Hands up
Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It Depends on What You Look at and When
Christopher Ferguson
Journal of Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article presents 2 studies of the association of media violence rates with societal violence rates. In the first study, movie violence and homicide rates are examined across the 20th century and into the 21st (1920–2005). Throughout the mid-20th century small-to-moderate correlational relationships can be observed between movie violence and homicide rates in the United States. This trend reversed in the early and latter 20th century, with movie violence rates inversely related to homicide rates. In the second study, videogame violence consumption is examined against youth violence rates in the previous 2 decades. Videogame consumption is associated with a decline in youth violence rates. Results suggest that societal consumption of media violence is not predictive of increased societal violence rates.
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Everyday sadism predicts violent video game preferences
Tobias Greitemeyer
Personality and Individual Differences, March 2015, Pages 19–23
Abstract:
Playing violent video games has become an integral part of the lives of many people, although some people more than others may be predisposed to enjoy violent video games. Two cross-sectional studies examined the extent to which everyday sadism predicts the amount of violent video game play. Past research has shown that everyday sadists obtain pleasure from cruel behaviors. Hence, I reasoned that everyday sadists are drawn to violent video games because killing game characters might be an opportunity to satisfy their need for cruelty. In fact, results revealed a positive link between everyday sadism and the amount of violent video game exposure. Moreover, this relation statistically held when controlling for the impact of trait aggression, the Big 5, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
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Denis Wegge et al.
Journal of Early Adolescence, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present study examines the reciprocal associations between cyberbullying behavior and young adolescents’ social status. For this purpose, a two-wave panel study with an 8-month time interval was conducted among an entire grade of 154 secondary school pupils (age 12-14). The survey featured items on traditional bullying and cyberbullying as well as peer-nomination questions on sociometric and perceived popularity. Cyberbullying was related to subsequent increases in perceived popularity of the perpetrators. In contrast, traditional bullying perpetration was not longitudinally associated with social status during the studied period. Although perceived popularity was also expected to precede cyberbullying behavior, this was not observed. Taken together, the results suggest that electronic forms of bullying, rather than traditional forms, can provide a means to acquire additional perceived popularity in early adolescence. The findings warrant future research on the factors that moderate the association between cyberbullying and social status.
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Play fighting to curb self-reported aggression in young adolescents
Attilio Carraro, Erica Gobbi & Angelica Moè
Journal of Adolescence, December 2014, Pages 1303–1307
Abstract:
This study investigated the effects of play fighting on aggressive behaviors. It was hypothesized that the teaching of play fighting during physical education lessons could reduce self-reported aggression in a group of adolescents to a greater extent than playing volleyball (a low physical contact activity). Participants were 210 young adolescents (mean age = 13.27, SD = 0.48 years) from 10 classrooms that were randomly assigned to an 8-lesson play fighting session or to traditional volleyball lessons. They filled in the 12-item short version of the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ-12) pre- and post-interventions. The play fighting group showed a significant reduction in all the four subscales of the AQ-12 (Cohen d ranging from 0.61 to 0.67), while participants in the volleyball group did not. Results suggest that play fighting might provide useful contents in a physical education curriculum, with possible reduction in aggressive behavior.
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From Bullied to Deviant: The Victim–Offender Overlap Among Bullying Victims
Whitney DeCamp & Brian Newby
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, January 2015, Pages 3-17
Abstract:
Although much research has explored bullies and bullying victims, little has been done to explore the long-term effects on those who have been bullied. Separately, a growing body of evidence suggests that there is a victim–offender overlap, in which many victims are or become offenders themselves. Taken together, this suggests that bullying victims may themselves be at elevated risk of involvement in deviance or crime. The present study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to explore this issue, utilizing propensity score matching to control for the shared predictors of offending and victimization. Given that bullying experiences can vary dramatically by gender, gender-specific analyses are performed. Results indicate that controlling for the propensity to be bullied reduces, but does not eliminate, the effect on later criminality.
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Fight the power: Lanchester’s laws of combat in human evolution
Dominic Johnson & Niall MacKay
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Lanchester’s “Laws of Combat” are mathematical principles that have long been used to model military conflict. More recently, they have been applied to conflict among animals, including ants, birds, lions, and chimpanzees. Lanchester’s Linear Law states that, where combat between two groups is a series of one-on-one duels, fighting strength is proportional to group size, as one would expect. However, Lanchester’s Square Law states that, where combat is all-against-all, fighting strength is proportional to the square of group size. If conflict has been important in our evolutionary history, we might expect humans to have evolved assessment mechanisms that take Lanchester’s Laws of Combat into account. Those that did would have reaped great dividends; those that did not would have made a quick exit from the gene pool. We hypothesize that: (1) the dominant and most lethal form of combat in human evolutionary history (as well as among chimpanzees and some social carnivores) has been asymmetric raids in which multiple individuals gang up on a few opponents, approximating Square Law combat; and (2) this would have favored the natural selection of an evolved “Square Law heuristic” that correlated fighting strength not with raw group size but with group size squared. We discuss the implications for primate evolution, human evolution, coalitionary psychology, and contemporary war.
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Sexually Coercive Male Chimpanzees Sire More Offspring
Joseph Feldblum et al.
Current Biology, 1 December 2014, Pages 2855–2860
Abstract:
In sexually reproducing animals, male and female reproductive strategies often conflict. In some species, males use aggression to overcome female choice, but debate persists over the extent to which this strategy is successful. Previous studies of male aggression toward females among wild chimpanzees have yielded contradictory results about the relationship between aggression and mating behavior. Critically, however, copulation frequency in primates is not always predictive of reproductive success. We analyzed a 17-year sample of behavioral and genetic data from the Kasekela chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) community in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, to test the hypothesis that male aggression toward females increases male reproductive success. We examined the effect of male aggression toward females during ovarian cycling, including periods when the females were sexually receptive (swollen) and periods when they were not. We found that, after controlling for confounding factors, male aggression during a female’s swollen periods was positively correlated with copulation frequency. However, aggression toward swollen females was not predictive of paternity. Instead, aggression by high-ranking males toward females during their nonswollen periods was positively associated with likelihood of paternity. This indicates that long-term patterns of intimidation allow high-ranking males to increase their reproductive success, supporting the sexual coercion hypothesis. To our knowledge, this is the first study to present genetic evidence of sexual coercion as an adaptive strategy in a social mammal.
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Man-Kit Lei et al.
Development and Psychopathology, November 2014, Pages 1113-1128
Abstract:
Social disorganization theory posits that individuals who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than are those who live in advantaged neighborhoods and that neighborhood disadvantage asserts this effect through its disruptive impact on social ties. Past research on this framework has been limited in two respects. First, most studies have concentrated on adolescent males. In contrast, the present study focused on a sample of adult African American females. Second, past research has largely ignored individual-level factors that might explain why people who grow up in disadvantaged neighborhoods often do not engage in antisocial behavior. We investigated the extent to which genetic variation contributes to heterogeneity of response to neighborhood conditions. We found that the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on antisocial behavior was mediated by neighborhood social ties. Further, the analysis indicated that the effects of neighborhood disadvantage and social ties on antisocial behavior were moderated by genetic polymorphisms. Examination of these moderating effects provided support for the differential susceptibility model of Gene × Environment. The effect of Gene × Neighborhood Disadvantage on antisocial behavior was mediated by the effect of Gene × Neighborhood Social Ties, providing support for an expanded view of social disorganization theory.
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Stranger Danger: The Role of Perpetrator and Context in Moderating Reactions to Sexual Harassment
Megan McCarty, Nicole Iannone & Janice Kelly
Sexuality & Culture, December 2014, Pages 739-758
Abstract:
The majority of research on sexual harassment focuses on achievement contexts where the perpetrator of the harassment is known to the victim. More recent work has begun to explore sexual harassment perpetrated by strangers in public places. The current work sought to bridge the gap between research on sexual harassment in achievement contexts and stranger harassment. In doing so, the current work manipulated factors related to three important distinctions between these topics: the relationship between the perpetrator and victim, the location, and the type of sexually harassing behavior. The current study provides evidence that stranger harassment elicits more negative reactions than harassment from a coworker. Additionally, harasser type interacted with harassment type, with situations involving strangers making physical contact eliciting the most negative reactions. Thus, the current work suggests a need for more research on stranger harassment, as well as on additional factors that may operate differently depending on harasser type.
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Sexual Harassment Victimization and Perpetration Among High School Students
Emily Clear et al.
Violence Against Women, October 2014, Pages 1203-1219
Abstract:
This large, population-based study is one of the few to examine prevalence rates of sexual harassment occurring during the past 12 months by victimization and perpetration among adolescents. In this large, cross-sectional survey of students attending 26 high schools, sexual harassment was defined using three questions from the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire. Among 18,090 students completing the survey, 30% disclosed sexual harassment victimization (37% of females, 21% of males) and 8.5% reported perpetration (5% of females, 12% of males). Sexual harassment perpetration was highly correlated with male sex, minority race/ethnicity, same-sex attraction, bullying, alcohol binge drinking, and intraparental partner violence.
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Nonviolent physical risk-taking enhances the envisioned bodily formidability of women
Daniel Fessler et al.
Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, December 2014, Pages 67-80
Abstract:
Men are more prone than women to both commit physical violence and engage in nonviolent activities entailing the risk of injury or death. The Crazy Bastard Hypothesis (Fessler et al. 2014a) addresses this conjunction, arguing that nonviolent physical risk-taking communicates information about the actor’s agonistic formidability, as individuals who are indifferent to the possibility of harm are more likely to enter conflicts, and more difficult to repel, than those who are more sensitive to harm. Reflecting the use of bodily size in representations that summarize formidability, previous work demonstrates that risk-prone men are envisioned to be larger than are risk-averse men. Though less violent than men, particularly in highly competitive environments, women too sometimes benefit from engaging in violence. Correspondingly, observers should draw similar inferences regarding formidability when assessing physically risk-prone women. Results from both a large online experiment in the U.S. and a follow-up study using a modified dependent measure designed to reduce demand characteristics reveal that a woman described as risk-prone is envisioned to be larger — and thus more formidable — than is a woman described as risk-averse. Nonviolent physical risk-taking is thus available to women as an avenue for communicating formidability when it is advantageous to do so.
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Narcissism, Low Self-Control, and Violence Among a Nationally Representative Sample
Matthew Larson et al.
Criminal Justice and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
A growing body of evidence has highlighted the relationship between narcissism and violence. Importantly, however, the predominance of this evidence comes from experimental tests or small-scale samples that most often overlook the contribution of low self-control to explicating the relationship. The present study refers to the National Epidemiological Study of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) to assess narcissism, low self-control, and violence among a nationally representative sample. Using Latent Class Analyses (LCA), four classes of individuals are identified, and multinomial regression models indicate that narcissism and low self-control are associated with a range of violent acts among these groups. Most importantly, results show that the class of individuals that is high in narcissism and deficient in self-control is far and away the most prone to violence. Together, these findings lend important nationally representative support to recent experimental and meta-analytical conclusions suggesting that the co-occurrence of narcissism and low self-control has significant implications for our understanding of violence. Limitations of this study and avenues for future research are discussed.
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Jennifer Welbourne, Ashwini Gangadharan & Ana Sariol
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Workplace incivility is a subtle type of deviant work behavior that is low in intensity and violates workplace norms of respect. Past research demonstrates the harmful impact of incivility on work attitudes and employee wellbeing; however, little is known about how incivility is experienced by individuals of different ethnicities and cultural orientations. In the current study, we compared the amount and impact of workplace incivility that was experienced by Hispanic and white, non-Hispanic employees. Further, we examined whether cultural dimensions of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism moderated the relationships between workplace incivility and work and health outcomes. A sample of 262 university employees (50% Hispanic; 63% female) provided self-reports of experienced incivility, burnout, job satisfaction, and cultural values. Although male Hispanic employees experienced more incivility, female Hispanic employees experienced less incivility than non-Hispanic employees of the same gender. Hispanic employees displayed greater resilience against the impact of incivility on job satisfaction and burnout, compared with non-Hispanic employees. Additionally, employees with strong horizontal collectivism values (emphasizing sociability) were more resilient against the impact of incivility on burnout, whereas employees with strong horizontal individualism values (emphasizing self-reliance) were more susceptible to burnout and dissatisfaction when faced with incivility. These findings suggest that employees’ ethnicity and cultural values may increase or decrease their vulnerability to the impact of incivility at work.
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Gender, Friendship Networks, and Delinquency: A Dynamic Network Approach
Dana Haynie, Nathan Doogan & Brian Soller
Criminology, November 2014, Pages 688–722
Abstract:
Researchers have examined selection and influence processes in shaping delinquency similarity among friends, but little is known about the role of gender in moderating these relationships. Our objective is to examine differences between adolescent boys and girls regarding delinquency-based selection and influence processes. Using longitudinal network data from adolescents attending two large schools in AddHealth (N = 1,857) and stochastic actor-oriented models, we evaluate whether girls are influenced to a greater degree by friends’ violence or delinquency than boys (influence hypothesis) and whether girls are more likely to select friends based on violent or delinquent behavior than boys (selection hypothesis). The results indicate that girls are more likely than boys to be influenced by their friends’ involvement in violence. Although a similar pattern emerges for nonviolent delinquency, the gender differences are not significant. Some evidence shows that boys are influenced toward increasing their violence or delinquency when exposed to more delinquent or violent friends but are immune to reducing their violence or delinquency when associating with less violent or delinquent friends. In terms of selection dynamics, although both boys and girls have a tendency to select friends based on friends’ behavior, girls have a stronger tendency to do so, suggesting that among girls, friends’ involvement in violence or delinquency is an especially decisive factor for determining friendship ties.
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Gorge Romero, Michael Pham & Aaron Goetz
Human Nature, December 2014, Pages 496-516
Abstract:
Conspecific violence has been pervasive throughout evolutionary history. The current research tested the hypotheses that individuals implicitly categorize combative contexts (i.e., play fighting, status contests, warfare, and anti-exploitative violence) and use the associated contextual information to guide expectations of combative tactics. Using U.S. and non-U.S. samples, Study 1 demonstrated consistent classification of combative contexts from scenarios for which little information was given and predictable shifts in the acceptability of combative tactics across contexts. Whereas severe tactics (e.g., eye-gouging) were acceptable in warfare and anti-exploitative violence, they were unacceptable in status contests and play fights. These results suggest the existence of implicit rules governing the contexts of combat. In Study 2, we explored the reputational consequences of violating these implicit rules. Results suggest that rule violators (e.g., those who use severe tactics in a status contest) are given less respect. These are the first studies to implicate specialized mechanisms for aggression that use contextual cues of violence to guide expectations and behavior.
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The role of feared possible selves in the relationship between peer influence and delinquency
Jennifer Pierce, Carissa Schmidt & Sarah Stoddard
Journal of Adolescence, January 2015, Pages 17–26
Abstract:
This study explores the impact of a feared delinquent possible self on the relationship between exposure to negative peer behaviors and violent and non-violent self-reported delinquency. Previous research strongly supports that deviant peers influence adolescents' delinquent behavior. Yet, few studies have explored intrapersonal factors that may moderate this influence. Possible selves include what one hopes, expects and fears becoming and are believed to motivate behavior. Thus, it was hypothesized that adolescents who were exposed to deviant peers and also feared engaging in delinquency would be more likely to self-report delinquency. Seventh grade students (n = 176) identified feared possible selves in the future, their exposure to negative peer behavior and self-reported violent and non-violent delinquent behavior. Findings suggest that exposure to negative peer behavior is associated with self-reported delinquent behavior. For violent behavior, possessing a feared delinquent possible self moderates this relationship. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.