The Routledge International Handbook of Human Aggression

Current Issues and Perspectives

Jane Ireland, Philip Birch, Carol Ireland, Jane Ireland, Philip Birch, Carol Ireland, Jane L. Ireland, Carol A. Ireland, Jane L. Ireland, Philip Birch, Carol A. Ireland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138668188
• eBook ISBN: 9781317211945
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Drawing upon international expertise, and including some of the most well-known academics and practitioners in the field, The Routledge International Handbook of Human Aggression is the first reference work to fully capture how our understanding of aggression has been refined and reconceptualised in recent years.

Divided into five sections, the handbook covers some of the most interesting and timely topics within human aggression research, with analysis of both indirect and direct forms of aggression, and including chapters on sexual aggression, workplace bullying, animal abuse, gang violence and female aggression. It recognises that, in many cases, aggression is an adaptive choice rather than a moral choice.

Providing practitioners and academics with an up-to-date resource that covers broad areas of interest and application, the book will be essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners associated with a range of social science disciplines, including psychology, criminology, social work and sociology, particularly those with an interest in developmental, organisational, forensic and criminal justice allied disciplines.

Section I
Understanding general aggression

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1
The development of aggression in childhood and adolescence

A focus on relationships

Debra J. Pepler

Research on the development of aggression highlights the central role of relationships in shaping development. Children learn almost everything about themselves, others, and the world through their experiences in relationships (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004). When children’s relationships fail to support their social-emotional development, aggressive behaviour patterns become consolidated and sustained across time and settings. Emerging research reveals the complex ways in which children’s experiences become embedded in their biology. Therefore, to understand the development of aggression, we need a binocular perspective, integrating one lens focused on individual children’s development and another lens focused on the way in which others interact with children, creating the context for development (Pepler, 2006). This chapter starts with a consideration of the biological foundations for children’s development, followed by a focus on the role of relationships in the development of aggression. Observational and other research sheds light on what does and does not develop in the contexts of the family, peer group, and school. The focus on relationships provides a window into the complex and dynamic mechanisms that shape the development of aggression.

Theoretical perspectives on the development of aggression

The theoretical and empirical foundations for research on the development of aggression through childhood and adolescence have expanded remarkably. Since 1994, when I co-authored a chapter on the development of antisocial behaviour (Pepler & Slaby, 1994), there has been growing understanding of the complex and dynamic interplay of biological, psychological, and social processes that shape development. Research on what develops under the skin when children are exposed to unpredictable, harsh, and stressful environments highlights biological processes underlying the development of aggression. Children’s biological inheritance is in constant interplay with their experiences in relationships and together they shape not only children’s behavioural style, but also their emotional character and physical health.

Based on an ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) or a developmental-contextual perspective (Lerner, 1995), we have long recognised that children develop within influential contexts including the family, school, peer group, neighbourhood, and broader society. In some contexts, such as the family, children do not actively choose their relationships. In other contexts, such as the peer group, children are freer to choose – and tend to gravitate to people, activities, and settings where they have positive rather than aversive experiences (Snyder, 2002). The social development model specifies that strong social bonds and positive social development occur when children and youth are raised with positive interactions, positive involvement, adequate skills, and reinforcements for positive behaviours (Catalano & Hawkins, 1996). From an evolutionary perspective, aggression can be adaptive for youth who are skilled in using it to obtain goals with relatively little personal or interpersonal cost (Volk, Camilleri, Dane & Marini, 2012). These individuals are often bi-strategic in using both prosocial and aggressive strategies to maintain dominance and status (Hawley & Vaughn, 2003). Varying theoretical perspectives call into question aggression as a stable trait and suggest diverse pathways in the development of aggression that depend, in part, on the social context in which aggression is exhibited.

Development through relationships

Two questions arise in considering the mechanisms in relationships through which children develop aggression: (1) What relationship capacities need to develop and do not develop for these children, and (2) What aggressive tendencies develop instead? Emotional and behavioural regulation is the cornerstone of healthy development, because other capacities depend on regulation (Eisenberg, Valiente & Eggum, 2010). When regulated, children can initiate and maintain prosocial interactions, solve problems flexibly, and move toward a balance of autonomy and relatedness. These behavioural relationship capacities are underpinned by social-cognitive relationship capacities. As they come to understand others and relationships, children develop a theory of mind – recognising that others have thoughts and feelings that underlie their behaviours. With this capacity, children can perspective-take and become empathic, which are precursors to compassion. At the same time, children develop a positive understanding of themselves: a sense of self-worth, competence, and positive identity, recognising that they both matter to and belong with others. They learn to engage morally with others and set boundaries to protect themselves. Children internalise social-cultural norms: if norms favour prosocial behaviour over aggression, they learn that is how they should behave and that is how others should treat them.

Children who grow up in dysregulated, hostile, neglectful, or stressful contexts seldom have support to develop these critical relationship capacities. Instead, they develop aggressive behavioural styles, which in the moment may be adaptive, but over time mitigate success at school, in peer relationships, and as productive adults. Growing up in hostile or unpredictable relationships also leads children to view others with hostile attributions. Rather than becoming connected and bonded, these children are at risk of becoming alienated from critical positive relationships. They drift toward relationships in which they are recognised and appreciated – within deviant peer groups, gangs, and other marginalised groups. Prior to focusing on relationship processes, it is important to consider the individual factors that place children at risk for the development of aggression.

Individual characteristics that place children at risk for aggression

Epigenetic research has shattered beliefs that inherited biological attributes, such as genes or temperament, are fixed, by revealing the dynamic, complex, and multi-level processes that transform biological processes, such as gene expression (cf. Buschdorf & Meaney, 2015). Genes set parameters for development, but their effects are shaped by the nature of children’s experiences. For example, Naumova and colleagues (2016) examined whether epigenetic mechanisms were involved in sustaining the effects of negative parenting. Mother–child dyads were followed over 15 years from middle childhood to adolescence and early adulthood. They found significant associations between changes in offsprings’ perception of rejecting parenting from middle childhood to adulthood and DNA methylation in the offsprings’ adult genomes. The findings suggest that changes in methylation, which turns genes on or off, may be a mechanism linking negative parenting and offsprings’ adaptation.

Research on gene–environment interactions highlights how children’s genetic vulnerability can be exacerbated by challenging relationships. Liu, Li and Guo (2014) conducted a meta-analysis of gene environment interactions in the development of delinquency and violence. They found that genetic contributions to delinquency and violence could be explained by an environmental triggering or suppressing process: when youth grow up in adverse social conditions, there is a larger genetic contribution to the development of delinquency and violence. Conversely, when youth grow up in favourable conditions with stronger attachments and social controls, there is a smaller contribution by the genes linked to delinquency and violence.

Temperament has long been considered key in the development of aggression (Loeber & Hay, 1997). Problems emerging in the first weeks and months of life can set up patterns of interaction that persist through relationships and across contexts. For example, infants with difficult temperaments are difficult to soothe and tend to be highly reactive. These children present challenges for parents’ attempts to regulate and manage their behaviours. Vitaro and colleagues found that a difficult temperament in infancy was positively related to reactive aggression in kindergarten (Vitaro, Barker, Boivin, Brendgen & Trembley, 2006). In addition, harsh parenting was related to the development of both reactive and proactive aggression.

Emerging research is clarifying how children’s experiences in relationships shape genetic expression, which is integrally and dynamically linked to brain development (Meloni, 2014). When children live in a chaotic or non-nurturing environment it can disrupt brain development, neuronal functioning, and connectivity, which in turn may underlie the propensity to be aggressive (Lösel & Farrington, 2012). Given the plasticity of development, these neural disruptions can be ameliorated. In a study of aggressive children referred to the SNAP® program (Stop Now and Plan program), Lewis and colleagues (2008) found that their brain activation differed from that of non-aggressive children in the ventral and dorsal regions indicating poorer executive functioning. Following treatment, children with behavioural improvements also showed brain activity that was similar to the non-aggressive children, suggesting increased functioning and connectivity had developed through the program. Both aggressive children and their parents participate in the program and learn regulation and problem-solving skills; therefore, changes may emerge simultaneously in the children, parents, and family context.

Relationships in the development of aggression

With increased understanding of what is happening under the skin when children are exposed to adverse relationships, we next focus on what is happening in repeated interactions within those relationships that shapes not only genetic expression and brain development, but also social and emotional development. Focusing on the relationship experiences of children begins to elucidate the dynamic mechanisms that shape the development of aggression within the proximal contexts of the family, peer group, and school. We can consider what children are learning in the moment that supports the development of skills and the capacity for relationships or, conversely, undermines healthy development.

Baumrind (1991) identified two dimensions of parenting that promote optimal development: providing responsive love and guiding, and setting expectations and limits for children’s behaviours. Research suggests that children require these forms of adult support across all contexts (e.g., day-care, schools, community organisations, sports). In a review of protective processes, Lösel and Farrington concluded that: “an emotionally warm, attentive, accepting, norm-oriented supervising and structure-giving upbringing encourages the positive development of children” (2012, p. S14). They note that these positive practices, which align with Baumrind’s model, also mitigate the development of violence in the face of risk. Drawing from research on children’s relationships across family, peer, and school contexts, we can begin to piece together a picture of how relationship experiences accumulate to undermine healthy development and divert children onto aggressive developmental pathways. As Dodge and colleagues (2009) noted, the combination of child vulnerabilities and adverse social contexts sets up a developmental cascade of failure and risk for antisocial and illegal behaviours. In the following section, the mechanisms through which this developmental cascade occurs are considered.

What critical relationship capacities do not develop and what problematic behaviours do develop through relationships?

Without the benefit of nurturing relationships, children may fail to develop capacities that are essential for engaging in and sustaining positive relationships including: (1) a positive orientation in relationships, (2) emotional and behavioural regulation, (3) prosocial behaviour and problem solving, and (4) understanding of and concern for others. Next research is considered that points to the failure of relationships to support the development of these capacities, which involves not only children’s lack of skill development, but also how others support or fail to support children’s healthy development, respond, and create processes that support the development of aggression.

Positive orientation in relationships

To become effective social beings, children need to develop a positive orientation to others and a sense of enjoyment in the company of others. Given reciprocity in relationships, others need to think positively about and like being with these children (Pepler, 2006). The dynamic mechanisms shown to undermine aggressive children’s positive experiences of relationships within the family, peer group, and school are important.

Family processes. Children’s social lives begin with attachment processes to primary caregivers. When children are well nurtured, they come to understand that they can trust others, give and receive from others, and sustain relationships through disruptions. Parents’ behaviours shape children’s perceptions of relationships, which in turn shape their cognitive, emotional, and behavioural functioning in relationships (Moretti & Obsuth, 2013). Children who develop aggression in the preschool years are likely to have insecure attachments with their parents (Speltz, Deklyen & Greenberg, 1999). Buist and colleagues found similar links for adolescents between negative experiences in relationships with their parents and aggressive and delinquent behaviours (Buist, Dekovic´, Meeus & van Aken, 2004). The links between negativity in the mother–child relationship and children’s aggression can be bi-directional. Zadeh and colleagues found that mothers’ negativity influenced children’s aggressive (externalising) behaviour over time; however, the impact of children’s aggressive behaviour...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface: Human aggression: How far have we come?
• Section I Understanding general aggression
• Section III Relationships and family aggression
• Section IV Sexual aggression
• Section V Contemporary and emerging issues
• Index