RESEARCH ARTICLE
Justification of Physical and Verbal Aggression in Uruguayan Children and Adolescents
Natalia E. Fares1, *, J. Martin Ramirez2, Jose M. Cabrera3, Fernanda Lozano4, Fernando Salas5
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 4
First Page: 45
Last Page: 54
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-4-45
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101104010045
Article History:
Received Date: 04/01/2011Revision Received Date: 19/04/2011
Acceptance Date: 20/04/2011
Electronic publication date: 23/9/2011
Collection year: 2011
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
This study examines the justification of aggressive acts in Uruguayan children and adolescents in different social situations as a function of age and sex, as well as the effect of differences in socioeconomic status on justification. A total of 663 participants aged 8 to 21 completed a self-report questionnaire designed to measure the justification of eight aggressive acts in six social situations. The results showed that adolescents justified both physical and verbal aggression more easily than children in a wide range of situations. As expected, boys justified physical aggression more easily than girls; however, no differences appeared in regard to verbal aggression. Unexpectedly, no statistically important differences were found in the justification of aggression related to the socioeconomic status of the participants. These findings are discussed in terms of previous studies from other cultures, in the hope of contributing to a deeper knowledge of the complex phenomenon of aggression.
