Adolescent Reactive and Proactive Aggression, and Bullying in Hong Kong: Prevalence, Psychosocial Correlates, and Prevention

Development of the psychopathological vulnerability index for screening at-risk youths: a Rasch model approach

Accumulating research on mental health emphasizes the general factor of psychopathology (p-factor) that unites various mental health issues. This study develops a psychopathological vulnerability assessment for youths, evaluating its psychometric properties and clinical utility. An umbrella review conceptualized multifactor psychopathological vulnerability, leading to a 57-item pool. A total of 11,224 individuals participated in this study. The resulting 22-item psychopathological vulnerability index (PVI) fitted the unidimensional Rasch model, demonstrating a person separation reliability of 0.78 and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.84. Cut-off points of 11 and 5, derived from latent class analysis, were used to distinguish vulnerable and high-protection populations. The PVI's concurrent and predictive hit rates ranged from 36.00% to 53.57% in clinical samples. The PVI concretized the vulnerability-stress model for identifying at-risk youths and may facilitate universal interventions by integrating the theoretical foundations of bifactor S-1 models with key symptoms from network models for theoretically grounded approaches.

Risk Factors Associated With Bullying in Context of a Territory Exposed to Armed Conflict: A Cross-sectional Study

School violence and bullying are current and problematic events during adolescence. They are likely to have a marked presence in places highly exposed to armed conflict and violent environments, representing a double public health problem. The study aims to estimate the prevalence of different types of school violence perpetrated and experienced by school adolescents in a community with a history of exposure to armed conflict. Two thousand one hundred eighty-five school adolescents from a municipality in Colombia (males = 54.1%, 14-16 years = 38.6%) participated in the study. Nine educational institutions were included. A systematic random sampling was designed, with a proportional allocation of 35% within each school year from sixth to eleventh grade. The School Coexistence and Circumstances Affecting it-ECECA survey was applied. The prevalence and risks of bully and bullying were estimated. RRa were calculated with the 95% confidence interval adjusted for the other confounding variables. Analyses were constructed from generalized linear models, under the Poisson family and a logarithmic link function. We found a 9.3% of bullying victimization and a 3.5% prevalence of bully. A higher risk of bully was found among males, persons between 10 and 14 years of age, residents of rural or urban dispersed areas, residents of violent neighborhoods, alcohol consumers at school, and victims of aggression in childhood (RRa > 1.0, p-values <.05). The risk of victimization of bullying was higher in students younger than 15 years old, as residents of urban areas, having a history of childhood aggression, suffering abuse by a close person, and as alcohol users at school. This study provides evidence of risk factors for aggression and bullying that have implications for possible prevention measures in multiple social domains, including the individual, the family, and the school environment.

The link between anger and reactive aggression: Insights into anger rumination

This study examined the mediating role of anger rumination in the relationship between anger and reactive aggression and the potential of adaptive anger rumination in reducing reactive aggression. Study 1, a two-wave longitudinal survey of 177 Chinese adolescents, showed that anger rumination mediated the relationship between anger and reactive aggression. Study 2, an experimental study with 160 university students, showed that the self-distanced group had lower aggression than the self-immersed group, and anger rumination mediated the impact of anger on reactive aggression in only the self-immersed group. These findings clarify the role of anger rumination concerning the relationship between anger and reactive-aggression and highlight the importance of self-distanced anger rumination in preventing reactive aggression among adolescents and young adults.

Effectiveness of a Judo Intervention Programme on the Psychosocial Area in Secondary School Education Students

Currently, many combat sports are pedagogically conceived as uneducational and unreliable for the development of young people. The present research aims to investigate the influence of a Judo intervention programme on the motivational climate towards sport, aggressive behaviour, emotional intelligence, and self-concept in secondary school students and to establish the relationships between them. This objective was broken down into (a) developing an explanatory model of the variables mentioned above and (b) testing the model equations through a multi-group analysis in terms of pre-test and post-test. The present study conducted a pre-post-test quasi-experimental design with a single experimental group. The sample consisted of a total of 139 adolescents (12.67 ± 1.066), 50.4% of whom were male (n = 70) and 49.6% female (n = 69). The results show that the intervention decreased all types of aggression and increased levels of emotional intelligence. An increase in social, physical and academic self-concept and decreases in the family and emotional areas were also observed. Finally, for the motivational climate, a tendency towards the ego climate to the detriment of the task climate was observed. It is concluded that the Judo intervention programme is effective in decreasing aggressive behaviour and effective in increasing levels of emotional intelligence and self-concept.

Association between Bullying Victimization and Aggression in Lebanese Adolescents: The Indirect Effect of Repetitive Negative Thinking-A Path Analysis Approach and Scales Validation

(1) Background: The purpose of the present study was to validate the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ) and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire-Short Form (BPAQ-SF) and test whether repetitive negative thinking plays an indirect role in the relationship between bullying victimization and aggression among Lebanese adolescents. (2) Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted between January and May 2022 and included 379 Lebanese adolescent students (64.9% females, mean age 16.07 years). (3) Results: The three-factor solution of the PTQ and the four-factor solution of the BPAQ-SF showed excellent model fit. PTQ mediated the association between bullying victimization and physical aggression, verbal aggression, hostility, and anger. (4) Conclusions: This study expands on previous research by showing that repetitive negative thinking, an impactful socio-cognitive factor for students' mental health, has a mediating (indirect) effect on the cross-sectional relationship between bullying victimization and aggression. This suggests that interventions aiming to prevent aggressive behaviors among adolescent students may be more effective if focused on repetitive negative thinking.

Reactive and Proactive Aggression among Children and Adolescents: A Latent Profile Analysis and Latent Transition Analysis

The present study aimed to explore children’s and adolescents’ profiles of reactive and proactive aggression and the stability of those profiles over a six-month period using latent profile analysis (LPA) and latent transition analysis (LTA). Data were collected at two measurement points from a sample of N = 1468 children and adolescents aged from 9 to 18 years. Results of LPA revealed three distinct profiles, labeled as “Severe Reactively and Proactively Aggressive (S-RA-PA)”, “Highly Reactively and Proactively Aggressive” (H-RA-PA), and “Moderately Low Reactively and Proactively Aggressive” (M-RA-PA). All profiles appeared to be relatively stable over six months, supporting their within-sample consistency. The most stable and largest profile was the “M-RA-PA” profile, while the least stable and smallest profile was the “S-RA-PA” profile. However, there was also some within-person variability in children’s and adolescents’ profile membership because almost 40–50% of the participants of the “S-RA-PA” and “H-RA-PA” profiles transitioned to another profile across six months. In contrast, more than 90% of the participants of the “M-RA-PA” profile remained in their profile. These results provide a dynamic picture of children’s and adolescents’ development of reactive and proactive aggression and bear several implications from a short longitudinal person-oriented perspective.

Emotional Intelligence and Aggressive Behaviors in Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Adolescent aggression is a global public health with long-lasting and costly emotional, social, and economic consequences, and it is of vital importance to identify those variables that can reduce these behaviors in this population. Therefore, there is a need to establish the protective factors of aggressive behavior in adolescence. While some research has demonstrated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and various aggressive responses in adolescence, indicating that EI-or the ability to perceive, use, understand, and regulate emotions-could be considered a protective factor for the development of aggressive behavior in adolescence, the strength of this effect is not clear. The aim of the present study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature concerning the relationship between aggressive behavior and EI in adolescents and provide a reliable estimate of the relationship between both constructs through a meta-analysis. For this purpose, we searched for relevant articles in English and Spanish in Medline, PsycINFO, and Scopus, obtaining 17 selectable articles based on the search terms used in research in the adolescent population. These studies provide scientific evidence of the relationship between the level of EI assessed from the three theoretical models of EI (performance-based ability model, self-report ability model, and self-report mixed model) and various aggressive responses, showing that adolescents with higher levels of EI show less aggressive behavior. Implications for interventions and guidelines for future research are discussed.

Psychological Characteristics and Health Behavior for Juvenile Delinquency Groups

The related literature is studied to explore the psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency groups and implement their psychological characteristics model for the intervention of health behavior. Drawing on the results of current literature research, the Youth Psychological Characteristics Crime Prevention Questionnaire (YPPQ) was compiled, which can be simply referred to as the Crime Prevention Questionnaire. The whole psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency are analyzed by means of a questionnaire. Firstly, the YPPQ scores of different groups were compared, and a structured interview was conducted on the reasons for the crime of the problem youth group. Secondly, data analysis was carried out on the results of questionnaires and interviews, and the psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency were summarized. A "mixed hierarchical intervention model" was proposed to intervene in the mental health behavior of juvenile delinquency groups, and corresponding intervention strategies were also proposed. The results reveal that through the questionnaire survey, the educational background of juvenile subjects was generally distributed in middle school, the number of juveniles with primary school education was less than 30% of the juvenile delinquency groups, the middle school education accounted for more than 60% of the juvenile delinquency groups, and the approximate age was about 18 years old. The largest number in each group were adolescents with secondary school education, indicating the importance of psychological education on crime prevention for adolescents in secondary school. By comparing the YPPQ test scores of different groups, the adolescent group has higher test scores than the juvenile delinquency groups in five of the dimensions. Through the comparative analysis of the YPPQ test results of the juvenile delinquency groups, the problem youth group, and the normal youth group, it is found that the YPPQ has high reliability and validity, so its detection and evaluation are highly feasible. By comparing the odds ratio (OR) of each question in the YPPQ test between the experimental group and the control group, it is found that the psychological characteristics of the experimental group are significantly affected by family, school, and even society. Finally, it proposes a "mixed hierarchical intervention model" for juvenile delinquency to intervene in health behaviors. The purpose is to provide some research ideas for the study of the psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency groups and to put forward some suggestions for the prevention of juvenile delinquency and the intervention of health behavior.

Psychosocial Correlates of Reactive and Proactive Aggression among Protesters during the Social Movement in Hong Kong

This pioneering study examined how psychosocial factors predicted reactive and proactive aggression among adolescents and young adults in Hong Kong during the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement. A total of 1027 local secondary and tertiary students (578 male, 449 female) aged from 12 to 25 years (M = 16.95, SD = 3.30) completed a questionnaire measuring political participation and attitudes, victimization experiences, aggression, life satisfaction, moral disengagement, and psychopathic traits. ANCOVA and multiple linear regression analyses were performed. The results revealed that compared with non-protesters, protestors had more negative traits and poorer well-being (higher levels of reactive aggression, moral disengagement, narcissism, and impulsivity; lower life satisfaction; more experiences of victimization by strangers related to political disputes). Nonetheless, protesters had similar psychosocial correlates of reactive and proactive aggression when compared to the non-protesters. Among the protesters, reactive aggression was positively predicted by anger towards the government, moral justification, diffusion of responsibility, impulsivity, and narcissism and negatively predicted by satisfaction with the government, advantageous comparison, and dehumanization. Furthermore, proactive aggression was positively predicted by narcissism, euphemistic language, and advantageous comparison and negatively predicted by moral justification. The implications of the findings for psychotherapy, school education, parenting, and social policies are discussed.

Effects of parental attitude and proactive and reactive aggression on cyberbullying and victimization among secondary school students

PURPOSE

To predict the effect of parental attitude and proactive and reactive aggression on the cyberbully, cyber victims, and cyberbully/victim among students aged 9-14 years.

METHODS

This study is a cross-sectional, correlational, and predictive study. The sample included 360 students. Data were collected with the "Adolescence Information Form," "Parental Attitude Scale," "Proactive-Reactive Aggression Scale," and "Cyberbully/Victim Questionnaire." Logistic regression analysis was used.

FINDINGS

This study was determined that proactive-reactive aggression and parental attitude predicted 30.3% of cyberbully/victim cases. Proactive aggression and Internet usage time are essential predictors of cyberbullying cases.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

To protect and improve their children's health, children should be informed about cyberbullying, proactive-reactive aggression, and the duration of Internet use.

Sex Differences in the Relationships between Forms of Peer Victimization and Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Schoolchildren

The original study investigated sex differences in the relationships between multiple forms of peer victimization (physical victimization, verbal victimization, and social exclusion) and subtypes of aggression (reactive aggression and proactive aggression) in schoolchildren. A self-report questionnaire assessing levels of peer victimization and aggression was administered to 3790 schoolchildren (1916 males and 1874 females) aged 11 to 17 (M = 13.19; SD = 1.17) from 10 middle schools in Hong Kong. The pure effect of each subtype of aggression were evaluated by statistically controlling for another subtype of aggression in analyses. Furthermore, participants were classified as non-aggressors, reactive aggressors, proactive aggressors, and reactive–proactive aggressors to investigate their differences in specific forms of peer victimization. Data were analyzed by hierarchical linear regression and ANOVA. The results showed: (1) Sex significantly moderated the relationship between specific forms of peer victimization and subtypes of aggression; (2) In males, reactive aggression was positively predicted by verbal victimization; proactive aggression was positively predicted by physical victimization and social exclusion, and negatively predicted by verbal victimization; (3) In females, reactive aggression was positively predicted by physical victimization and social exclusion; proactive aggression was negatively predicted by social exclusion; and (4) Reactive–proactive aggressors reported more physical victimization than other types of aggressors. The findings have significant implications for distinctive functions of reactive and proactive aggression and the need to develop differentiated interventions for male and female schoolchildren.