El efecto de la impulsividad sobre la agresividad y sus consecuencias en el rendimiento de los adolescentes

Resumen

Both impulsivity and aggressiveness are associated with disadaptative behaviours and many mental disorders. In children and adolescents, impulsivity is also associated with problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or reading, which can cause learning problems and academic failure (Harmon-Jones, Barratt & Wigg, 1997). According to E. Barratt, impulsive people have more problems to learn than people with low levels of impulsivity, which implies that impulsivityeness could be associated with academic failure and aggressive behaviour. Taking into account the impact of aggressive behaviours in current society and the concern that they are causing in the school context, the main objective of this thesis is to test to what extent impulsivity influences aggressiveness in adolescents. Other objectives are to test the sort of relationship between aggressiveness and the different kinds of impulsivity, and their influence on other variables such as intellectual abilities, academic failure or gender. The results show that there is no relationship between dysfunctional impulsivity and individual intellectual resources, but impulsivity impairs later learning that allows these resources to develop. In fact, dysfunctional impulsivity is associated with the intellectual abilities involved in crystallized intelligence, but not with fluid intelligence. For this reason, dysfunctional impulsivity impairs academic results, and leads to higher failure rates. Furthermore, functional and dysfunctional impulsivity predispose subjects to answer aggressively, probably because they tend to respond without thinking, though dysfunctional impulsivity is also associated with mistrusting other people and feeling anger, which predispose to aggressive behaviours. On the other hand, other studies made with adults have found no relationship between functional impulsivity and instrumental aspects of aggressiveness, unlike this study in adolescents. Adolescents may think that acting aggressively can bring benefits, while functional impulsive adults inhibit their aggressive behaviours because they do not believe that aggressiveness brings any benefit. Finally, the results support E. Barrats theory that impulsivity and anger are necessary but not enough for impulsive aggressiveness. Consequently, other variables, such as poor social skills or poor information processing, may be involved in this relationship. In this study, two versions of Buss & Perrys Aggression Questionnaire (1992) have been used to verify the validity of the criteria used with the impulsivity tests. The results are similar with both versions. Previous studies showed that the short version does not reduce internal consistency. Consequently, the short version is a good alternative to the original version, because fewer items provide the same psychometric properties.