Human Growth and Development / Unit 6 HGD 0795 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
What Predicts Aggression
The idea
Aggression has many predictors. Genes, environment and epigenetics all contribute. Family factors include parental stress, substance use and hostility, and above all modelling: parents who yell, slam doors or use corporal punishment show aggression as a way to solve problems. Peer rejection and aggressive friends add risk, as do situational stress and undiagnosed learning disabilities, communication problems or sensory sensitivities. Persistent severe aggression predicts academic difficulty, poor relationships, and later delinquency and criminality.
In practice
A child who watches a parent slam a door in anger slamming the classroom door the very next week.
Where people slip
The links are associations, not destiny: most young children's physical aggression falls with age. Reactive, hostile aggression responds to teaching coping, relaxation and communication skills, while persistent instrumental aggression may call for family or cognitive behavioural therapy. The modelling link ties back to Bandura's Bobo doll study in unit one.
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