Aggressive and prosocial behavior

Richard e. Tremblay

Developmental origins of aggression and From physical to indirect aggression

prosocial behavior If most children are at their peak in frequency of
The lack of studies targeting both aggression and
physical aggression at school entry, when do
prosocial behavior is partly due to the fact that those
children learn to physically aggress? In 1931,
who study the development of prosocial behavior
Florence Goodenough published data collected
have tended to focus their attention on early
from mothers on the frequency of angry outbursts in
childhood, while studies of aggression tend to use
a small cross-sectional sample of preschoolers. Her
school-age children. These different choices of
results suggested that physical aggression was
populations highlight an important implicit theoretical
present during the second year after birth, and that
assumption: prosocial behavior is learned during
its frequency decreased with age. Verbal
early childhood, while aggression is learned during
aggression appeared to replace physical aggression
middle childhood and adolescence. Recent
as age increased. Recent longitudinal studies with
longitudinal studies of aggression with large
large population samples confirmed these early
samples and frequent assessments over many
observations. These studies show that if children
years have challenged not only the idea that
learn to physically aggress by observing models,
physical aggression is learned during the school
most of the learning must be done during the first 18
years, but, more fundamentally, the idea that
to 24 months after birth. Indeed, by that age, most
physical aggression is learned.
mothers report that their child has used some form
Because physical aggression by adolescents
of physical aggression. However, there are
and young adults is a major concern in all modern
important differences in the frequency of physical
societies, criminologists, psychiatrists, and
aggression among infants as well as among
psychologists have tried to understand how playful
toddlers. Some infants appear to make very
and innocent young children become hard-core
infrequent use of physical aggression while others
violent juveniles. The risk of being arrested and
meet the American Psychiatric Association criteria
found guilty of delinquent behavior is higher during
for conduct disorder, mainly because of physically
late adolescence and early adulthood than at any
aggressive behaviors.
other point in one’s lifetime. This fact was first
Thus, the available data on the development of
highlighted in the early 19th century by the Belgian
physical aggression indicate that, for most children,
astronomer-mathematician-developmentalist-social
frequency of such aggression increases during the
reformer Adolphe Quetelet. The rapid increase in
first thirty months after birth, and then decreases
arrests during adolescence, and its relatively rapid
steadily . Compared to boys, fewer girls tend to
decline during adulthood, has been labeled the
reach the highest frequency levels, and girls tend to
‘agecrime curve.’ The theories which attempt to
reduce their frequency more rapidly. The available
explain this developmental curve ranged from
data suggest that the preschool years are a
biological explanations, such as the rapid increase
sensitive period for learning to regulate physical
in testosterone during adolescence, to the traditional
aggression. The small group of children (5–10%)
sociological explanation (poverty), and to learning
who continue to show high levels of physical
explanations, such as imitation of aggressive
aggression during the elementary school years
parents, aggressive friends, and violence in the
(chronic physical aggression, CPA) are
media.

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those most at risk of physically violent behavior
during adolescence.
Interestingly, while the frequency of physical
aggression starts decreasing after the third or fourth
year after birth, the frequency of indirect aggression
(getting at others behind their back) increases
substantially from 4 to 7 years of age. However,
there is no evidence that indirect aggression
replaces physical aggression (Fig. 3).
Once children have the cognitive abilities to use
indirect aggression, they use both physical and
indirect aggression, or use either one or the other. A
large survey of 8-, 11-, and 15-year-old boys and
girls from Finland, Italy, Israel, and Poland (Fig. 4)
indicates that girls use indirect aggression more
often than verbal aggression or physical aggression,
while boys use it less. A longitudinal study of a large
population sample of Canadian children has
confirmed the female-male difference for indirect
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aggression (see reference for Fig. 3). Indirect
aggression is probably the most frequent form of
aggression during adulthood. It has been shown to
be of frequent use in different workplace
environments, including universities!
Prosocial behavior
Until recently very few studies had monitored
changes in prosocial behavior for long periods of
time during childhood and adolescence. A 1998
review of age differences in frequency of prosocial
behaviors, based largely on cross-sectional data,
concluded that results differed depending on the
type of behavior that was observed, but that overall
the frequency of prosocial behavior appeared to
increase with age (Damon & Eisenberg, 1998).
Recent analyses of helping behavior trajectories
with large samples of children, in Canada and Italy,
indicate that the frequency of these behaviors
generally increases from 2 to 10–11 years of age,
but appears to level off during the elementary
school years, and then decrease during
adolescence. These analyses also confirmed results
from smaller studies suggesting that girls tend to
use prosocial behavior more often than boys from
infancy to adolescence (e.g. Côté, Tremblay,
Nagin et al., 2002). The period with the most
important increases in helping behaviors appears to
be the preschool years. It is not clear if the decrease
in helping behavior during the early part of
adolescence is followed by an increase during later
adolescence and adulthood.

Determinants of aggressive and

prosocial behavior
Many studies have tried to identify determinants of
aggressive and prosocial behavior. Unfortunately,
the majority of these studies simply look for
correlates, often at one point in time, or, at best, at
two points in time. Experimental evidence of causal
factors could be obtained from preventive and
corrective interventions, which randomly allocate
families or children to treatment and control groups.
However, most of these experiments do not
specifically measure prosocial behavior and
different forms of aggression for long periods after
the intervention. There is some evidence that parent
training and social skills training do have a positive
impact on disruptive behaviors if the intervention is
intensive and lasts over many years. There is also
some indication that an intervention during early
childhood can have a more lasting impact than an
intervention during later childhood and adolescence.
The most frequently found correlates of
aggressive and prosocial behavior can be separated
into two categories, individual and environmental basis. From a physical environment perspective,
characteristics. Individuals with high levels of they are more likely to have been affected during
aggression and low levels of prosocial behavior tend pregnancy by nicotine and alcohol. They are also
to be males who are fearless, sensation-seeking, more likely to have suffered from birth
inattentive, hyperactive, insensitive to social complications. High concentrations of lead in their
rewards, and who have cognitive deficits. From a environment and poor nutrition have also been
physiological perspective, they tend to have low linked to disruptive behavior. From a social
heart rates, high levels of testosterone, and low environmental perspective, their parents have a
levels of serotonin, all of which may have a genetic history of problem behavior, low education, low

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income, and poor parenting skills. Most of the
preceding physical and social environmental factors
are linked to parental characteristics, and are
obviously highly correlated. They are also correlated
with genetic factors and neighborhood factors such
as poverty, violence, poorly performing schools, and
deviant peers. Most studies have not been designed
to take all these factors into account.
In summary, aggressive and prosocial behaviors
are mutually exclusive only when an individual is
observed at a given point in time. Interactions
between two individuals can show a sequence of
aggressive and prosocial behaviors by the same
person. From a developmental perspective, children
appear with age to learn to help others and not to
physically aggress. Those who do not learn to inhibit
physical aggression are at high risk of being
excluded. Although most children learn to fit in their
social environment, socialization is a thin veneer
that can always crack under stress. Thus, despite
the fact that individual differences in frequency of
aggressive and prosocial behaviors are relatively
stable over time, highly prosocial individuals will
resort to aggression when needed, and individuals
with a history of frequent physical aggression can
make frequent use of prosocial behaviors. Many risk
factors have been identified, but none have been
clearly shown to have causal effects, mostly
because of a lack of experimental studies.
Conclusions
From a descriptive perspective, we need to
understand better how different forms of aggressive
and prosocial behaviors develop from early
childhood to adolescence, and to what extent these
two types of behaviors are associated over time. Do
most individuals start life with relatively high levels
of physical aggression, and low levels of prosocial
behavior and become adults with relatively high
levels of prosocial behavior and low levels of
physical aggression? How many individuals
maintain high levels of aggressive and prosocial
behaviors throughout their lives? To answer such
questions, we need to follow large samples of
individuals from birth to adulthood, and frequently
measure different forms of aggressive and prosocial
behaviors.
From an experimental perspective, we need to
identify which factors influence the developmental
trajectories of aggressive and prosocial behaviors.
The best opportunities for experimental work in this
area are preventive interventions. Well-designed
preventive experiments are still needed to verify
such influences (Tremblay, 2003).
Sex differences in aggressive and prosocial
behaviors offer an exceptional opportunity to
investigate genetic and environmental effects. By
including females and males in longitudinal-
experimental studies to address the questions
described above, we should be able to obtain more
adequate answers to long-standing questions about
sex differences in the development of these
behaviors.
Preventive experiments will help answer these
questions if they are planned accordingly.
Investigators in this area of research need to
increase the level of interdisciplinary and
international collaborations. Future studies should
be large scale longitudinalexperimental multisite
international studies that assess genetic and
environmental factors, including both physical and
social environments.