lecture 2 - Agression risk factors Flashcards
how does agression develop
Aggression development - interplay between intrapersonal
and environmental factors.
agression risk factors
-in child (characteristics)
-in family
the child
- Temperament, executive functioning, and emotion dysregulation.
- Social Information Processing (SIP).
the family
- Coercive home environment and parenting
risk factor - child
how can tempermant cause a child to respond
Tendency to respond in a certain way across situations.
* Considered a precursor of personality
when do differences in tempermant emerge
Individual differences in temperament emerge very early and remain relatively stable over time
what are the five major attributies in babies for tempermanet
Five major attributes in babies:
* Activity level; Irritability; Soothability; Fearfulness; Sociability
what is ‘difficult tempermant’ associatied with
-Loeber and Hay 1997
Difficult temperament” associated with higher rates of mother-child
conflict. Discipline techniques partly influenced by infant’s temperament, part by parent’s temperament
what are 3 clusters of tenpermant traits that raise the risk in agression?
1.Tendency for dysregulated
and negative emotional
reactions
* Control of anger and frustration
is a major achievement in early
socialisation, by middle
childhood (6-12 years).
* Reactive more than proactive
aggression
- Fearlessness, daring, sensation-seeking.
- Low prosociality.
* Less respect for rules
* Less empathy or care for others
* Less guilt
* Proactive more than reactive
Tendency for dysregulated
and negative emotional
reactions
-evidence
Ostrov et al. (2023) found emotion dysregulation to be a key risk factor in reactive and proactive physical and relational aggression.
- 300 children age 3-5 years in pre-school and school, over 4 years.
- Free-play observations (trained researchers).
- Teacher ratings of: emotion dysregulation, empathy, rules response, fearlessness & daring.
- Physiological (skin conductance, (can direct measure how physically aroused or active a child is ) breathing- resting state arousal).
-children who
what is emotional dysregulation
inability to control and modulate emotional reactions. Especially
problematic when those behaviours violate social norms.
what is the role of the executive function
-inhibition
-working memory updating
-shifting
-planning
-development of prefrontal cortex
- Inhibition: restraint of motor or verbal responses.
- Working memory updating: hold and manipulate information over short periods of time.
- Shifting: alternate between mental rule states or tasks.
- Planning: goal-directed action.
- Development of prefrontal cortex. Different EF functions develop at different rates/stages.
Rademacher et al., (2023). Rohlf et al. (2018)
how does agression and executive function correlate
EF deficits in early childhood correlate with increased risk of
aggressive behaviours.
- Difficulties regulating behaviour, especially anger and irritation.
- Physical aggression mainly; relational findings mixed.
- Reactive more than proactive aggression (Rohlf et al., 2018).
- Impulsivity, lack of ability to plan and inhibit potent responses.
- Development of greater cognitive control in adolescence shown to
protect against tendency for maladaptive anger responses.
emotion dysregulation
-anger induction study Krahe 2020
-what were the two behaviour classifications
-children between 6 and 10 asked to build a tower of bricks and told that they could win an attractive prize if they succeeded.
-To induce anger, the researchers manipulted the bricks so that the tower kept collapsing.
-the same children were studied again 3 years later with an age adapted version of the tower building task.
Two behaviour classifications:
1. Maladaptive: venting anger, focus
on the frustrating blocks.
2. Adaptive: solution seeking.
- More maladaptive anger correlated with higher teacher ratings of physical and relational aggression 6 months
and 2 years later. - Also predicted problems with friends
social infromation processing
Accurate processing of social information is crucial for human interaction
and adequate socialization.
* understand others’ intent, emotions, messaging.
* take into account contextual factors.
* decide how to respond to them.
Problems arise when there is misunderstanding
how can social information processing affect agression
Social Information Processing difficulties can make it hard for certain children to find non-aggressive solutions to problems (Dodge & colleagues)
social information processing model (SIP)
-How do children choose aggressive
versus nonaggressive solutions to social problems?
stages 1 and 2
Reactive Aggressors:
* Stages 1 & 2.
* Expect intent was negative (Hostile Attribution Bias) - starts to influnece and heighten an angry response
* Search and find social cues to confirm this: self-fulfilling cycle.
* Rapid angry response.
* Age-related.
social information processing model (SIP)
-stages 3 and 4
Proactive Aggressors:
* Stages 4-6.
* Less expectation of hostility.
* Logical assessment that aggressive response would be most effective.
* Confident of positive outcome.
how was the SIP model originally developed, and how has it been since then
SIP model originally developed within a social-cognitive framework.
Since»_space; Integrated model of SIP and emotion (Lemerise & Arsenio,
2000).
Social Information Processing & Emotion Dysregulation
-how is the SIP model and hostile attribution bias infleunced ?
- Each step of the SIP model can be influenced by individual differences emotionality (traits) and emotion regulation ability.
- Current emotional state may drive what social cues are more salient and how they are interpreted.
- Overwhelmingly strong emotions that are hard to control can impair ability to focus on alternative interpretations of and responses to a situation.
- Emotionality, inadequate emotion understanding, and poor emotion regulation ability are associated with increased hostile attribution bias
what is considered breeding grounds of agression in a
A coercive home environment :
- Out of control behaviour, unruly, defiant.
- Atypical family environment.
- Social climate the child feeds into.
- Constant struggle and conflict.
- Little talk, mostly negative talk.
- Negative reinforcement maintains this environment.
See Shaffer textbook, chapter 14
example of coercive home environment
- Girl teases older brother. He
yells back. (Negative
reinforcement.) - Girl calls brother nasty
name. Boy chases and hits
her. - Girls stops calling him names (his hitting negatively reinforced). She
whines, hits back, he withdraws (her hitting negatively reinforced).
Boy hits sister again. Escalates
-Mum intervenes but children won’t listen because too emotionally
charged. So mum turns to punishment and coercion
-* Fighting stops (reinforcing mum’s coercive methods). - Children whine, cry, yell at mum.
- If mum backs off these behaviours are reinforced.
- Next time mum is even more likely to use coercion.
- Child counter-coercion to get her to back off.
- Unpleasant family atmosphere.
parenting styles and agressive behaviour
Parenting styles act as a risk or a
protective factor for the
development of aggressive
behavior problems in children.”
(Rademacher et al., 2023)
-eg authorattative parenting
-authoratarian (considerred risk factor)
-permissive
-neglectful
two dimensions of coercive parenting
- Parental Warmth: protective factor.
* Affection, support, and acceptance of the child’s experience and behaviour.
* Positive socio-emotional resources and role modelling. - Behaviour control/coercion: risk factor.
* Harsh and controlling, strict rules and punishments.
* Negative interactions promote antisocial behaviour, learned and transferred
outside the home.
Rademachar et al. (2023)
parenting and link to emotional dysregulation
Coercive parenting associated with child emotion dysregulation.
* Strong regulation pressures from caregivers, fixed limits.
-recurring confrontation and negativitiy
-high negative arousal in the child
-harder to learn anf enact better controlled and non agressive behaviours during chalenging situations
parental warmth and emotional regulation link
Parental warmth promotes good emotion regulation development.
* Fosters trust, easier to regulate appropriately, psychological safety.
