The 23 types of aggressions (and their characteristics)

Unfortunately and despite all the progress we have made as a society, violence and its manifestations are still part of our most animal nature. We can more or less silence it, but we cannot completely expel it from our way of being. And, in fact, violence has shaped our history, with countless violent events that have occurred and that have determined the course of human societies.

But what do we understand by violence? Violence is a type of negative human interaction in which one of the participants intentionally causes harm or subjects another person, who is the victim, to an unwanted situation. And it is precisely in this context that the term around which today's article revolves comes into play: aggression.

Aggressions are all those violent actions that one person performs on another to cause physical and / or emotional harm. Always intentionally, the attacks cause damage to the victim that does not have to be based on physical injuries, but can undermine the integrity and psychological health of the victim. And there are many different forms of aggression.

And it is precisely along these lines that today, hand in hand with the most prestigious publications on this subject, we are going to analyze the different ways that exist of attacking someone. Let's see, then, how attacks are classified according to their nature, their objective, the context in which they take place and who is the victim of the attack.. Let us begin.

What kinds of aggression are there?

As we have been saying, Aggressions are all interpersonal behaviors based on intentionally exercising violent acts on one or more victims. An assault is intentionally causing physical and / or emotional harm to a person, injuring their health or integrity. They are the interpersonal manifestation of violence.

In any case, and despite the fact that the definition is, as we can see, very simple, the truth is that everything related to assaults hides many psychological and legal nuances that are important to know in order to understand the magnitude of this problem that affects all societies. and in all its strata, since the attacks are not limited to acts of physical violence.

Assaults can take many different forms. And it is precisely for this reason that it has been necessary to describe a classification of them, seeing different kinds of aggressions based on their nature, objective of the attack, context in which it occurs and who is the victim of the act. Therefore, below we are going to see what types of aggressions exist.

1. Direct assault

A direct aggression is one in which the victim is perfectly capable of identifying his aggressor, since the act of violence has occurred directly between a person who has inflicted damage and another who has received it. A clear relationship is established between the aggressor and the victim.

2. Indirect assault

By contrast, an indirect attack is one in which the victim is unable to identify the aggressor, since he has carried out attacks from anonymity, without establishing clear contact with the person who has received the damage. Thus, we are facing acts of psychological violence that are carried out without a clear relationship between the aggressor and the victim.

3. Physical assault

A physical assault is any violent act that is based on harm the anatomical integrity of a victim. Thus, they are physical damages that translate into injuries to the person. The aggressor uses brute force or tools that allow him to cause damage to a person's body. These attacks, in addition to the psychological damage they cause and the severity of the injuries themselves, can even lead to death.

4. Verbal aggression

A verbal aggression is any violent act that is not based on exercising physical damage, but is based on emotionally damaging another person by using the word only and exclusively as an aggressive tool. The messages and speeches of the aggressor produce an emotional discomfort in the victim that reduces their self-esteem and their mental health.

5. Psychological aggression

A psychological aggression is any violent act in which, using verbal and / or physical attacks, It seeks to undermine the emotional health of a victim for the aggressor to achieve a goal. They are aggressions that are based on using any means, both verbal and physical, to reduce the emotional health of a person.

6. Sexual assault

A sexual assault is a crime that consists of attempt against the sexual freedom of a person by using intimidation or violence. These are violent or intimidating acts of sexual content without the consent of the victim. This includes not only rape, but inappropriate touching, unwanted sexual contact, coercion involving sex, intimidation, etc.

7. Relational aggression

A relational aggression is a violent act that consists of the mixture of verbal and psychological violence in order, by spreading slander, rumors and lies about a person, to get the victim to be excluded from their social circle, something that interests them, by the whatever reason, to the aggressor.

8. Cyber ​​aggression

A cyber aggression is all that violent act based on cyberbullying, a type of psychological violence that is exercised through the Internet, especially using social networks as a tool to harass someone, humiliate, threaten, intimidate, blackmail, publish private information or spread rumors. These are virtual aggressions that, despite the absence of physical contact, can be equal to or more destructive than other forms of aggression.

9. Asset aggression

A patrimonial assault is all that violent act that is exerted on the material possessions of a person. Thus, to do emotional harm to the victim, the aggressor breaks or steals possessions that he knows have emotional and / or financial value for the person in question.

10. Symbolic aggression

A symbolic aggression is everyone act of discrimination towards the identity of an ethnic group. As part of the collective mentality, they are stereotypes, jokes, ideologies and prejudices that threaten the integrity of a given culture. It is a form of subtle aggression in which the aggressor is the dominant culture of a society and the victims, the minority.

11. Criminal assault

A criminal assault is any violent act that is used to commit a crime. Thus, they are generally physical attacks (although they can also be emotional, through threats) to get something from the victim, usually money or an object of value.

12. Educational aggression

An educational assault is anyone violent act that a legal guardian exercises on a child as a tool to educate him. It is a form of corrective violence, since physical and / or psychological attacks are carried out as a method of punishment or for the child to obtain the academic results that the father or mother wants him to achieve. It is estimated that 8 out of 10 children between the ages of 2 and 14 have received an educational assault.

13. Economic aggression

An economic aggression is any act of physical and / or emotional violence that is exercised to make a victim, generally the partner, financially dependent on the aggressor. In this way, this aggressor manages, by depriving the victim of economic independence, control the life of the couple.

14. Hostile aggression

A hostile aggression is any act of generally physical violence in which the sole aim of the aggressor is to inflict harm on the victim. That is, causing physical or psychological pain is the only thing that moves him to carry out the act of aggression.

15. Induced aggression

An induced aggression is one in which the aggressor performs the violent act not with the aim of causing harm to the victim, but motivated by factors such as fear, to escape a situation (such as defending himself) or because he has been coerced by some third party.

16. Instrumental assault

An instrumental assault is one in which there is neither the sole objective of causing pain nor the person is moved by external factors, but there is there is a goal of achieving a gain from the attack. That is, the person assaults a victim in a liberated way and without external conditioning, but not with the ultimate goal of causing pain, but rather to achieve something they want.

17. Interpersonal aggression

An interpersonal aggression is one in which the violent act is based on a relationship between two people. Therefore, there are two roles: an aggressor and a victim. It is, surely, the form of aggression that comes to mind first.

18. Collective aggression

A collective aggression is one in which the violent act does not occur between two people, but between groups. It can be conceived as an act of violence by a group on a single victim or on a specific group.

19. Self-inflicted assault

A self-inflicted assault is one that is based on self-harm. In other words, the victim is, at the same time, victim and aggressor. There is only one person in the assault. A person inflicts physical harm on himself, usually as an attempt to commit suicide.

20. Domestic assault

By intra-family aggression we understand any act of physical or psychological violence that occurs in the context of a family. In other words, aggression occurs between members of the same family nucleus, generally between parents and children.

21. Partner aggression

In relation to the previous one, a partner aggression is any act of physical or psychological violence that occurs in the context of a love relationship or affective sex. That is, one of the members of the couple assaults the other.

22. Work assault

A workplace assault is any act of violence based on mobbing, that is, on workplace harassment. These are forms of generally psychological violence that occur in the context of a workplace and that are exercised by colleagues, superiors or subordinates of a victim with, generally, the objective of her leaving her post.

23. Academic aggression

An academic assault is anyone act of violence based on bullying, that is, in bullying. A child is a victim of physical and / or psychological violence by one or more classmates.