The variables involved in prosocial versus aggressive behaviour are investigated, analysing the different contexts involved in these behaviours: family, school and peer groups, fundamentally around family and the different types of family, related to family cohesion and conflict, child-to-parent violence, the hierarchy of values, prosocial development and agressive behaviour in children and adolescents and their integration in an intercultural context. Based mainly on how, in recent years, different forms of violence have increased in adolescence, such as peer violence (bullying and cyberbullying), child-to-parent violence and gender-based violence (between couples), with important consequences in the personal, family, school and social spheres. Emotions and their lack of self-regulation, lack of empathy, coping mechanisms, peer preassure, the socialisation process and the values that society transmits are factors that may be behind these behaviours. In particular, we focus our research on the protective factors that favour and strengthen prosocial behaviour in adolescence: factors of protection and vulnerability to aggression, taking into account personal, family, school and peer relationship variables. Types of family: given their importance in the psychosocial development of children, the variables are analysed considering the different types of family and aggressiveness/prosociality of children (discrimination between single-parent families, family structure, biological or adoptive family). Adolescence: analysis of emotional competences in adolescence (11-18 years old), as well as of parenting practices and styles, school failure and risk behaviours in adolescents, such as alcohol abuse. Other variables to be analysed: anxiety, depression, stress, coping mechanisms and the relationship with peers, prosocial peers-aggressive peers.

prosocial behaviour, adolescence, childhood, family, emotions, peers, aggressive behaviour

• Psychology and Cognitive Sciences