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Impact Of Cultism On Psychosocial Adjustment Of Students In Secondary Schools
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Violent Behaviour: An individual that threatens or physically harm
another individual is classified as having violent behaviour. It usually
starts with verbal abuse but then escalates to physical harm such as
hitting or hurting.Violent behaviour is similar to aggressive behaviour.
It is either habitually or occurs in a pattern. The concept of violent
behaviour is very simple, at first there is tension and conflicts. This
is then followed by either destruction of the individual properties or
abuse.
Violent behaviour is alsoseen as an overt and intentional
physically aggressive behaviour against another person among students in
tertiary institutions in Nigeria due to cultism. He went further to
state that gangsterism and victimization is rampant in the system.
In
corroboration with the above, Bayode (2005) commenting on prevalence of
peer victimization among secondary school students defined peer
victimization as the experience among children of being a target of
aggressive behaviour of other children who are not siblings and not
necessarily age mates. (Hawker and Boulton, 2000), Smith (1991)
described the act as an unprovoked attack that causes hurt of a
psychological, social, or physical nature. Olweus (1994) stated that
peer victimization occurs when a student is exposed repeatedly and
overtime, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students.
These actions are not necessarily provoked by the victim and for such
actions to be regarded as peer victimization; an imbalance in real or
perceived power must exhist between the victim and the peer who
victimizes him or her. (Coloroso, 2002) Peer victimization takes two
major forms. Sometimes it could be physical as in fighting, punching,
pushing, kicking, hitting, strangling, beating, physical assault and
direct vandalism. (Hanish and Guerra, 2000; Hawker and Boulton 2000).
More often, peer victimization, takes a non- physical form. Non
–physical victimization includes a wide range of behaviour such as
verbal abuse, (Rigby, 1996), hurtful name-calling, emotional
intimidation, persistent teasing, gossip and racist remarks as well as
social exclusion (Mishna, 2003, Olweus, (1978, 1993; Rigby, 1996) stated
that students who are victims of peer victimization, are at the risk of
developing severe psycho-social adjustment and emotional problems which
may persist into adulthood. Hawker and Boulton (2000) concluded that
students who are victimized by peers suffer a variety of feelings of
psychosocial distress. They feel more anxious, depressed, lonely and
worse about themselvesthan do non-victims. On the demographic correlates
of peer victimization, gender and age factors are given prominence by
researchers. Most research findings on the relationship between age and
peer victimization tend to conclude that bullying behaviour is more
prevalent among younger children than the older ones. (Nansel, 2001,
Crick, Casas and Ku, 1999, Sourander, 2000). However, research findings
appear to be inconclusive on the peer victimizing experiences peculiar
to different age categories of such children. Research findings have not
been consistent on the relationship between gender and peer
victimization. While researchers such as Olweus (1994), Nansel (2001)
and Crick and Grotpeter (1996) found that boys report significantly more
overt victimization than do girls, evidence from others such as Crick
and Gropeter (1995) and Crick, Casas, and Ku (1999) suggested that girls
report significantly more relational victimization or socially hurtful
behaviour than do boys.
The term psychosocial according to the
medical dictionary, refers to the psychological and social factors that
influences mental health. Social influences such as peer pressure,
parental support, cultural and religious background, socio economic
status and inter-personal relationshipsall help to shape personality and
influence psychological make-up.Individuals with psychosocial disorders
frequently have difficulty functioning in social situations and may
haveproblems effectively communicating to others.
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