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10 - A Tortuous Path towards Understanding and Preventing the Development of Chronic Physical Aggression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2021

By
Richard E. Tremblay
Edited by
Richard E. Tremblay
Richard E. Tremblay
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
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Summary

Richard E. Tremblay was born in Canada in 1944. He is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics and Psychology at the University of Montreal (Canada) and Emeritus Professor of Public Health at University College Dublin (Ireland). He received the Stockholm Prize in Criminology and the John Paul Scott Award for lifetime contributions to research on aggression from the International Society for Research on Aggression. He participated in the creation of numerous longitudinal and experimental studies to unravel the early development of chronic physical aggression and to identify effective early preventive interventions. He systematically used an integrated bio-psycho-social approach. He initially showed that boys’ frequency of physical aggressions from kindergarten to adolescence decreased, rather than increased with age as would be expected from a social learning perspective. With a study starting in infancy, he then showed that infants start to physically aggress before the end of the first year after birth and that frequency of physical aggressions substantially increase between 8 and 42 months of age, followed by a universal decrease in physical aggression frequency until adulthood. He also initiated the Montreal experimental preventive intervention with physically aggressive kindergarten boys from low socio-economic environments, which showed significant reductions of substance abuse, school drop-out, juvenile delinquency, and adult criminality.

Keywords

physical aggressiondevelopmentexperimental preventive interventionslongitudinal studiesepigeneticsbio-psycho-socialinfancypregnancysex differencessocial learningadult criminality
Type
Chapter
Information
The Science of Violent Behavior Development and Prevention
Contributions of the Second World War Generation
 , pp. 241 - 270
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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