Comportamento antisociale
Enricomaria Corbi e Rossana D’Elia
Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples

The scientific literature generally agrees that anti-social behavior may be understood as the transgression of all that which constitutes the reason and basis of a social order, deviating from shared rules or those imposed by legitimate powers (Moro, 2019). This refers not only to the deep-rooted rejection of values, goals and socially prescribed procedures, but also to the violation of the fundamental norms that allow a person to develop and allow for social coexistence. Such behaviors entail equally complex factors, such as aggressiveness and violence.
The term aggressiveness indicates ‘going towards’, ‘going against’, and ‘attacking’. According to a common definition, negative aggressiveness refers to a set of acts that intentionally damaging on physical, material and psychological levels (Fagiani & Ramaglia, 2010). Traditionally, therefore, this definition revolves around three fundamental criteria: the voluntary character of the act, its observability and the damage it produces.
The concept of violence, in its different forms, modalities and motivations, indicates the act of breaking the limits, violating the norms; it is a voluntary action aimed at verbally and physically cancelling and/or destroying others.
A review of the international scientific literature of the last ten years shows that the forms of conduct constituting antisocial behavior are complex and articulated phenomena. In fact, aggressive and violent outbursts, both towards adults and peers and towards oneself, as well as the habitual use of substances, are sometimes considered antisocial behavior in and of themselves.
The majority of explanatory studies and experimental and quantitative research on this subject frame antisocial behavior as deriving from a number of specific personality traits – such as impulsivity and non-affective traits – and/or to macro categories of risk factors:

• adolescent life contexts (family environment, socio-economic status, peer group, school environment);
• individual subjective sphere (age, ethnic and cultural belonging);
• existential habits dictated by the laws of consumption (overuse of the mass media, drugs and mind-numbing substances).

In some cases, these factors are defined as indicators (and not causes) of the possible emergence of antisocial behavior. When repeatedly enacted as part of a complex clinical picture, forms of antisocial behavior may also be interpreted as expressions of pathology (Fedeli, 2011). According to these hypotheses, aggressive conduct appears extensively in the nosographic systems used internationally to make diagnoses, i.e. the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).
Studies based on an interpretative-comprehensive type theoretical framework hold that adolescents seeking to distance themselves from so-called common values so as to construct their own identities “act out” antisocial behaviors deliberately. Building on this idea, it is necessary to interpret the ways in which “difficult adolescents”, at-risk youth, misfits and delinquents (Bertolini & Caronia, 2017), perceive the threads of their existence, their visions of the world and the meanings they attribute to it (Izzo et al., 2003).
The spread of this phenomenon and the various forms through which it manifests give rise to new forms of educational fragility, and this makes them objects of interest for the RE-SERVES project. The project aims to investigate the educational practices professionals perform in formal and non-formal settings in order to develop and implement educational communities of care.

Selected references

Bertolini, P., & Caronia, L. (2017). Ragazzi difficili. Franco Angeli.

Fagiani, M. B., & Ramaglia, G. (2010). L’aggressività in età evolutiva. Carocci editore.

Fedeli, D. (2011). Il disturbo della condotta. Carocci editore.

Izzo, D., Mannucci, A., & Mancaniello, M. R. (2003). Manuale di pedagogia e della devianza. Edizioni ETS.

Moro, A.C. (2019). Manuale di diritto minorile. Zanichelli.