Institutionalization and Aggressiveness - Gender Differences

Abstract

This paper tackles the findings of a research aimed at detecting aggressiveness and at identifying differences between types and levels of aggressiveness in institutionalized children in Romania. The paper relied on the results collected after examining a group of 200 institutionalized children living in social service centers or in foster families. We used the Buss-Perry (1992) aggressiveness questionnaire, which measures four dimensions of aggressiveness, namely physical aggressiveness, verbal aggressiveness, anger and hostility. The results reveal the presence of all forms of aggressiveness in the whole group of subjects, with higher scores in female subjects compared to male subjects. This enabled us to conclude, among others, that there are some shortcomings of the protection system as concerns its beneficiaries and their evolution, aspects that determine them to develop different forms of aggressiveness.