What is ’heteroaggressiveness’? Causes and associated disorders

A concept that allows us to explain the different forms of explicit violence.

We call heteroaggressiveness to all those aggressive behaviors directed towards others.. This includes physical aggression, insults or more subtle ways of hurting another person. Some people say that heteroaggressiveness is part of our nature and is an inevitable part of the human experience that is impossible to get rid of or renounce.

Others claim that it is a product of acculturation and can be avoided. The enigma surrounding the origin of this type of behavior has given rise to numerous hypotheses, some more rigorous and scientific and others more moralistic.

Psychologists have studied this multifaceted phenomenon from different perspectives and have obtained different complementary explanations to the question of what it is and why it occurs. We briefly explain what psychologists know about this form of aggression.

• Recommended article: "The 11 types of violence (and kinds of aggression)".

What is heteroaggressiveness?

Heteroaggressiveness refers to disposition, a tendency to react violently outwardly. We must understand aggression as a strategy. Aggression, psychologically speaking, is a means to an end. Therefore, aggressive individuals are those who have a greater tendency to use this type of strategy to obtain their goals, whether tangible or emotional.whether tangible or emotional.

We know that those children who are aggressive from an early age are more likely to remain so as they grow up. We also know that heteroaggressiveness has to do with poor impulse control.. The most aggressive people, having difficulty regulating their emotions and containing their most powerful emotional reactions, find it impossible not to get carried away by the anger they may feel in a frustrating situation.

When we talk about emotional regulation and impulse control, it is impossible not to also talk about emotional education. One of the most obvious advantages of children learning to recognize and manage emotions is a greater control over one's emotional life and a greater ability to control oneself. This means that children with difficulties in managing negative emotions such as anger would have more tools to curb heteroaggressiveness that might otherwise explode.

What is the cause of heteroaggressiveness?

So, if heteroaggressiveness depends on impulse control that is already visible in younger children, Is it a genetically transmitted trait?

The answers in psychology are never that simple. Once again, we have to talk about multifactorial causes. As we know that the best way to study the adult is through the child, let's see what factors are involved in its development.

Individual factors

Individual factors in the explanation of heteroaggressivity include prenatal factors, gender and temperament associated characteristics.The individual factors in explaining heteroaggressiveness include prenatal factors, characteristics associated with the child's gender and temperament. For example, there are studies that attempt to relate toxic exposure during pregnancy and later aggressive behavior. There are others that draw a relationship between low levels of corticotropin-releasing hormone and heteroaggressive behavior.

Regarding gender, boys and girls are found to have different heteroaggressive behaviors. While boys opt more for a form of physical violence, girls tend to be more socially aggressive, i.e., by insulting or ignoring their peers. These differences in the forms of violence crystallize as children grow older, until they reach adolescence.

Children with a difficult temperament are more likely to be aggressive towards others. Difficulties in emotional regulation, hypersensitivity to negative moods or intolerance to frustration are ingredients that form an excellent breeding ground for the birth of a heteroaggressive behavior pattern.

2. Parental factors

It is impossible to talk about any aspect of an individual's development without mentioning the influence of parenting style and family aspects. Both too rigid and too lax parenting styles can have consequences in the development of heteroaggressiveness.

An environment without rules and limits can give free rein to the expression of anger in a violent manner, something that is not tolerated in other social environments. Likewise, an authoritarian parental style can generate frustrations and pent-up anger, which in addition to being harmful to health, often explode in adolescence in the form of heteroaggressive behavior.

Aggressive parental models, for example the presence of a parent with a tendency to use physical violence to punish, validate aggression as a strategy. It is especially those children with a difficult temperament who learn these strategies more quickly and become accustomed to physical punishment more quickly, to the point where it no longer works for them.

3. Social factors

With schooling and later adolescence**, the role of the family is eclipsed by the influences exerted by the peer group**. Being a victim of violent behavior or seeing others being aggressive are factors that predict the emergence of heteroaggressiveness. For example, boys and girls who grow up in more violent neighborhoods also tend to be more violent, by learning and not knowing any other alternative.

The effects of television on heteroaggressiveness are limited. Television only has an effect on aggressiveness in individuals who were previously aggressive. The rest of the children do not engage in heteroaggressive learning or acquire new violent fantasies. Moreover, these effects disappear when children watch television accompanied by an adult who can guide them.

Similarly, the content they see on the Internet will not be harmful if there is an adult who is supervising and actively discussing violent content that the child may have come across.

4. Attachment

The importance of the role of attachment deserves a few paragraphs of its own.. It is during the attachment process that the child learns to develop his or her affective and behavioral self-regulatory capacities. It is to be expected that if the child, instead of receiving affectionate experiences that help him/her to establish an attachment relationship, is denied these experiences, an insecure attachment will develop.

In some cases children form a particular type of insecure attachment, the disorganized one. These children are characterized by profound behavioral dysregulation and uncontrolled tantrums. This is why we find that neglectful parents often have heteroaggressive children.