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Research Article | DOI: https://doi.org/10.31579/2637-8892/091
1. Department of Psychology, Tehran Central Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2. Department of Psychology, Tehran Central Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
3. Department of Psychology, Tehran Central Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
*Corresponding Author: Shirin Kooshki, Department of Psychology, Tehran Central Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Citation: Ramin Alavinezhad, Shirin Kooshki, Anita Baghdasarians, Fatemeh Golshani (2020) Aggression and Studding Art, J. Psychology and Mental Health Care. 4(4). DOI: 10.31579/2637-8892/091
Copyright: © 2020. Shirin Kooshki, This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium ,provided the original author and source are credited.
Received: 18 July 2020 | Accepted: 29 July 2020 | Published: 31 July 2020
Keywords: studding; aggression; behavioral problems
Aggressive behavior is one of the most common types of behavioral problems in almost all societies, so a pervasive field of research is used to work with that. This study tested the hypothesis that if art studding is associated with a decrease in aggression. Aggressive behavior was compared between art and industrial science groups. The study was a casual-comparative one and sixty university students selected with Purposive sampling and consideration of matching method in two groups. Aggression questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992) was used to assess aggression. Results in relation to investigated components namely verbal aggression, anger, hostel and aggression total score among art students and industrial science groups showed significant difference (p < .05) and this difference is that industrial science students report higher anger and aggression. But there was no significant difference in physical aggression between two groups (p ˃ .05). Mean of physical aggression scores in both groups were low and it could be considered as the worthless of physical aggression in university population. Studding art is found with less level of aggression and this may consider as an important implicit effect of art that could be expand in different areas and level of education.
Introduction
So much so it has been argued that, like speech and tool making, Art could be used to define our species (Dissanayake, 1992). When we name Art, we can find it in different aspects of everyday life and pervasive use of art could be seen in all societies in diverse ways. Although, art is culture dependence but its principles are the same among people around the world, because art making is an innate human tendency. From past to present art has been seen as a natural tendency in human being for different purpose and is utilized in both individualistic and social conditions. It’s a form of communication, not only with the world around us but also with ourselves. It’s important to know where communication can take place in culturally accepted conditions, but art facilitate the least limited ways. Also, it’s a way to increase our communication with our feelings, emotions or thoughts. Most of the time, through discussing about art, one of main topics is creativity. Creative process of art making is healing and life enhancing and is a form of nonverbal communication of thoughts and feelings (American Art Therapy Association, 1996).
Art characteristics make it suitable for therapeutic purpose and combination of it with other disciplines like psychology has been emerged. Art therapy is a recent discipline and authors began recognizing the potential of art as a tool within treatment (Winnicott, 1971) throughout few past decades. Art therapy contains an underline feature, a coping mechanism identified by Freud (Freud, 1991). ‘Sublimation’ and use of art materials demonstrated how art regulates affect (Kramer1971). The expressive sublimation of aggression is one of the most valuable features of the psychotherapeutic use of the arts (McNiff, 1981).Sublimation is a socially acceptable mechanism and directs feelings toward goals in both clinical and normal samples. So it’s expected that sublimation could be considered in nontherapeutic conditions, when individuals deal with art process. Studding art is one of these situations that individuals engage in art making.
Aggression is among of different problems that a pervasive field of research is used to work with it and despite the possible negative impact of aggression on different aspects of social life, is still a behavioral problem. In this regard, art could be use as a tool to communicate with feelings and facilitate the way of expressing anger and aggression in a no disruptive way. In this paper we aimed to compare aggression between art and industrial sciences undergraduate students. We test if art studding is associated with a decrease in aggression.
Research Method
The study is a casual-comparative one which conducted in one of Fars (south of Iran) state universities. The statistical population included all 700 students were studying in art and either industrial sciences in first semester of 2014 in University of Applied Science and Technology (Marvdasht, Iran). Of the art students, 66.7% were female and 33.3% male and in industrial sciences group, 60% were male and 40% female. From those who contributed in this study, 30 (14 males and 16 females) students selected with Purposive sampling from each group and included in the study with consideration of matching method (age and educational level). The sample was divided into two groups, 30 students in art group and 30 in industrial sciences group with the same distribution of gender in each group. The questionnaires were distributed in classrooms and filled out anonymously. In order to qualify for this study, a short self-designed demographic questionnaire with questions about previous mental or physical problems was used. None of participants experienced previous or current problem. Data was analysis through independent t-test and mann-whitney u test and MANCOVA.
Measures
The aggression questionnaire, AQ (Buss & Perry, 1992) is a 29-item scale that measure four aspects of human aggression: Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger and hostility. The questions have a five-point Likert-type scale, from uncharacteristic of me to very characteristic of me. The Persian version has been published and modified for Iranian subjects (samani, 2008).
Results
Mean age in art group was 24.26 (SD = 5.37) and in industrial sciences group was 24.1 years old (SD. = 3.56). Before performing the tests, normality of distribution conducted via the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Shapiro_wilk tests. The results showed that Shapiro_wilk test for verbal aggression (df = 60, P = 0.322), anger (df = 60, P = 0.759), hostility (df = 60, P = 0.764) and aggression total score (df = 60, P = 0.621) are not significant but physical aggression did not found with normal distribution (df = 60, P = 0.004). Means and standard deviations for study variables are provided in Table 1.
| N | Art Students | Industrial Students | ||
|
| Mean | SD | Mean | SD |
Verbal aggression | 30 | 13.23 | 3.17 | 16.18 | 4.74 |
Anger | 30 | 20.93 | 5.49 | 24.13 | 6.54 |
Hostility | 30 | 21.27 | 3.68 | 24.7 | 4.99 |
Physical aggression | 30 | 20.03 | 5.26 | 21.75 | 5.89 |
AQ | 30 | 75.19 | 16.91 | 86.9 | 14.24 |
Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations for research variables
To compare two groups in verbal aggression, anger, hostility and aggression total score independent samples t-test conducted. Results showed that there are significant differences in verbal aggression, anger, hostel, and aggression total score (p < .05) between art group and industrial sciences group (Table 2). While The rank average of physical aggression for art students was 27.90, and for industrial science group was 33.10, a Mann-Whitney test did not show any significant difference in physical aggression between art and industrial science students (Z = 1.159, P = .246). To further investigating verbal aggression, anger, hostility and aggression total score differences between art and science students a MANCOVA was used with groups and gender as covariate. Referring to Willis’s Lambda, multivariate outcome is less strong subsequent to applying the covariate λ = .748, F (8.108) = 2.114, p = .040. (Compare with the outcome shown in table 2) The exploratory investigation indicated that there was a significant effect of gender on verbal aggression (F (2.57) = 5.67, p = .006), anger (F (2.57) = 3.91, p = .026) and aggression total score (F (2.57) = 4.51, p = .015) in art and science students. But when gender was added as covariate, hostility did not differ significantly between groups (F (2.57) = 1.856, p = .166).
| T | df | Sig. |
Verbal aggression | -2.852 | 58 | 0.006 |
Anger | -2.356 | 58 | 0.021 |
Hostel | -2.328 | 58 | 0.023 |
AQ | -2.724 | 58 | 0.009 |
Table 2. The results of t-test for comparing means of independent samples
Discussion
The hypothesis that studding art could be considered as a possible cause of less aggressive behavior was confirmed. It was found that working with art is associated a decrease likelihood of verbal aggression, anger and hostility. As results show, there is no difference between art and industrial science students in terms of physical aggression. Also, a MANCOVA was used to assess any differences between two groups in verbal aggression, anger, hostility and aggression total score after controlling for gender. When gender controlled, the difference in hostility score between two groups was not statistically significant. Physical aggression was not significantly difference between two groups and a probable explanation could be the worthless of physical aggression in university population.
Results in relation to other investigated components namely, verbal aggression, anger, hostel and aggression total score among students in art and industrial science groups, showed that there is significant difference between them and this difference is that industrial science students report more anger and aggression.
It is probable that, individuals working with art are able to identify and express their emotions. So, they may experience less aggression because of such an indirect way of expressing aggression. Art work could consider as a mirror to individuals emotions or feelings and may cause a chance for a better understanding of self-emotions and this may help to monitoring emotions more sophisticatedly and result in anger management or controlling aggression. Furthermore, Creative process of art making which is defined as healing and life enhancing (American Art Therapy Association, 1996), is another probable explanation of lees aggression that found in art students. Creativity could provide more alternates choices to deal with aggression. A breadth of current art therapies, informed by a variety of theoretical paradigms, share a common procedure that uses creative art as a method for promoting expression and healing (Eaton et al. 2007). And also, as expected, sublimation may be considered in nontherapeutic conditions, when individuals deal with art process sublimation may work automatically and to some extend unconsciously. As results show studding art results in low level of aggression in art students.
Art in different areas of social and personal life is found as a bridge to uncounted goals. I think that art provides positive impacts which some of them are explicit and some are implicit. As we found, students that are studding art are found with less level of aggression and this may consider as an important implicit effect of art that could be expand in different areas or level of education.
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