Personality and aggressive behavior in Salvadorean youth

Abstract

This article introduces an extract of a wider ex post facto document which objective is to analyze the psychosocial dimensions (personality) associated to youth aggressive behavior in El Salvador. In doing so, a transactional, retrospective design was used; a probability sample of 3.349 youths was taken (1.708 were women and 1.640 were men). The total median for their ages was 16.47 years old (SD= 1.38). The instruments used included the following: Historical Risk Factors, Social/Contextual Risk Factors [based on the SAVRY tool proposed by Borum, Bartel and Forth, 2003], Individual Risk Factors, Protective Factors [based on the SAPROF-YV tool, SAPROF 2013-2014], and the aggression Questionnaire, A.Q. (Buss and Perry, 1992). The results showed that it is the male youths living in the cities and attending private schools who are at most risk of engaging in violent behavior. Both, the individual personality dimensions and the social factors are significantly linked to violent behavior in the Salvadorean youth.

Entorno, october 2016, issue 62: 7-18