The relationship between social anxiety and aggression in middle school students: a moderated mediation model

Subjects: Psychology >> Other Disciplines of Psychology submitted time 2024-05-29

Zhao Liming Han Mengmeng Jia Jinjin

Abstract： Aggressive behavior refers to the psychological and behavioral tendency of an individual to intentionally hurt others in a direct or indirect way, so that the body and mind of the target of attack are adversely affected. The problem behavior of middle school students in the adolescent period is increasing, and the severity and danger of aggressive behavior are gradually increasing. Many studies have reported the effect of social anxie ty on aggressive behavior, but the internal mechanism of the how has not been fully explored. Therefore, this study explores the influence of emotion and cognition on behavior from the perspective of cognitive behavior theory. Specifically, this study examined whether social anxiety has an indirect effect on aggression through verbal fluency and whether this effect is moderated by emotional intelligence./t/nA total of 905 middle school students (mean age = 15.4 years, SD =1.8) participated in the study, who anonymously filled out questionnaires on social anxiety, verbal fluency, emotional intelligence, and aggressive behavior. All measures have good reliability and validity./t/nAfter controlling for sex, age, place of origin and whether the child is the only child, the structural equation model shows that: (1) Social anxiety can significantly predict aggressive behavior of middle school students under the condition of controlling gender, age and whether they are only children; (2) Social anxiety can predict aggression of middle school students through the mediating effect of verbal fluency; (3) The mediating effect of verbal fluency is regulated by emotional intelligence.pecifically, compared with high emotional intelligence middle school students, social anxiety of low emotional intelligence middle school students has greater predictive effect on verbal fluency and aggression./t/nThese findings help to reveal the mechanism of social anxiety on aggressive behavior of middle school students. On the one hand, verbal fluency plays a mediating role in the influence of social anxiety on aggression of middle school students. Therefore, we should pay attention to the influence of verbal fluency, which is easy to be neglected but plays an important role in communication, on aggression of middle school students. On the other hand, students with low emotional intelligence were more prone to aggressive behavior due to social anxiety and poor verbal fluency. Therefore, the intervention and prevention of aggressive behavior can start from the perspective of cultivating middle school students’ emotional intelligence and improving their verbal communication ability.

Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review

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