Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Study on Violent Kids has Surprising Results

Aired August 22, 2002 - 08:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: If you are looking for the child most likely to lash out, keep an eye on the quiet one. That is what a new study says about children and violence.
From CNN Center, Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has some details -- boy, for any parent out there that has a shy one, they had better listen up this morning, right?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think that Harlem baseball player has nothing to worry about. Certainly didn't shy to me.

ZAHN: The least of his parents' worries right now.

GUPTA: That is right. But this is a serious topic, no question. Researchers from Harvard and Brandeis University actually looked at 440 kids. Now, there has been a lot of attention focused on aggressive behaviors in children, especially as of late. They actually looked at these kids over 7 years. They were aged between 7 and 13, and found some things that weren't entirely surprising in terms of predicting aggressive behavior, and some things that were more surprising.

Let's look at a few of them in terms of what they found, specifically violence in the home. That has been panned out in previous studies as well, and when you talk about violence in the home, you are also specifically talking about physical punishment. That is punishing from the the parents to the child. That is something that they talked about as well. The social inhibitions that we've been talking about -- you have been talking about this morning were something that they didn't expect to find, and as you mentioned, Paula, the shy, reserved kids, kids who oftentimes weren't engaged either with their friends, their peers, or even with their families, tended to be ones who later on in life oftentimes had more aggressive tendencies. In fact, out of the 440 kids, 25 of the kids exhibited specifically socially-inhibited signs, and two of them, for example, are now in jail for things such as murder. Low self-esteem was another critical factor. Kids who did not have significant self esteem as kids oftentimes did not grow up to be kids who were not that aggressive.

ZAHN: You know, you look at the little graphics we just put up, and they seem pretty obvious that that would all make sense, but this really is a sea change in thinking, right? They used to think that when you were very inhibited that that would lead to low aggression instead of the lashing out they have seen here in this study. GUPTA: That is right. There were a lot of surprising things about this study, and there's so many stereotypes about trying to predict, especially among child psychologists, trying to predict which kids are actually going to grow to up to possibly be trouble makers, or be aggressive and things like that. Some of the things they found besides these social inhibitions actually being a predictor for aggression, they were surprised also at some of the things they found were not predictors for aggression: gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class. Those things did not predict for aggression across the board by any means. So what they are really looking at are those four things we put up earlier, the low self esteem, the social inhibitions, and the violence both from the parents and in the home.

ZAHN: Aggression is a pretty catch-all word here. What are we talking about? What kind of aggression did they chart?

GUPTA: Well, a lot of times it was simply things like fighting in school, often times physically. But sometimes it actually translated into criminal behavior later on. We're only talking about 13-year-olds here, so criminal behavior in the very early sort of teen-age years, and like I mentioned, two of the kids out of these 440 are actually in jail.

ZAHN: Now did they look at any link between kids watching a lot of violent TV and watching violent movies?

GUPTA: Well, they are planning on following these kids out for another ten to 15 years, they say. The study is actually going to continue for that long, and they are going to specifically look at whether or not television, other sorts of violent predictors in society will actually lead to those sorts of things, including television, lead to aggressive behavior, criminal behavior later on down the line. They were not able to conclusively say that now, but that is something that they are looking at.

ZAHN: So Sanjay, I think, in order for us to be responsible, we don't want to leave any parent out there who has a nice, sweet, shy child to jump to the conclusion that their kid is going to be a basket case, ten years down the road. What is the best advice you can give them this morning about what they really need to be mindful of here?

GUPTA: Right. Well, I think two pieces of advice are really critical. One is that violence in the home is a strong predictor of violence later on in life. That is something that we have known for a long time, but I think it is worth reinforcing. Simple actions in the home, even among parents, can actually lead to violent tendencies later on in life. That is the one thing.

The other thing is if you do have a socially inhibited child, the kid may be a very sweet, shy child, but it is important to get kids engaged -- with their friends around them -- in activities at school, things like that. Those things are important because it gets the child more engaged with their community and possibly leads to lowered aggression later on down the road.

ZAHN: Makes a lot of sense. Thanks for that free house call. Appreciate it, doctor.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com