The relationship between verbal aggressiveness and mental health of students at secondary school

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between verbal aggressiveness and mental health of students in secondary school. The Verbal Aggressive Scale (VAS), introduced by Infante and Wigley (1986) [1], and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) by R. Goodman (1997) [2] were used in this study. Survey data was collected from 708 students at two lower secondary schools and two upper secondary schools in Thua Thien Hue province. The results showed that verbally aggressive behaviours are occasionally performed; mental health problems are positively associated with verbally aggressive behaviour and negatively correlated with verbally benevolent behaviour. The prosocial behaviour is positively associated with verbally benevolent behaviour and negatively correlated with verbally aggressive behaviour reversely.