The Relationship Between Social Anxiety And Aggression: The Role Of Verbal Fluency And Emotional Intelligence And Its Educational Implication

Aggressive behavior among adolescents has always been a major concern in society,and school violence has a very bad impact on the physical and mental health of adolescents.Moreover,studies have shown that social anxiety is already widespread among secondary school students in China.Previous studies have shown that social anxiety has a significant impact on adolescent aggressive behavior,but the specific mechanisms and conditions of how social anxiety affects it have been less thoroughly explored.Verbal fluency is a linguistic ability,which is the degree of fluency with which an individual uses language to convey information.Adolescents’ verbal abilities are still in the developmental stage and may have problems with verbal fluency.Emotions play an important role in social cognitive processing,and emotional intelligence is the ability of individuals to identify and understand their own and others’ emotional states,and to use this information to guide behavior,which can provide good protection against aggression.In this study,a moderated mediation model was constructed to examine the mediating role of verbal fluency between social anxiety and aggressive behavior and the moderating effect of emotional intelligence in this mediated pathway.A total of 1069 students from three middle schools in Hebei,Tianjin,and Henan were selected for the Social Anxiety Scale(IAS),the Verbal Fluency Inventory PCI,the Emotional Intelligence Scale EIS,and the Aggression Inventory,and a total of905 valid questionnaires were received.The results showed that(1)social anxiety was significantly and positively correlated with aggression and verbal fluency,and emotional intelligence was significantly and negatively correlated with aggression and positively correlated with verbal fluency.(2)Social anxiety and verbal fluency significantly and positively predicted aggression,and emotional intelligence significantly and negatively predicted aggression.(3)Verbal fluency partially mediated the relationship between social anxiety and aggressive behavior,with a 67% mediating effect.(4)The moderated mediation effect test further showed that emotional intelligence moderated the pre-path and direct path of "social anxiety → verbal fluency → aggression".Conclusions(1)Social anxiety was significantly and positively correlated with aggression and verbal fluency,and emotional intelligence was significantly and negatively correlated with aggression.(2)Verbal fluency partially mediated the relationship between social anxiety and aggression.(3)The mediating role of verbal fluency between social anxiety and aggression was moderated by emotional intelligence,and the facilitative effect of social anxiety on aggression was weakened in students with high emotional intelligence.This study verified the joint effects of social anxiety,verbal fluency,and emotional intelligence on aggressive behavior,and inspired educators to pay attention to the linking effects of social anxiety and verbal fluency on aggression,to enhance students’ verbal ability,as well as to improve students’ emotional intelligence to build a harmonious and warm school environment.