The purpose of this study is primarily to observe the aggressive behaviors of children, secondly to analyse the various factors resulting it and to determine the relationship between these factors aad the behaviors, and thirdly to take clinical considerations into each case. The subjects were sixty two 60 Jap. J. of Educ. Psychol. vol.V, No.4 (1958) boys and girls in a kindergarten and twenty three infants in two day-nurseries.
Their aggressive behaviors were recorded one hour each day for six days by means of the checklist method. Then they were divided into two groups: the aggressive and the non-aggressive.
Most of the patterns expressed in their aggressive behaviors were direct and primitive, such as hitting, snatching away, abusing and so on.
With these two groups, the aggressive and the non-aggressive, the correlation with factors; physical, physiological, psychological and social, were statistically examined.
There were no significant relations between the physical factors, which were weather and temperature, and aggressiveness.
Of the physiological factor, the physical conditions of the subjects had no evident correlations with aggression, but the bodily strength had certain relationships, that is, while the stronger-bodied children were apt to respond with the aggressive behaviors, the weaker were all non-aggressive.
In respect of the psychological factors, the study was made from two angles, which were intelligence and personality. Intelligence proved to have no direct relation with aggressiveness. Personality of the subjects were examined according to the criteria for intro-and-extro-versive traits and emotional stability. In the aggressive group most of appeared as extroversive type and almost all non-aggressive children were judged to be either neutral or introversive. Furthermore, it was found that aggressive infants were not always emotionally instable.
As for the social factors, home environment of the children was investigated in terms of home discipline, family constitution, economical conditions, family occupation and house surroundings, and environment of the institutions were also evaluated in terms of nursing principles, educational attitudes, and situations in which the aggressive behaviors occurred. The home discipline was found giving the strongest direct influence on aggressive behaviors of the children.
In the kindergarten most of the homes belonged economically to the middle class with better environment, and educational levels of the parents were relatively high. The aggressive group consisted of those from over-indulgent or over-interfering types in home discipline, and the non-aggressive group came from homes with “let-alone” type, rational type and strict type of home discipline.
On the contrary, most children in the day nurseries came from economically poor homes in which parent's level of education was low and little time was spent to take care of their children. The aggressive group consisted dominantly of those from “letalone” type or strict type of homes, and the nonaggressive children were found among those from over-indulgent type or over-interfering type of homes.
These one may suggest through these inconsistent phenomena that home discipline should be selected to adapt to the social situation and according to children's personality, and that under a certain condition the educational principle not to suppres infants desire may cause them to develop poor frustration-tolerance.
Among the four factors described above, the most significant was social factor. It is consequently suggested that by controlling the factor the maladjusted behaviors of infants could be improved.
