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Aim Aggressive behaviour is one of the most frequent antisocial behaviour in adolescents, particularly those living in urban communities with low income and high ethnic heterogeneity (Rivara, 2002). Because of the large amount of negative consequences of these behaviour, such as criminal conduct in adulthood (Espelage et al. 2003), the priority is to develop prevention strategies. Through the study of Social Information Processing Models (Huessman, 1998) has emerged that aggressive behaviour - both pro-active reactive- are influenced by levels of empathy -Perspective Taking (PT) and Empatic Concern (EC) -, Normative Beliefs and the amount of aggressive scripts known. Studies of Shields and Bredemeier (1995) showed that sport practice, if not exacerbate competitive aspects, positively influences empathy and moral norms, thereby reducing aggression. Oliver (1998) also states that activities involving physical contact between participants are effective in reducing aggressive behaviour, as they work as a "laboratory" where to learn to regard the other as a person to be respected (improving empathy) and where increased compliance with the rules (change of Normative Beliefs). It was also shown that practising physical activity is possible that young people learn new non-aggressive scripts of behaviour (Fite & Vitulano, 2011). Play fighting (PF) are recreational activities based on wrestling, striking and grappling. They derived from the martial arts but eliminating the competitive aspects, emphasizing the playful aspects. According to these characteristics, it is possible to hypothesize the effectiveness of the PF for reducing the levels of aggressiveness. The effectiveness of the PF in this sense has been proven by several studies (Carraro, Gobbi, & Moe, 2014), but always with a general population and not specifically from low-income urban communities. The hypotheses of this research were therefore as follows: 1) levels of empathy (PT and EC) predict levels of aggressiveness. both pro-active and reactive. 2) PF are effective in reducing pro-active and reactive aggression in young people from low-income urban communities. 3) the reduction of aggressiveness is mediated by levels of empathy (PT and EC). Method A sample of 98 young adolescents (male = 66, girls = 32; mean age = 13.4, SD = 1.2 years) from eight Centri di Animazione Territoriale (CAT) for adolescents with behavioural problems were initially involved in the study. Participants completed the Family Affluence Scale, the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (measure of aggressiveness pro-active and reactive) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (measure of empathy, PT and EC), before and after intervention. Between the first and second administration of the questionnaire, 22 youths have dropped out. The final sample is composed of 76 participants. Participation in Fighting was voluntary, so 31 guys decided to participate, forming the experimental group (EG), while 45 formed the control group (GC) and did not participate in any extra activity. Results Analysis of differences at the baseline calculated using t-test for independent samples did not show significant differences between GS and GC, while boys were significantly more aggressive than girls. The linear regression analysis between the sub-scales of empathy and aggression showed that the aggressive pro-active is predicted both sub-scales of empathy (R2 = .19, p = .001), while reactive aggression only by EC (R2 = .07, p = .01). The RM-ANOVA 2 (pre vs post) X 2 (GS vs GC) on the levels of pro-active and reactive aggression showed that GS has reduced its level of aggression in a significantly higher than the GC (p |
