptive outcomes (e.g., negative affectivity, lack of interpersonal warmth), profile similarity analyses indicated that these trait aggression dimensions shared substantial overlap in their nomological nets.