Role of Ways of Coping and Emotional Stability in Aggression among Adolescents

Aggression is an intentional action executed with the purpose of harming or injuring another person. Rising aggression among Indian adolescents is a growing concern. In order to manage and direct aggressive tendencies of adolescents towards productive channels, its imperative to identify factors that predict aggression among adolescents. Emotional stability and ways of coping have been found significant in prediction of aggressive tendencies among adolescents. According to Feldman (2015), coping refers to attempts by individual to control, reduce, or learning to bear the threats that result in to stress. Emotional stability refers to the ability to manage emotional reactions that ensure consistency and sensitivity towards situations. The objective of the current study was to analyse relationship of emotional stability and coping with aggression. 150 students of the Kurukshetra region belonging to the age range of 14 to 16 years, comprised the sample. Buss and Warren's Aggression questionnaire (2000) was administered to assess the level of aggression. Singh and Bhargava's (2006) Emotional Maturity Scale was administered to determine the level of emotional stability of the sample. Ways of Coping Questionnaire developed by Folkman and Lazarus (1988) was employed to identify the ways of coping adopted the sampled subjects. The results of statistical analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between emotional stability and aggression. Similarly, a significant positive correlation between escape avoidance coping and aggression was also found. Stepwise regression analysis revealed that emotional stability accounts for 39.2 % of variance in aggression among adolescents.