Increases In Antisocial Behavior Research Articles

Effects of altered responsibility, congnitive set, and modeling on physical aggression and deindividuation.

This laboratory investigation using 64 college students as subjects assessed the role of three disinhibiting variables in producing both physical aggression and an internal state of deindividuation. Altered responsibility, congnitive set, and modeling were manipulated in a factorial design, and all three variables significantly increased physical aggression. No interaction produced significant results. The increase due to altered responsibility and varying cognitions supports Zimbardo's theory of deindividuation which relates certain input variables to wild, impulsive behavior. Questionnaire data indicated that the increase in aggression was not accompanied by internal mediational factors such as reduced self-awareness. It appears that disinhibiting forces may produce increases in antisocial behavior without necessarily producing a deindividuated internal state.

Comparative Criminology : Africa

Crime and delinquency, having assumed considerable proportions, have become major social problems for most governments social problems all the more acute in that customary methods of prevention, defence, repression and treatment have shown themselves less and less effective in checking the increase in antisocial behaviour. The result is a progressive deterioration of community life which threatens, over the long term, to upset the balance of society, particularly in highly urbanized centres.