Aggressive and violent behavior among children of adolescence

Abstract

In the context of the transformational processes of Ukrainian society, the problem of violent and aggressive behavior among adolescents is particularly acute nowadays. Domestic crime statistics shows that a significant proportion of crimes among minors belongs to violent crimes. The scientific problem is the need to explain the specific features of aggressive and violent behavior in adolescent children. The purpose of the article is to reveal some aspects of aggressive and violent behavior among adolescents. Most researchers identify aggression as an act or behavior aimed at causing harm to another being or object. It is difficult to determine the level of personal tendency of aggression. Only external manifesta- tions of aggression are available for observation and intervention, that is, aggressive behavior, which is in essence related to the concept of violence. According to Zmanovska E.V. and Rybnikova V.U., aggressive behavior includes: hostile setting, aggressive emotions, aggression and violence. The phenomenon of violence can take different forms, but is mainly represented through the interaction of two sides, a violatorIn the context of the transformational processes of Ukrainian society, the problem of violent and aggressive behavior among adolescents is particularly acute nowadays. Domestic crime statistics shows that a significant proportion of crimes among minors belongs to violent crimes. The scientific problem is the need to explain the specific features of aggressive and violent behavior in adolescent children. The purpose of the article is to reveal some aspects of aggressive and violent behavior among adolescents.Most researchers identify aggression as an act or behavior aimed at causing harm to another being or object. It is difficult to determine the level of personal tendency of aggression. Only external manifestations of aggression are available for observation and intervention, that is, aggressive behavior, which is in essence related to the concept of violence. According to Zmanovska E.V. and Rybnikova V.U., aggressive behavior includes: hostile setting, aggressive emotions, aggression and violence. The phenomenon of violence can take different forms, but is mainly represented through the interaction of two sides, a violator and a victim. The nature of violence, from the point of view of sociology, can be both a product of real con- tradictions and purely symbolic processes. Socio-cognitive explanations describe aggressive behavior as a deficit of social competence, which is based on the problems of information processing. The defining role in the use of violence, as it is defined by A. Bandura, is also played by the previous positive experience of the successful use of violence to meet their needs. A. Adler explained violent and aggressive behavior as a desire for domination and self – affirmation. It should be noted that juvenile tumors increase the desire to meet the ways and ideas about the success of the individual accepted in the society. According to the rep- resentatives of constructivism, physical violence, as well as other manifestations of deviant and delinquent behavior, is a social construct.The content of physical violence differs from its evaluation. The objective factor of violence is not the natural tendency of man, but social norms, artificially created barriers and the restriction of the freedom of people. The greatest number of barriers and constraints falls on adolescent children whose criminal activity has been increasing in recent years. Moreover, the nature of this activity has threatening features of insolence, cruelty, cynicism, and violence. The motive for breaking the taboo in the myth arises in close connection with the initiation motive. For a child, the violation of any social taboo turns into a phenomenon of demonstration acquired, due to initiation, maturity, of his/her new social status. H. Heckhauzen deter- mines that very often aggression serves other motives, such as power and dominance, that is, in essence, defined as instrumental aggression. Physical violence among teenagers is not merely a ritual of initiation, it is a construct or a "deconstruct of the masculinity of the victim."Boys who have not been initiated by phys- ical violence become the object of victimization. If they, being men biologically, can not represent specific masculinity in their everyday practices, members of youth groups do not consider them "real men". During initiation, there may be contradictions between the mythological notions of "normative masculinity" and the inability of the "victim" to pass the initiation test. Deconstruction of masculinity can mean temporary, but very difficult, personality reconstruction for boys. Manifestations of physical violence among children are formed not only by their propensity to direct violence but also structural violence, in particular, status inequality. Violent and aggressive actions are part of the ritual of a kind of initiation of adolescents and the establishment of their position in the social system.