What causes a young boy to turn into an abusive man

[Catzeyess]

It seems like in most cases men end up being abusive (rather than women) and I was wondering why that is the case.

Boys are not born into the world intrinsically abusive and so what goes wrong in their upbringing that makes so many men behave like this, whereas it's much less common (as I understand it) for women to be abusive.

I really don't believe men are inherently more abusive than women. Yet in practise they seem to be.

So what do people think is going wrong in these guys lives that turns them into vile human beings, who think they can behave the way they do. And more importantly what can we do as a society to help prevent this.

not so easy to just get out when the abuser is your own son. and the younger he us the more it's an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about and no one even likes admitting.
no easy 'get out' then!!

chaise.

Have you sought help for this situation? How young is he?

I haven't read the whole thread but my opinion is that personality is pretty fixed from the outset. You can see aggression and bullying tendencies already in pretty small children. If unchallenged or indulged, it can easily escalate. I think, therefore, that a big part of the answer to adult abuse is for society (families, organisations, legal system, workplaces) to show zero tolerance to all forms of aggression, violence, bullying etc and very consistently across gender, age, social class. We're not going to change the personality of the perpetrators necessarily, but we have to show those who might go onto to suffer at their hands that the weight of society is with them and against abuse.

Family breakdown is the no 1 cause of abuse and the development of abusive tendencies, which point to mental health issues, which in turn leads to addiction to drugs, alcohol, work and poor levels of communication, there's a lot of angry people out there..
Society is to blame..
Which we are all part of..

That's a gross over-simplification frankbough. 'Family breakdown'... ending of relationships... can be done very successfully without children automatically going on a fast-track to abusive behaviour and MH problems etc. Dysfunction within families, together or apart, is a bigger factor and even then it is not a straight-line cause and effect process.

Angry & unpleasant people can & do come from 'perfect' families all the time. Some of the most unpleasant, selfish and manipulative people I've ever encountered fall into the 'spoilt brat' category

Interesting...I wonder if there is some kind of genetic predisposition to being aggressive/selfish and upbringing can exacerbate it or reduce it.

There is definitely research suggesting aggression is genetic in silver foxes but obviously humans are quite different.

But if it is a genetic thing I wonder if there is anyway to treat/prevent it before the abuser has a chance to inflict it on others. Like identify it in children and help to teach coping mechanisms or something?

Personality is fixed and we all have bad traits to our personalities, some worse than others. Say you had someone who was predisposed to be lazy. How would you treat or prevent that before they got out into society and inflicted themselves on other people? You'd probably try to reward effort and punish laziness, hoping they'd adjust and learn. Doesn't mean that it would work and that they wouldn't slip back into their comfort zone given half a chance.

Same applies to aggression, selfishness or manipulation. We may try to stamp it out but there are some situations where we reward people with those traits. Sports stars, for example, are encouraged to show controlled aggression. I can think of people in business who do very well precisely because they are selfish and want to be in full control. Where would a politician be without the ability to manipulate others?

My point being that 'abuse' is often just an extreme version of a personality trait that a lot of people share with no problem whatsoever.

Another example... jealousy. Extreme jealousy can be indicative of an abusive personality whereas zero jealousy might be indicative of someone who is emotionally cold. So there is probably an ideal, moderate level of jealousy in a person's make-up.... enough to be upset if you went off with someone else... not so much as they'd stake out your house and bug your phone.

How would you identify in someone at an early stage that the level of jealousy they were exhibiting was abnormal enough to require intervention? Would you be able to pinpoint the moment when their jealousy turned from ordinary to extreme? What drives jealousy in the first place... insecurity? deprivation? entitlement?