Two Types of Aggression and the Relationship with Coping

Abstract

Aggression is a widespread problem in our communities in general and in our educational communities, in particular. While there are many approaches to addressing this problem it is helpful to recognize that aggression manifests itself in different ways in different people. Furthermore we are now able to identify two types of aggression in young people. An ability to distinguish the characteristics of the two types of aggressive young people, including their use of coping skills allows us to develop appropriate intervention strategies to help them cope more productively and to reduce the negative impact of aggression on the educational community. A study of 206 fifth and sixth grade students from rural, Catholic schools in Victoria, Australia who completed three surveys: the Children’s Coping Scale, the Children’s Automatic Thoughts Scale, and Beck’s Youth Inventory of Anger validated the two forms of aggression. There was a significant difference found between reactive aggression and nonreactive aggression on some of the scales. The finding supports the theory that there are two distinct aggressive groups who cope differently. The implications for different types of treatment approaches are discussed.