Aggressive themes in the fantasies of institutionalized violent delinquents who were abused as children

Abstract

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of child abuse on violent juvenile delinquents who had been institutionalized for violent crimes with a particular focus on aggression. The literature on child abuse suggests that the relationship between child abuse and aggression, both overt and covert is unclear. Further, the relationship between fantasy aggression and overt behavior is unclear in spite of a long history of research attempts to clarify the relationship. The present study was an attempt to determine that relationship between overt behavior and fantasy by introducing family drawings as a means of eliciting fantasy aggression and conducting comparisons of that technique with the Thematic Apperception Test to determine which was most closely related to overt aggressive behavior. Forty-four delinquent adolescents who had been institutionalized for violent crimes participated in this study. Twenty-two subjects had been abused prior to their institutionalization. The remaining 22 subjects had not been abused. Each subject in the study produced fantasy stories to the TAT and the family drawings which they had drawn. These fantasy stories were analyzed for aggressive content to determine whether or not the abused sample was significantly more aggressive than the nonabused sample, as anticipated.Both an analysis of variance and a correlational procedure were performed to determine whether or not the groups were significantly different on levels of aggression and to examine the relationships between fantasy aggression and overt aggressive behavior. A multiple regression was also conducted to provide descriptive data concerning the samples. Results of this study failed to indicate any significant differences between the overt or fantasy aggression levels of the two groups. Little relationship was found between aggressive behavior and fantasy aggression even in this violent population of delinquents. On the basis of this investigation, it was concluded that the instruments used may not be sensitive enough. The dramatic differences that appear to exist in nonviolent populations, or noninstitutionalized populations, may be more subtle in subjects who are violent and abused. Recommendations for future studies included larger sample sizes, a better means of screening for child abuse, and use of instrumentation that is more sensitive to subtle differences in levels of aggression.