TITLE:
Applying Social Network Indicators in the Analysis of Verbal Aggressiveness at the School
AUTHORS:
Dimitrios Theocharis, Alexandra Bekiari
KEYWORDS:
Verbal Aggressiveness, Network Analysis, Typology
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Computer and Communications,
Vol.5 No.7,
May
25,
2017
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to detect structures of verbal aggressiveness using multiple indicators of social networks analysis (out- and in-degree, pagerank, Katz, authority, incremental and proportional behavior). Standardized questionnaires have been distributed to 151 students and 45 teachers at primary and secondary schools. We performed complete analysis of social networks and further processing by applying principal component analysis. According to the results, a complex structure of verbal aggressiveness occurred in the classes (networks) and the structure was necessary to be explored with several network indicators (Katz, pagerank, incremental and proportional behavior etc.). Prejudices about the role of the gender in the aggressiveness (e.g. that female are more peaceful than male) are deconstructed. As for the typology of the incremental and proportional behavior two types were proposed: 1) the “personal attack” that the verbal aggressor aims the victim’s personality and 2) “social exclusion” that the strategy is to exclude the victim from the social surrounding.