Recent studies have distinguished reactive aggression in response to provocation, or perceived slight, firm bullying coercion and manipulative or proactive aggression. In an effort to better understand variables which influence the prognosis of a troubled teen, investigators at the University of Montreal (Jl Chil Psychol Psyhiatr, 1998, 39:3 377-85) conducted a prospective study of 742 twelve year old boys. Teacher rated reviews provided a quantified assessment of each of the boys tendency toward reactive or proactive aggression, or both types of behaviors.
These interviews, utilizing the specific items of the Social Behavior Questionnaire (SBQ; Tremblay, Loeber, Gagnon, et al. 1991), were followed up at age 15 by diagnostic interviews with boys and their mothers, and with a 27 item self-reported questionnaire which assessed the degree of their delinquency grouped into physical violence, vandalism, theft, and drug or alcohol use. Sociodemographic information was also collected on parent occupation, education and age at the boys birth.
Researcher Frank Vitaro and his colleagues reported, in results controlled for the effects of family adversity, proactive aggression predicted future overt and covert delinquency when reactive aggression was low. Those with more reactive aggression were found to have more anxiety on diagnostic interview; internalizing conflicts may have limited their expression of aggression. Proactive aggression was also noticeably more associated with conduct (truancy, impulsivity, lying, rule breaking, irresponsibility) disorders than oppositional (anti-authority) disorders.
The findings provide further support for the emerging understanding that the greatest risk for pernicious adulthood lies with the calculated cool bullies who at their worst, lead gangs or manipulate others to criminal ends. Is the proactive connection to delinquency cultured by birds of a feather who flock together, given that reactive aggressive boys are more isolated? Or is it the absence of internal anxiety in the proactives? Linking internal anxiety to less delinquency evokes treatment ideas for violence prevention that would only be curtailed by facile comparisons to A Clockwork Orange.
