Influence of Experience of Positive Commenting Activity (Sunfull) on Aggression and Hate Speech of Korean Adolescents

Abstract

This study began in recognition of societal problems such as aggression and hate speech due to the spread of cyber-violence and malicious commenting. Hence, this study was conducted to verify whether positive commenting activity acts as a means of controlling adolescents’ aggression and hate speech. With this, a survey was conducted on 410 middle and high school students registered in the Sunfull Foundation. Consent from the organization's head, participant and research purpose anonymity, as well as data confidentiality, were all stated in advance taking the study's ethical considerations into mind. Frequency analysis and regression analysis were performed on the collected data using SPSS 22.0 PC ver. As a result, this study found that adolescents’ overall aggression decreased, and in particular, the more they participated in the positive commenting activity and the longer the period of participation in positive commenting, the lower the overt aggression of adolescents. These findings suggest that organizing positive commenting activities as one of the required subjects in the school curriculum may be a more useful strategy given the scenario that students in today's classrooms are in, which is one of continual academic pressure. Therefore, various support should be provided as well as social interest in the use of positive language as well as in the level of ethics education for adolescents.