Aggressive Behavior最新文献

Suicidality and physical aggression are leading, related youth public health concerns. Yet, whether adolescents who harm themselves, others, or both differ emotionally and etiologically remains unclear. To address this, adolescents from a prospective population-based birth cohort reported their suicidality, physical aggression, depression/anxiety symptoms, anger, and callousness (N = 1637). Distinct latent harm-emotion profiles were identified, which were linked to perinatal and childhood experiences. A six-profile solution was retained: Low harm (79.5%), moderate suicidality (6.5%), high suicidality (2%), high aggression (2.5%), moderate aggression (8.5%), and high suicidality and aggression (dual harm; 1%). Elevated harm profiles were compared to the low-harm group. Moderate/high suicidality profiles showed slight elevations in physical aggression. All elevated harm profiles expressed higher negative emotionality. Dual harm and aggression groups reported higher callousness, while suicidality groups reported lower callousness. Aggression profiles were 75% male, suicidality profiles were 21% male, while the low and dual-harm profiles were more similarly mixed sex (47% vs. 63% male, respectively). Low-harm youth experienced more positive childhood parenting. The dual harm and high aggression groups had more deviant childhood best friends, while the dual harm and moderate aggression groups had lower early life household income. The moderate suicidality group had fathers with higher depressive symptoms during infancy and childhood. Thus, one in five youth showed relatively elevated suicidality and/or physical aggression; of which, 95% tended to have a primary target (themselves or others). Early life economic, parental, and peer support may be key for preventing suicidal and aggressive outcomes in adolescence.

Neural bases of aggression have been analysed mainly in rodent males, finding that the medial preoptic area (mPOA), bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH), anterior hypothalamus (AHN), and medial amygdala (MeA) integrate the core aggression circuit. The neural regulation of territorial aggression in females has been little explored, despite the fact they can be as territorial as males. In this study using the c-Fos protein as a marker of neural activity, we analysed whether mPOA, BNST, AHN, VMH, and MeA are activated after an aggressive encounter in the female Djungarian hamster (Phodopus campbelli). Twenty females and 20 males were paired for 15 days. Mating was used as a factor in induced territoriality. The couples were organized into two groups with 10 couples each; in 10 of these pairs, females were subjected to resident intruder tests, while in the other 10 pairs, the females were not confronted. Before mating the males of both groups were vasectomized to prevent that their partners from becoming pregnant. This was done to separate territorial aggression from maternal aggression. All females Djungarian hamster subjected to resident intruder tests displayed territorial aggression. The results of this study showed that mPOA, BNST, VMH, AHN, and MeA were activated in confronted females of Djungarian hamster. In male rodents, these neuronal nuclei are also activated after confrontation, supporting the hypothesis that there is a homology at the neural level in the regulation of aggressive behavior between males and females.

The purpose of this study was to examine early adolescent trajectories of bullying/peer-aggression in terms of their prevalence, composition, and ability to correlate with concurrent delinquency. Three hypotheses were tested in a group of 1145 middle school students (49.6% male; mean age = 11.23 years) using longitudinal data spread out over three waves. The first hypothesis predicted that bullying/peer-aggression victimization would be significantly more prevalent and frequent than bullying/peer-aggression perpetration. The second hypothesis held that a semiparametric sequential process growth mixture modeling (GMM) analysis for two latent variables would identify pure victim and mixed victim–perpetrator trajectories but no pure perpetrator trajectories. The third hypothesis asserted that the trajectory models identified in the GMM analysis would differentially correlate with a change in delinquency, such that accelerating trajectories would be associated with a rise in delinquency and decelerating trajectories with a drop in delinquency. Analyses provided support for all three hypotheses: victimization was significantly more prevalent and frequent than perpetration; there were no pure perpetration trajectories, even after increasing the number of trajectories from 6 to 9; and accelerating trajectories were associated with a significant rise in delinquency from Wave 1 to Wave 3 and decelerating trajectories with a marginally significant decrease in delinquency from Wave 1 to Wave 3. These results highlight the value of studying change in the perpetration and victimization of peer-aggression as a way of understanding how bullying/peer aggression in early adolescence develops and contributes to the formation of other problems, such as delinquency.

The association between peer stress and self-directed violence has been supported by various studies, but the mechanisms underlying the association are still unclear, especially for left-behind adolescents. In addition, most of the existing studies have neglected the negative interpersonal consequences of self-directed violence. Based on the transactional model of development and relative deprivation theory, this study examined the reciprocal relationship between peer stress and self-directed violence in left-behind and non-left-behind adolescents, as well as the bidirectional mediating role of relative deprivation. A total of 1258 adolescents (683 left-behind adolescents) participated in this 10-month study with three consecutive follow-ups. Results of cross-lagged analyzes revealed that for left-behind adolescents but not non-left-behind adolescents: first, there is a vicious bidirectional cycle of peer stress and self-directed violence; second, this cycle is mediated by relative deprivation; and third, both the vicious cycle and the mediation remain consistent across different genders or educational stages. The findings highlight the need to focus on challenges such as peer stress and self-directed violence among left-behind adolescents and suggest that interventions targeting relative deprivation may break the vicious cycle between peer stress and self-directed violence in this subgroup.

The dynamic, longitudinal interplay between caregiving environmental risk (e.g., caregiver postnatal substance use and psychological symptoms, caregiving instability, exposure to violence) and child aggression is not well understood, particularly for substance-exposed children. A random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to examine within- and between-family variability in the reciprocal relations between caregiving environmental risk and child aggression from infancy to kindergarten age, and their contribution to early adolescent aggression, with prenatal substance exposure as an exogenous predictor, controlling for maternal education, child sex, and peer delinquency. The sample included 216 mother–child dyads (49% boys; 57.6% African American). Multimethod assessments were conducted at infancy, toddlerhood, early-preschool, late-preschool, kindergarten, and early adolescence. Positive cross-lagged effects from child aggression to caregiving environmental risk revealed that after a temporary increase in aggression, children were exposed to more caregiving environmental risk a year later. Positive reciprocal paths from caregiving environmental risk at infancy and toddlerhood to child aggression a year later indicated that children had increased aggression at toddlerhood and early preschool when exposed to higher-than-expected levels of caregiving environmental risk the year prior. In contrast, caregiving environmental risk at early preschool and late preschool did not relate to child aggression a year later and caregiving environmental risk at kindergarten did not relate to early adolescent aggression. Findings highlight the ways in which child behavior impacts caregiving environmental risk and have implications for identifying and intervening with early childhood aggression and the contexts in which it occurs.

This study investigates the association of father–child and mother–child relationships with aggression in Chinese adolescents and the mediating role of psychological suzhi, considering gender differences. Conducted over three measurements between September 2022 and April 2024, the study involved 744 adolescents (53.2% boys; age at T1 M = 12.89, SD = 0.80). Findings showed that both father–child and mother–child relationships were directly associated with adolescent aggression after one and a half years and indirectly mediated by psychological suzhi. However, the direct association of mother–child relationships was not significant in both male and female samples. The study confirms that positive parent–child relationships and psychological suzhi help reduce adolescent aggression and highlight the different roles of parents in adolescent development.