Traditional Masculinity and Aggression in Adolescence: Its Relationship with Emotional Processes

Abstract

Traditional masculinity includes norms that encourage many of the aggressive behaviors whereas traditional femininity emphasizes aggression very little. In addition, the lack of emotional regulation as well as a poor impulse control have been related to aggression and, in particular, with reactive and proactive aggression. The objective of this study is to examine the role of gender stereotypes (masculinity/femininity) in reactive and proactive aggression, through regulatory emotional self-efficacy and emotion regulation. A total of 390 adolescents participated in a longitudinal study in Valencia, Spain. Structural equations modeling (SEM) was employed to explore a two-wave longitudinal model. The results show that femininity relates to reactive aggression through regulatory emotional self-efficacy and emotion regulation. This way, both emotional self-efficacy and emotional regulation mediate the relation between femininity and reactive aggression. Furthermore, reactive and proactive aggression relate positively and directly to masculinity and negatively to femininity. Therefore, violence prevention programs with adolescents should incorporate information to break down gender stereotypes and promote strategies to manage emotions. Such efforts may be helpful to reduce aggressive behaviors and violence.

Análisis Crítico de la Masculinidad Agresiva y la Feminidad Protectora en Adolescentes y Jóvenes Adultos

“…La procedencia de los 16 estudios analizados es diversa: el 31,25% se realiza sobre población de diferentes zonas de Estados Unidos (Castro et al, 2011;Crothers et al, 2005;Prospero, 2008;Smith et al, 2001;Wright, 2020), el 31,25 % se lleva a cabo en Turquía (Bozkurt et al, 2015;Deniz et al, 2021;Ozkan y Lajunen, 2005;Öztürk et al, 2021;Yilmaz et al, 2022), el 25% en España (Giménez et al, 2014;Malonda Vidal et al, 2021;Navarro et al, 2011; Otros métodos de identificación Registros identificados a través de referencias (n=7) Sánchez et al, 2011), el 6,25% en China (Ma, 2005) y el 6,25% en Rusia (Moskvin y Moskvina, 2020). La población objeto de estudio es tanto masculina como femenina en el 94% de los artículos, aunque la proporción no es revelada en todas las investigaciones.…”

Labor Migration of Parents and Aggression Among Their Offspring in China

“…In the absence of parental supervision, male children may be more susceptible to negative influences from school or social environments, leading them to prefer PA toward peers or other people. On the contrary, female children are socialized to be compliant, subordinate, and overcontrolling, which renders them more vulnerable to emotional difficulties and more prone to exhibiting reactive aggression through regulatory emotional self-efficacy and emotion regulation . Given these complexities and potential cultural differences, further investigations are warranted to verify whether there are sex differences in the associations of parental migration with total and subtypes of aggression.…”

“…21 Higher raw scores and T scores indicate higher levels of total and subtypes of aggression. Participants were grouped into 7 groups according to T scores based on the cutoff point proposed in a previous study conducted among Chinese adolescents 22 : very low (T score Յ29), low (T score [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], low average (T score [40][41][42][43][44], average (T score 45-55), high average (T score 56-59), high (T score 60-69), and very high (T score Ն70). In the current study, we defined high and very high groups as exhibiting corresponding aggression, while other groups were defined as no corresponding aggression.…”

Bidirectional relationship between bullying victimization and functions of aggression in adolescents: The mediating effect of teacher justice

“…Besides, adolescents who exhibit proactive aggression usually have social relationships with other proactively aggressive youth (Poulin & Boivin, 2000), which may make them poor targets for victimization. Second, the gender differences may be due to societal gender stereotypes that boys favor achievement over peer relationships (Malonda-Vidal et al, 2021). Given that proactive aggression is instrumental action in solving conflicts or acquiring favorable peer status, boys may view it as an effective way to achieve desired goals such as domination, power, and popularity (Arsenio et al, 2009).…”