Disruptive Behaviors: What They Are, Causes, Types And Strategies To Deal With Them

Disruptive behaviors are those actions that alter the functioning of a space through non-compliance with norms and rules accepted by a society. This type of behavior can occur at any time in life, although it is usually more common in childhood.

Likewise, these manifestations are considered antisocial as they are not accepted by the members of a social group and/or a community. For this same reason, disruptive behaviors can lead to sanctions for the person who carries them out.

How disruptive behaviors manifest

Although not all disruptive behaviors should not be considered disorders, the DSM-V⁽¹⁾ It includes them within the group of disruptive impulse control and behavior disorders. However, in order to establish an adequate diagnosis, a series of conditions must be met. specific criteria :

• Repetitive behaviors that violate social norms.
• Attack on people.
• Destruction of objects.
• Lack of guilt.
• Lack of empathy.
• This type of behavior lasts twelve months or more.

In order to establish the best treatment for this type of behavior, it is advisable to find the reasons that have given rise to them. Next, we show you the main causes of disruptive behaviors :

Environmental factors

First of all, the traumatic experiences that a person has experienced in his or her childhood can act as triggers for attitudes that are unfavorable to the development of daily life, including disruptive behaviors. Here aspects such as a person’s upbringing, lack of limits by authority figures or their excessive limitations, among others.

Genetic factors

According to various studies carried out in this regard, it has been proven that there is a clear relationship between disruptive behaviors as a consequence of some alteration of neuronal functioning. It should be noted that there are neurons that process information coming from the outside and give rise to exacerbated anger responses.

On the other hand, there may also be other underlying diseases that have a direct relationship with disruptive behaviors.

Although this type of behavior can happen in any area, here we will focus on some types of disruptive behavior that have certain particularities:

• Challenging attitudes : These are behaviors that challenge any framework of social order. In this group, the lack of respect towards authority figures stands out.
• Explosive attitudes : manifestations of anger that arise suddenly in a person as a result of frustrations to which they have been exposed.
• Aggressive attitudes towards other people : This type of behavior can cause severe physical damage without the person taking into account its consequences.
• Antisocial attitudes : they include signals that avoid social contact. In this sense, a deep disinterest in being part of social groups may arise, the impossibility of acquiring a sense of responsibility, among others.
• mythomaniac attitudes : mythomania is a personality disorder characterized by the transformation of a fact of reality according to a person’s convenience, a quality that is usually used in people who have disruptive behaviors.

It should be noted that these types of disruptive behaviors can coexist in the same person, although a particular trait usually predominates.

Despite the complexity of disruptive behavior, there are some methods to reduce its consequences. Below, we explain some strategies and activities to eliminate disruptive behaviors:

Maintain clear boundaries

This type of behavior often derives from the lack or excess of limits by the authorities. Therefore, if the person notices that he can carry out some action that alters the order to achieve what he wants and there is no clear limit, this can become repetitive.

Given this, set clear boundaries concrete and inflexible can help reduce these disruptive behaviors.

Establish punishments for disruptive behavior yes

If the way of acting of a person who causes problems in a certain place does not have any type of consequence, it is likely that this pattern will repeat itself. On the contrary, the establishment of punishments can allow us to better deal with this situation.

Foster a secure bond

In general terms, people who present disruptive behaviors have many feelings of insecurity. For this reason, in these cases it will be convenient establish a relationship based on trust so that the person feels understood.

If you want to know more about how to create secure bonds, you can also read the article Secure attachment: what it is, characteristics, types and how to encourage it.

Anticipation of situations

On some occasions, the frustration triggered by moments that we did not expect causes considerable discomfort in a person. Faced with this type of situation, plan and anticipate a situation It can also be a good way to deal with disruptive behaviors.

To provide greater clarity to this topic, below we leave you some examples of disruptive behaviors that can be common in social settings :

• Example 1 : A child is sitting in a school classroom in the middle of a class. Because he finds the content explained by the teacher boring, he begins to hit his classmates and various objects in the classroom. In this case, the disruptive behavior derives from the discomfort that he has felt throughout that time.
• Example 2 : A person goes to work and is informed that their employment contract has not been renewed. Faced with the frustration that this situation produces, she begins to throw objects out of the window and threaten the employees with physical harm. Afterwards, he hits and injures some of them. In this way, frustration was channeled through disruptive behavior.

It should be noted that in the previous examples no emphasis is placed on any particular moment and they are for illustrative purposes only.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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