Aggression is one of the problems that the society faces today because it results to hostile and destructive behaviors in our religious, social, economic and political quotas. Aggression is the act of initiating hostilities or invasion, a situation that is present in all age sets, be it adults or children. This paper seeks to express a concern over the growing issue of aggression and highly emphasizes on taking measures before aggression starts to take root in children who will end up growing up to be unsuccessful adults in their endeavors.
Road rage, an aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by a driver, is now said to be an uncommon practice in South Florida. Road rage behaviors include rude and offensive gestures, verbal insults, threats or dangerous driver methods aimed at causing harm or releasing frustration. Some have gone as far as shootings (Donnerstein, 2013) . The Miami Herald reports of two stories, one of a young mother being shot in the head and another of a former police officers who were irritated by loud music, followed two teenagers and stuck a gun in their faces (Benjamin, 2013) . Such cases are caused by traffic associated problems such as congestion and may be controlled or completely resolved by eliminating traffic issues perhaps through better road facilities.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
While road rage may be resolved by improvement of road facilities, one may wonder, what of the inbuilt aggression people battle with. A young boy, Paris Bennet age 13, killed his younger sister and intended to kill his mother as well, reported the New York Post (Benjamin, 2013) . He went through with his sister's murder but did not kill his mother giving his reason as the mother would suffer more living without her daughter than through a quick death. Twenty-four years later he adds that by killing his sister he would have his mother all to himself (Carlson & Miller, 2011) . Another story is reported of two brothers in their 50s arguing over living conditions, an argument that resulted in the death of the younger brother and the other's arrest (Geen, 2012) .
Clearly, aggression is a fundamental problem, one that affects all ages and this begs the question, how does aggression become integrated into one's behavior and how can it be prevented and treated? Aggression has been defined as an act that harms another individual who is motivated to avoid such harm (Donnerstein, 2013) . This is inclusive of passive aggressive behaviors such as withholding of information from people with a view of making oneself more active or relevant and physically aggressive acts of violence such as the murders described previously. Aggression correlates with anger, hostility and impulsively which are all tools that lead to undesirable results.
Aggression has been said to be caused by a number of factors with theoretical formulations indicating that people are more likely to be aggressive under provoking situations than in neutral situations (Vaxsonyi & Waldman, 2011) . A provocation as applies here, is an action intended to potentially instigate an angry or aggressive response from a victim. Provocations may either be viewed as attacks in form of physical assault, verbal assault or threats, or as frustrations, aimed at preventing a person from attaining a goal (Donnerstein, 2013) . Provocations tend to vary in intensity and therefore there is a difference in their potential to elicit aggressive responses. Interacting with provocation are several situational factors or cues that fuel aggressive behavior. Such include weapons and weapon images as seen through televised violence. Exposure to televised violence in childhood has been reported to have long term effects including increased aggressive incidences and antisocial behavior (Benjamin, 2013) . Televised violence has been linked with increased fear and anxiety in individuals.
Other minor factors that have been reported to cause aggressive behavior are heat and lead exposures. Time studies have shown that crimes are more likely to occur during warm weather months as compared to cold weather months (Carlson & Miller, 2011) . Scientific research has also shown that lead exposure interferes with reasoning, impulse control and emotional regulation due to decrease in neuronal density in the prefrontal area of the cerebral cortex (Geen, 2012) . Other arguments for the case of aggressive behavior claim that it may also be caused by alcohol intake, high testosterone levels and low self-esteem. This goes to show that the causes for aggression are many depending on different individuals. However, there is a unilateral agreement that cases of aggressive behavior stem from childhood. Longitudinal research demonstrated that aggressive behavioral patterns remained consistent from childhood to adulthood. Basically, the more aggressive child becomes the more likely for him to become an aggressive adult (Carlson & Miller, 2011) . It might therefore be profitable to confine the study of aggression to extensive exploration of the first years of a child's life.
Aggression develops in children as early as when they are toddlers. For instance, too early toilet-training and use of coercive methods such as a rigid toilet schedule that result to punishment of not adhered to have seen children react in anger and defiance. In attention depraved families, children may assert themselves by crying, screaming and having temper tantrums to successfully compete for the little attention that is available (Geen, 2012) . The emotional and social environment around which a child is brought up tends to have a profound influence in their behavior.
Aggressive behaviors when not dealt with early enough are what lead to homicidal and suicidal attempts and while much has been discussed regarding the causes and effects of aggression, not much has been said on how to deal with it. Unfortunately, those who have discussed the way forward in dealing with aggression have focused more on its reduction than prevention all together (Donnerstein, 2013) . As the law of nature states, prevention is better cure, therefore, it is necessary to find preventive measure towards this menace. Suggested instruments of doing so are the catharsis theory and punishment. The catharsis theory states that, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression purges aggressive feelings and impulses into harmless channels. However, this theory did not hold water. An experiment proved that those who acted aggressively were more hostile towards their offenders (Geen, 2012) . On the other hand, punishment either through infliction of pain or removal of pleasure may have positive effects though only under ideal conditions. It may suppress aggressive behavior temporarily yet have several long-term consequences such as instigating retaliatory aggression.
Dealing with aggression at an early age is therefore paramount. This can be done through raising children in a safe emotional environment full of care and attention. Additionally, teaching children the rightness and wrongness of various actions is of utmost importance. However, there are children who need more than ordinary measures of moral lessons and skills training. Such, require assistance in identifying their angry feelings and to whom these feelings are directed in the child's life (Carlson & Miller, 2011) . Different people require different treatment methods as everyone has been exposed to different circumstances in life that have shaped his or her perspectives in one way or another. When an individual respond to the world as he perceives it, the purpose of therapy is to correct the discrepancy between the real world and the world as the patient perceives it (Vaxsonyi & Waldman, 2011) . Unfortunately, therapy is not affordable to all. It is therefore necessary for schools to incorporate guidance and counselling aimed at ensuring that children are nurtured out of the negative influences they may be facing at home. The world should be concerned with the growth of aggression and highly emphasize on taking measures of preventing it before the new generation, our children, are eaten up by aggressive behavior putting the society into risk. However, in unavoidable situations such as distraught families, other alternatives such as guidance and counselling may be provided.
References
A. T. Vaxsonyi, & I. D. Waldman (Eds.). "The Cambridge handbook of violent behavior and aggression." (2011): 545-570. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Benjamin, A. J. "Aggression." Outcome measures of aggressive cognition (2013): 34-44.
Carlson, M., Marcus - Newhall, A., & Miller, N. "Effects of situational agrression cues: Aquantitative review." Journal of Personality and social psychology (2011): 622-633.
Donnerstein, E. (Eds.),. "Human Aggression: Theories, Research, and Implications for Policy. ." cademic Press. (2013): 73–109.
Geen, R.G. " Effects of frustration, attack, and prior training in aggressiveness upon aggressive behavior." Journal of personality and social psychology (2012): 316-321.
