Aggressive Behavior,Prosocial Behavior And Psychosocial Adjustment In Early Adolescence

Generally speaking, prosocial adolescence are able to easily adapt society, on thecontrary, aggressive adolescence have difficulties to adapt. Nevertheless, a number ofdevelopment psychopathology studies show that the same factor to differentindividuals might have different development meaning. That is to say, the same thinghappens to different individuals probably causing disparate consequences, which iscalled“one reason causes various results”[Ji Linqin, Chenliang, Xu Fuzhen, ZhaoShouying, Zhang Wenxin, 2011] .For example, a teenager, who hasn’t built a safeattachment relation with his or her parents, is likely to be depressed for his or herparents’death. But a teenager suffering from family violence possibly has conductdisorder for the same reason. [Kerig & Wenar, 2006] Therefore,“one reason causesvarious results”may exits between aggressive-prosocial behaviors and adolescentpsychosocial adjustment, that is, to different individuals, aggressive and prosocialbehaviors probably have something to do with different adjustment models.In addition, aggressive behavior and prosocial behavior are not two sides of acoin and they are not in an either-or relation neither. In reality, aggressive andprosocial behaviors can happen to the same individual at the same time and both ofthem have influence over his or her psychosocial adjustment. It may inspire ourimagination and creativeness of one behavior while we are studying the other, so it isnecessary to study both behaviors at the same time. Based on prior studies and thesame sample as well, it is meaningful to study general features and relations amongaggressive behavior, including physical aggression, relational aggression andprosocial behavior and psychosocial adjustment which includes loneliness, depression,delinquency, peer rejection, peer acceptance, social self-concept and general self-concept in the early period of adolescence. This study helps us to fully understandadolescent psychosocial adjustment condition and its relation withaggressive-prosocial behaviors, which thereby provides empirical support for schooland parents’educational intervention. Through analysis based on research toward2097 persons in Jinan, results are as follow:(1) Physical aggression and relational aggression showed significant typedifference and gender difference. The level of relational aggression is strikinglyhigher than that of physical aggression and boys’aggression level is much higher thangirls’. Prosocial behavior, loneliness, delinquency and peer rejection haveconspicuous difference in gender. Girls’prosocial behaviors are higher than boys’andgirls do not feel loneliness, delinquency or peer rejection as much strong as boys do.There is no noteworthy gender difference in depression or peer acceptance. Girls’social self-concept is much higher than boys’but there is no spectacular genderdifference in general self-concept.（2）Correlation analysis indicates that no matter boys or girls, both physicalaggression and relational aggression show a medium negative correlation withprosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior and negative adjustment variable (loneliness,depression, delinquency and peer rejection) show a significant negative correlationbut prosocial behavior and positive adjustment variable show a magnificent positivecorrelation (peer acceptance, social self-concept and general self-concept). But forboys, there is no prominent correlation between relational aggression and generalself-concept and social self-concept.（3）LPA analysis discovers that results of psychosocial adjustment can bedivided into five different models which are emotional problem, external problem,peer rejection, sub-normal development and normal development. There is asignificant correlation between gender and psychosocial adjustment. There is a highpossibility to say that boys belong to the group of emotional problem, externalproblem and peer rejection. However, it is more likely to say that girls belong to thegroup of sub-normal development and normal development. （4）Variance analysis discoveries as follow: Adolescence in external problemgroup has the highest physical aggression and relational aggression but the lowestprosocial behavior level. There is no significant difference in physical aggression andprosocial behavior between external problem group and peer rejection group butwhose relation aggression level is much lower than external problem group’s. There isno prominent discrepancy of physical aggression and relation aggression betweenemotional problem group and sub-normal development group, which is much lowerthan that of external problem and peer rejection group. But the level of prosocialbehavior in sub-normal development group is much higher than that in emotionalproblem group. The level of physical aggression and relational aggression in normaldevelopment group are the lowest but the level of prosocial behavior is relatively thehighest.