The predictive roles of self-compassion, mental toughness and emotional-psychological well-being on aggressive behaviors of adolescents at low socieconomic level

Determination of the factors that predict adolescents' aggressive behaviors is important for their healthy development and the welfare of society. The aim of this study is to investigate the predictive role of self-compassion, mental toughness and emotional-psychological well-being variables on adolescents' aggressive behaviors. The sample group consisted of 1639 Turkish adolescents (828 girls, 811 boys) aged 11-16 (Mage = 13.62, SD = 1.58) years. We collected the data using the sub-dimension of Prosocial and Aggressive Behaviors, Aggressive Behaviors, Self-Compassion Scale, Mental Toughness Scale for Adolescents and The Stirling Childrens' Well-being Scale. The findings of the study showed that there was a significant negative correlation between adolescents' aggressive behaviors and their self-compassion, mental toughness, and emotional-psychological well-being. According to the results of the three-stage hierarchical regression, when we added the mental toughness variable to the first model, we found that it had a predictive role. When self-compassion and emotional-psychological well-being variables were added to the second and third models, respectively, we found that mental toughness had no significant role. Our structural regression analysis results showed that emotional-psychological well-being and self-compassion played a serial mediating role in the relationship between adolescents' mental toughness levels and their aggressive behaviors. Findings support the importance of self-compassion, mental toughness and emotional-psychological well-being in adolescents' aggressive behaviors. Overall, it is thought that the results of our study may contribute to prevention, intervention studies and policies to reduce aggressive behaviors in adolescents.