Physical Affection Leads to Less-aggressive Youths, Study Says (8/23)

BOSTON -- In a cross-cultural study of affection and aggression done at McDonald's playgrounds, pre-schoolers in France playfully touched each other twice as much US children did, but while the French children acted aggressively only 1 percent of the time, the US youth did so 29 percent of the time.

      Anthropologists have long known that cultures that shower physical affection on young children have little adult violence, dating back to Margaret Mead's studies in New Guinea.

      But the study in McDonald's playgrounds in France and the United States, along with other new evidence, suggests that it's time for America to take another look at how it raises its children, particularly boys, to stop the crisis of violence, researchers said Friday at the nation's largest annual psychological association meeting.

      ``There's got to be some relationship between a lack of touching and violence,'' said Tiffany Field of the University of Miami Medical School, who conducted the study at the McDonald's playgrounds especially since international statistics have consistently shown that France has the lowest homicide rate of developed nations, while the United States has the highest.

      Field said she fears there will be even less physical affection toward children in our society as a result of teachers and day care providers worrying about accusations of sexual abuse.

      She joined several other researchers in presenting their recent findings about the root causes of anger, isolation and violence in boys, during a news conference Friday at the American Psychological Association meeting in Boston.

      While they agreed that the inability to express affection and other constructive emotions may play a role in violence, they cautioned that there are other factors as well, and that it is difficult to prove cause and effect.

      But with headlines about schoolyard shootings and hate crimes perpetrated by boys and men, the need to understand the root causes are more important than ever, the researchers said.

      For Harvard psychologist Dan Kindlon, the problem is ``we give boys an emotional miseducation.''

      Society tells boys ``you can punch each other but you can't have any kind of affectionate touch,'' said Kindlon, an assistant professor at both Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health.

      Boys grow up unable to talk about their emotions or to be aware of others' feelings, and they have fewer constructive ways of dealing with stress, said Kindlon, co-author of a book on the topic entitled ``Raising Cain.''

      ``Because of a lack of adaptive response, too many boys act out in violence and anger,'' Kindlon said.

      Harvard and McLean Hospital psychologist William S. Pollack, author of the book ``Real Boys,'' said ``we have a national crisis of boyhood in America'' at the same time that there is a national crisis of violence.

      In a study of 200 boys from ages 12 through 17, who were considered well-adjusted, normal boys, Pollack found much angst, depression and sadness. He linked these to their feeling they had to live up to the old myths about boys being boys and boys not crying, while on the other hand feeling they had to live up to new demands of being more sensitive and egalitarian toward girls.

      This kind of turmoil and conflict may lead some boys to violence, Pollack said.

      Other studies on presented Friday touched upon such issues as schoolyard bullying and prevention of violence through negotiation.

     

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