Comparative analysis of aggression levels in left-handed and right-handed adolescents

Abstract

Introduction. The study examines the problem of aggression in education. Previous studies have discussed a number of reasons for school aggression. Left-handedness is frequently reported as an important risk factor of aggressive behaviours. The aim of this study is to compare the levels of aggressiveness between right-handed and left-handed adolescents. Materials and Methods. To date there has been little agreement on the assessment of handedness in scholarly literature. The authors of this article have divided the inventories aimed at assessing handedness into two groups: those identifying genetic predisposition, and those that assess the influence of social pressure. The study was conducted in St. Petersburg and involved 86 secondary school students aged between 11 and 15 years. Handedness was assessed using 7 tools frequently mentioned in scholarly literature. To assess the aggressiveness, the authors used Ch.D. Spielberger’s questionnaire (STAXI) adapted by A.B. Leonova. Results. It was found that the use of different inventory sets for assessing handedness significantly changes the distribution of adolescents according to this parameter. Tools which do not take into account social pressure identify significantly more left-handed people than those that depend on social pressure. The study has not identified significant differences between right-handed and left-handed adolescents in terms of the level of aggressiveness. At the same time, it was revealed that aggressiveness directed outward is higher in supposedly retrained left-handers. Conclusions. The study has not shown any significant differences in the level of aggressiveness between left-handed and right-handed adolescents. Future research should concentrate on the investigation of aggressiveness in retrained heft-handed adolescents.