Vandalism as a form of defensive and coping behavior in adolescents

Abstract

The paper deals with the phenomenon of vandalism and vandal behavior of adolescents. Vandal behavior consists of intentional or unintentional actions for the damage, destruction, and unauthorized transformation of material objects of a strange or public property. Despite the obvious damage done to the environment by vandals, this form of deviant behavior of adolescents is examined exclusively in terms of the statement of fact, description of forms of consequences, and determination of effective measures to combat them. To the authors' best knowledge, no publications can be found available in the literature that describe predictors of vandal activity of the person, consider the mechanisms of the emergence of this strategy of human interaction with environmental objects, and analyze the genesis of this deviation. Of course, these circumstances reduce the potential effectiveness of the developed programs and methods for prevention and counteraction to vandal behavior. Understanding vandalism as a form of defensive and coping behavior makes it possible (a) to reveal determination mechanisms of this deviation and (b) create a scientific basis for understanding the psychological nature of destructive human interaction with material objects, which can ensure the creation of effective ways to prevent it. To study correlations of the person's defense and coping system and the choice of the model of vandal behavior, the authors surveyed 60 adolescent respondents by applying a cross-sectional method using standardized questionnaires. The obtained data processing was carried out in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Statistics 19.0) by means of descriptive statistics and regression analysis. The discovered patterns of relationship (a) confirmed the assumption that vandalism is conditioned by defensive and coping mechanisms of personality, and (b) determined relations between certain types of a teenager's destructive activity and elements of psychological defenses and coping actvities.