Are Our Kids Really That Angry An Empirical Investigation Into Adolescent Aggression In The South African Context

The primary objective for this study was to conduct an empirical investigation to gather information in the form of data from adolescent males and females in the Pretoria region of South Africa. Information was gathered with respects to their level of physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, hostility and depression. The information was used to identify whether correlations exist between the three variables anger, aggression and depression for South African adolescents.

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Psychology - Developmental Psychology, Atlantic International University, course: Master of Psychology, language: English, abstract: The primary objective for this study was to conduct an empirical investigation to gather information in the form of data from adolescent males and females in the Pretoria region of South Africa. Information was gathered with respects to their level of physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, hostility and depression. The information was used to identify whether correlations exist between the three variables anger, aggression and depression for South African adolescents. A literature study was conducted and the following hypotheses were developed for this study: I.Males are more likely to engage in physical aggression than females. II.Males and females are equally likely to engage in verbal aggression. III.Males are more likely to experience feelings of anger towards others. IV.Females are more likely to experience feelings of hostility towards others. V.Males and females are equally likely to report feelings of depression. VI.Rates of physical aggression are higher in younger adolescent males than older adolescent males. VII.The expressions of verbal aggression in females are constant throughout adolescence. VIII.There is a significant positive correlation between feelings of anger and expressions of aggression. IX.There is a significant positive correlation between feelings of anger and feelings of depression. X.There is a significant negative correlation between physical aggression and feelings of depression. The quantitative data gathered came from the completion of a structured questionnaire comprising four distinct sections: demographic information, the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ), the Anger Questionnaire (AQ) and the Choate Depression Inventory for Children (CDIC). The questionnaire was administered to Grade 7-12 pupils (aged 12-19 years old) in an i

Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life. Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication. Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

Discover an important source of practical and understandable advice for parents of children with anger management issues! Your Angry Child: A Guide for Parents was created to provide parents of angry children and teenagers with an up-to-date understanding of the “whys” and “hows” of anger problems. You’ll find specific, focused ways of helping angry children and managing the difficulties that anger causes—some brand new, some time-tested. Written by a psychologist with over 30 years of experience treating troubled and severely behaviorally disordered youth and 20 years experience as a forensic psychologist, this book provides practical and understandable advice that parents can make use of immediately. This insightful book presents up-to-date case histories, current research, and practical, down-to-earth techniques that can help parents of children and adolescents with anger problems. Extraordinarily useful for parents, this book is also an ideal adjunct to counseling and psychotherapy and an essential reference for teachers, pediatricians and family practice physicians, students of psychology, corrections officers, and others who work with angry/violent youth. The first chapters of Your Angry Child: A Guide for Parents provide a thoughtful introduction to child development concepts and the development of anger, examining how hostility and aggression impact the family and illustrating the effects of resistance and oppositional behavior. Next, the book focuses specifically on practical aspects of anger management, including: attachment issues antisocial behavior anger’s impact on temperament, development, moral reasoning, and the thinking process in general indicators of anger problems, such as temper tantrums, cruelty to animals, and fire setting the effect of the media on violent tendencies in children ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and other conduct disorders mood disorders, including suicidal feelings and depression links between anger and substance abuse problem solving the power of strong values and positive role models for angry youth and much more! With chapters specifically devoted to the anger problems of children and pre-teenagers as well as advice directed toward parents of angry adolescents, Your Angry Child: A Guide for Parents is an ideal resource for helping professionals and the parents who come to them in varying degrees of desperation. Make this vital book a part of your therapeutic arsenal today!

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Maratea, Italy, June 17-28, 1981

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves -- they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains--including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems--and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.

CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.