Lay Definitions of Violence among Swedish Children, Teenagers, and Adults

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Definitions of violence vary and are almost always operationalized by the researcher. Perceptions of violence often determine levels of tolerance of violence. Little research has focused on lay definitions. A total of 309 Swedes (78 children, 85 teenagers, 99 younger adults, and 47 adults (30+); 48% male) were interviewed using a specially developed interview protocol. Content analysis was used to assign definitional categories. A folk taxonomy emerged. Immediate physical violence accounted for 73% of all assigned categories. Hit was the word that occurred most frequently. If global physical violence was included, physical violence accounted for 89% of 780 assigned categories. Immediate non-physical violence accounted for 9% and vicarious violence (including media violence) accounted for 2%. Distributions of categories by respondents' gender, age, and participant role in incidents of violence showed the underlying definitions of violence to be extremely stable. The conclusion is that ordinary Swedes share a robust lay definition of violence as a behavior that is immediate, done in close quarters, and physical.