Henry, 15 years old, can be described as "problem of juvenile". He often fights with other students and bullies girls. Because Henry makes trouble in class, the teacher often fires him. Senior students sometimes make fun of Henry in the teachers' corridor, calling him a pervert and laughing at his return to kindergarten for education. At home, the father who received the teacher's "small report" would reprimand Henry again, while the mother sobbed in a low voice and could do nothing about her son's bad behavior.
Henry likes violent videos very much, often downloads violent pictures from websites, and publicly expresses his admiration for the murderer of the campus shooting in Columbus, Colorado 1999. That incident * * * killed 12 students and 1 2 teachers, and two students committed suicide. In 200 1 year, Henry's life took a major turning point. At the insistence of the headmaster of Henry's school, Henry and his parents began to seek psychotherapy from Stuart Verov, a famous psychotherapist in Houston. In the course of treatment, Verov made an in-depth study of Henry's psychology. He found that the little boy was full of resentment towards his parents, regarded himself as a passive victim and thought that he should fight back when he was tortured.
However, when Henry found that his father was struggling with his deep-rooted problems, his anger began to ease. At Trevor's suggestion, Henry began to receive martial arts training and went to a school with a healthier social environment. Now, Henry's academic performance is gradually improving, and he begins to have a good impression on girls. Henry's story highlights a topic that scientists are paying more and more attention to: as he grows up, like all children, "troublemakers" will cope with the influence of social and biological factors in various ways. In this process, some people's growth path is full of ups and downs, and finally they come to a dead end; Some people, such as Henry, have experienced darkness for a while, but they have finally moved towards light. "Violence is a complex problem," Verov said. Violence always has various preconditions, and it will never be caused by one reason. "
Andrias Meyer-Lindenbergh, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health, said that the genetic risk of impulsive violence may come from the brain. Meyer-Lindenbergh's research team studied 142 white adults, who all inherited two common versions of a special gene, which can trigger the brain to secrete monoamine oxidase A(MAOA). This enzyme controls the supply of an important chemical in the brain. One of them will weaken the activity of MAOA in the brain, leading to an increase in serotonin concentration. If there are too many such "chemical messengers", it will disrupt the rules of emotions and impulses. Another gene mutation will trigger violent MAOA activity and make the concentration of 5- hydroxytryptamine deviate from the normal level.
In Meyer-Lindenbergh's research, 57 men and women lacking MAOA gene showed a series of neurological characteristics, which obviously weakened a person's ability to control emotions. Researchers' brain scans of these volunteers show that, under normal circumstances, the internal structure of the brain is very small, involving emotional control. This influence is more prominent in male volunteers. When the same volunteers saw different facial expressions and recalled their emotional experiences, two emotion-related structures in their brains-amygdala and hippocampus-were extremely active. In computer tests that require self-discipline, the area of the forehead that controls impulses is inactive.
On the contrary, volunteers with strong MAOA gene did not respond strongly to emotional input, but responded positively to activities related to impulse control. Scientists report in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that these brain reactions show that it has stronger control over emotions and impulses. Terry Murphy, a psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, UK, said that among people who have no violence, the brains affected by MAOA gene are also different, which provides "evidence contrary to the argument that genes determine violence." In 2002, Murphy and his colleagues reported for the first time that people who were abused in adolescence and had weak MAOA gene had a high probability of violence and illegal behavior.
Child development experts are also actively exploring the influence of personal and environmental factors on violence. A study led by Kenneth Deger, a psychologist at Duke University in the United States, studied the psychological state of 585 male and female volunteers from three regions in the midwest. His research mainly focuses on reward sensitivity, which measures a person's need for direct and positive feedback. Impulse is one of the reasons for this feature. Less than half of the volunteers are considered highly sensitive to returns. Dege said that the change of volunteers' sensitivity to reward will begin at 2 1 year. Before 2 1 year-old, young people who grew up in dark emotions and whose parents often had problems such as violence, crime and substance abuse also showed high reward sensitivity. This pattern is especially obvious among boys.
In the past 25 years, Gerald Patterson, a psychologist at the Oregon Social Learning Center, and his colleagues have noticed that some parents have extremely bad relationships with their children. Their daily communication is limited to a certain rule or requirement that the mother asks the child to obey. Once the child refuses to obey, the parents finally have to give up. Long-term research shows that these compulsive exchanges breed aggression in children and adults.
Patterson and Isabella granick, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, believe that this influence is best understood as a dynamic system, which tends to a stable pattern, but can be changed when faced with pressure at critical moments. The principle of dynamic system has been used to check how children learn to walk and control their bodies. In the journal Psychological Review published in June 5438+ 10 this year, granick and Patterson described the development of exploring violence and illegal behavior, which came from the long-term follow-up results of children's communication with their parents.
This study shows that there are two types of compulsive relationship between parents and children in families with violent children: mutual hostility and excessive connivance. Granick led a study on problem children, who are considered to have serious self-control. Some children sometimes have extreme personalities or depression. The study involved 33 children. Each child and his mother came to a research laboratory and spent four minutes discussing family problems. When the conversation lasts for 2 minutes, the researchers will knock on the door to remind them that there are still 2 minutes left and ask them to "reach a happy ending" as soon as possible. The purpose of setting time limit is to force each group of interviewees into a state of daily stress.
At this point, the hostility between the mother and the child, which was determined by the researchers to be impulsive, obviously escalated. On the contrary, the mothers of children who sometimes lose their minds, but are usually introverted or seem depressed, generally remain calm and finally agree with their children's position. The researchers said that these two models both represent a kind of communication activity, which has become an unbreakable habit and will promote aggression.