Propensity For Violence Research Articles

Neuroscience, accountability and individual boundaries

OPINION article Front. Hum. Neurosci., 23 December 2009Sec. Cognitive Neuroscience Volume 3 - 2009 | https://doi.org/10.3389/neuro.09.045.2009

MAO Gene Reveals Clues About Propensity for Violence

MAO Gene Reveals Clues About Propensity for Violence

Political Sociology and Social Movements

Until the 1970s, the study of social movements was firmly within a diverse sociological tradition that explored the relationship between social structure and political behavior, and was preoccupied with explaining variation in the political orientation of movements: their ideologies, aims, motivations, or propensities for violence. Subsequently, a breakaway tradition redefined the central problem, radically narrowing the scope of interest to the process of mobilization—how social groups, whoever they are and whatever their aims, marshal resources, recruit adherents, and navigate political environments in order to grow and succeed. Critics would later insist that the construction of meaning, the formation of collective identities, and the stimulation and amplification of emotions play vital and neglected roles in mobilization, but these alternatives did not challenge the narrowed construction of the problem itself. The resulting subfield has largely abandoned the quest to explain variation in the political orientation of movements. Researchers in related fields—on revolution, unions, and ethnic mobilization—have retained an interest in explaining political orientation, although they often view it primarily as a by-product of mobilization. Reviving theories about the impact of social structure on movement political orientation will require integrating insights from research on related but widely scattered subjects.

Propensity for Violence Among Homeless and Runaway Adolescents

Little is known about the prevalence of violent behaviors among homeless and runaway adolescents or the specific behavioral factors that influence violent behaviors across time. In this longitudinal study of 300 homeless and runaway adolescents aged 16-19 years at baseline, we use event history analysis to assess the factors associated with acts of violence over three years, controlling for individual propensities and time-varying behaviors. The results indicate that females, non-minorities, and non-heterosexuals were less likely to engage in violence across time. Those who met criteria for substance abuse disorders (i.e. alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, drug abuse) were more likely to engage in violence. A history of caretaker abuse was associated with violent behaviors, as were street survival strategies such as selling drugs, participating in gang activity, and associating with deviant peers. Simply having spent time directly on the streets at any specific time point also increased the likelihood for violence.

Astrotheology and the ETI Myth

The task of astrotheology is to speculate on the theological, cultural, and ethical implications of space exploration, especially the exploration of astrobiologists into the (1) origin of life; (2) a second genesis of life; and (3) expansion of life beyond earth. When assumptions within the field of astrobiology are examined, we find that the Darwinian model of evolutionary development is imaginatively projected onto extrasolar planets; and this model includes a built-in doctrine of progress. The assumption of progress within evolution permits astrobiologists to look forward to contact with an extraterrestrial civilization that is more intelligent and more advanced than that on earth. Such an extraterrestrial civilization will allegedly have an advanced science that can save earth from its primitive and under-evolved propensity for violence. However, no empirical evidence for a more highly evolved or advanced civilization currently exists, despite these beliefs. The theologian labels the constellation of scientific assumptions here the “ETI myth.” Astrotheology celebrates hard-nosed empirical science and even encourages space exploration; but the mythical assumptions regarding the doctrine of progress within evolution are here given critical analysis.

'. . . And the Truth Shall Set You Free': Confessional Trade-Offs and Community Reconciliation in East Timor

AbstractIn East Timor, as with many nations dealing with the legacies of colonisation and occupation, divisions and allegiances forged in the past are combining with other contemporary factors to destabilising effect. The civil unrest of 2006/2007 provides the most recent example of the propensity for violence to escalate rapidly in such a climate. In this context, past experience in promoting and facilitating re-integration following the mass displacement in 1999 in East Timor may offer lessons for those seeking to address social cohesion in the wake of more recent displacement. This paper assesses the work of the Community Reconciliation Process implemented by the Commission of Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (Commonly known by the Portuguese acronym CAVR) in order to provide a reflection on what was achieved and highlight some of the shortcomings that might similarly befall current, and future, attempts. In doing so, the process, and particularly the use of narrative, is considered in terms of its performative elements: the circumstances in which the scripts were written; the stage on which they were acted out; the actors who voiced them, and the audience who listened. It is argued that the Community Reconciliation Process, through its mechanism that synthesised customary reconciliation procedures and elements of the formal justice system, facilitated a reintegrative process that had at its core the exchange of confession, apology and shaming for the right to re-enter the social group from which perpetrators had been excluded. This process, however, may have occurred at the expense of the competing needs of those who had been victimised.

Predictive Modeling in Hostage and Barricade Incidents

The study examined 534 hostage and barricade incidents. Its objective was to present an integrated and formalized vision of current conceptualizations of critical incidents to optimize decision making. To this end, logistic regression and recursive partitioning models are presented and compared. In all, 18 distinct static and dynamic individual and situational factors were used to predict various outputs during this type of situation. Results highlight the importance of considering the origin of the emergency call and being barricaded in one's home in the assessment of perpetrator's propensity for violence, the fact that time is not always on the police's side during critical incidents, and the relatively minor importance of hostage taking in the general comprehension of these high-risk events.

A Semi-Parametric Spatial Regression Approach to Post-War Human Security: Cambodia, 2002–2004

Human security in post-war societies depends on incentives to forego violence in local interactions. The government of Cambodia monitors domestic violence, land conflicts and serious crime in over 13,000 villages and urban neighbourhoods. We use three annual data collections to estimate the response of these conflicts to the legacy of the war, poverty and resource competition, urbanity as well as governance quality. Bayesian spatial regressions help identify socio-economic thresholds beyond which conflicts expand or contract significantly. We find numerous non-linearities in the propensities for violence. Notably, predicted rates decrease in response to quality of governance only at a high level of service provision, which, realistically, most communities may not soon achieve. This may justify dedicated programmes addressing particular types of conflicts. We propose alternative analytic approaches, including some that would make the problem of endogeneity more tractable once updated poverty estimates become available.

Coping with Romantic Betrayal: Sex Differences in Responses to Partner Infidelity

The current research tested the hypothesis that, because infidelity entails somewhat different negative consequences for men and women, men and women display different emotional and behavioral reactions aimed at reducing the costs of infidelity. The study utilized an open-response method in which participants wrote about their reactions to an imagined infidelity. Findings suggest that, in response to partner infidelity, men display greater feelings of anger and a greater propensity for violence (particularly toward the male interloper), whereas women display greater feelings of sadness and a greater inclination toward seeking out sources of compensatory social affiliation (particularly from existing friendships). The current research is some of the first to identify functional responses designed to help women and men offset the social costs inflicted by a partner's infidelity.

Electroencephalographic Cerebral Dysrhythmic Abnormalities in the Trinity of Nonepileptic General Population, Neuropsychiatric, and Neurobehavioral Disorders

Electroencephalographic Cerebral Dysrhythmic Abnormalities in the Trinity of Nonepileptic General Population, Neuropsychiatric, and Neurobehavioral Disorders

Electroencephalographic Cerebral Dysrhythmic Abnormalities in the Trinity of Nonepileptic General Population, Neuropsychiatric, and Neurobehavioral Disorders

Subclinical electroencephalographic epileptiform discharges in neurobehavioral disorders are not uncommon. The clinical significance and behavioral, diagnostic, and therapeutic implications of this EEG cerebral dysrhythmia have not been fully examined. Currently the only connotation for distinctive epileptiform electroencephalographic patterns is epileptic seizures. Given the prevailing dogma of not treating EEGs, these potential aberrations are either disregarded as irrelevant or are misattributed to indicate epilepsy. This article reappraises the literature on paroxysmal EEG dysrhythmia in normative studies of the "healthy" nonepileptic general populations, neuropsychiatry, and in neurobehavioral disorders. These EEG aberrations may be reflective of underlying morpho-functional brain abnormalities that underpin various neurobehavioral disturbances.

Men in Contemporary Russia: The Fallen Heroes of Post-Soviet Change? by Rebecca s> Kay (review)

REVIEWS 393 in the Centre of Helsinki (surroundedby buildings of the state, the city, the universityand a church)and concludes with a considerationof the 'petrified paradoxes of masculine enterprises'.Connections between embodiment and power are analysed, for example, through Foucault'stheory of panopticon. In chapter four Valenius explores the implicationsof Finland being represented as a 'maid'. Many national representationsrefer to mothers, such as Mother Russia or Svea Mamma (Sweden).Finland'seternal maid is rendered intelligiblethroughthe geopoliticalposition of Finlandbetween Eastand West a maid needs to be protected and defended as an object of desire which, Valenius argues, has promoted a cult of 'great men'. At the same time there were debates between the protagonistsof differentpolitical orientationsand their representatives.Valenius also uses the concept of (dis-)embodying thenation in orderto referto the liminalityof the maid who is preventedfrombecoming an adult. In chapter five the maid is depicted as troubled and sufferingas a border region and a battle field. Through differentways of representingthe maid, issues such as power relations as well as threatened borders were contested. Here the constructionof the nation consistsof masculineactivities.The place of the female is merely symbolic. Through this female symbol men negotiate what divides and unites them. The maid is threatenedby a range of Russian male figures. Potential rapistsare representedusing racist imagery. In reference to Nagel, Valenius notes that in this way borders are constructed as ethnosexual. Masculine honour is also depicted through the shame of the female and her rescueby a man. These visualrepresentationsspeaktheir own very strong language and Valenius interpretsthis language deftly. In the context of nationality women bear the burden of representation, whereas nations themselves are scenes of masculine action. As Yuval-Davies has suggested,women have had a central although often invisible role in the construction of the nation. Women merely represent,whilst men are placed at the centre of nationaland politicalagency. The paradoxof the Finnish maid as the object of an eternal threat is that she contradictsnationalism. Valenius tells a storythat will be familiarto internationalreadersbut it is also rendered as contextually different because of its location in the border between Finland and Russia, historically a dividing line between East and West and now the outer border of the European Union. HelsinkiCollegium for Advanced Studies TUULA GORDON University ofHelsinki Kay, Rebecca. Menin Contemporagy Russia:7The FallenHeroes ofPost-Soviet Change? Ashgate, Aldershotand Burlington,VT, 2006. X + 236 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Appendix. Bibliography.Index. ?C45.??. THERE is a widespread perception, Rebecca Kay argues, that masculinityis in a state of crisis.The shift from heavy industryto more 'feminine'types of work, such as the service industries, has eroded men's traditional role as 394 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 breadwinner. Often unable to provide for their families, they have not found other roles to compensate. This 'crisis of masculinity' has supposedly reached its height in Russia. Negative portrayals of Russian men abound both in the Russian and Western media, with the latter taking on a distinctly symbolic flavour: 'It is as if the degeneration of a nation can best be typified by the image of the self-pitying drunk, defeated by circumstance, spiralling into an early grave' (p. i). Kay's aim is to provide a more balanced understanding of the ways in which Russian men have experienced and responded to post-Soviet change. The book is divided into two sections. The first is concerned with the public sphere: military service, the labour market and private enterprise. The second turns to the private sphere of family and relationships. As well as analysing media reports on masculinity, Kay carried out ethnographic research in two provincial areas. She chose to work in the provinces since most previous ethnographic research has focused on the larger cities. In addition, one of her chosen regions, Altai, has pioneered a highly successful Regional Crisis Centre for Men. Interviews with the Centre's clients provide testimony not only to the difficulties confronting men, but also to the courage and resilience with which many deal with them. Kay does not deny that some men cannot cope. 14,000 women are killed by their male partners every year, and more than ioo,ooo men die as a result of murder or suicide. The propensity for violence and...

The battle for Iraq: Islamic insurgencies in comparative perspective

This article constructs a model of three types, or clusters, of Muslim insurgency over the past two centuries. It analyses how each cluster shares a common ideological formulation, impetus, leadership type, propensity for violence, organisational structure and level of durability. Examples from each of the three clusters are briefly examined and compared on these criteria. The article then examines Iraq's insurgency (more correctly, insurgencies) from mid-2003 to the present in light of the models to suggest how the insurgency ‘fits in’ with other insurgencies in the Muslim world. Understanding its characteristics in light of the models sheds light on how durable the insurgency may be. The most durable insurgencies have been ones in which the mantles of nation and Islam are successfully fused.

Roxanne L. Euben

The attacks on September 11, 2001 released a barrage of public rhetoric characterizing the 19 Muslim hijackers as evil fanatics “in love with death” and animated by a “hatred of freedom.” A spate of scholarship, op-ed articles, and policy papers devoted to anatomizing the “problems with Islam”—a propensity for violence and authoritarianism, an archaic conflation of religious and political domains, the pent-up rage of Muslims “left behind” by modernity—soon flooded airwaves, newspapers, and bookstores, in many cases recycling arguments several decades and even centuries old. Counterclaims about the inherently peaceful and tolerant essence of Islam quickly followed, and a very peculiar American public debate about Islamic authenticity was born.Roxanne L. Euben is the Jane Bishop '51 Associate Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. The author is grateful to Lawrie Balfour, Michael Munger, and Keith Topper for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

Statebuilding, Conflict and Narcotics in Afghanistan: The View from Below

This essay explores the interdependence between statebuilding, narcotics and conflict through an analysis of interviews and a survey conducted, in the spring of 2005, in the Laghman and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan. Rural Afghanistan is characterized by weak conflict-processing mechanisms, combined with a high propensity towards the escalation of violence. State-sponsored institutions for conflict processing hardly exist, and donor attempts to prop up traditional institutions, such as the village shura, as a substitute for local government have failed to produce tangible results. Farmers widely acknowledge the benefits of opium as one of the few available cash crops. As a result, competition over scarce land and propensity for violence are affected indirectly by the drug economy. The study concludes with a criticism of current poppy eradication efforts. Under an informal ‘eradication contract’, provincial leaders are induced to comply with the request of the central government to reduce opium cultivation, in exchange for increased political autonomy and the promise of donor funds.

Use of a Violence Risk Assessment Tool in an Acute Care Hospital

This study examined the use and effectiveness of the Alert assessment form. The form is part of the Alert system, used by one large acute care hospital to identify patients with a propensity for violence. All reported incidents of patient violence from August 1, 2003, through December 31, 2004, were included in patient charts. One hundred seventeen violent patient charts were reviewed and compared with 161 non-violent patient charts, randomly chosen from the same time period. Overall use of the Alert assessment form for violent and non-violent patients was 75.7% and 35.4%, respectively. The assessment form was found to have moderate sensitivity (71%) and high specificity (94%). It is reasonably effective in identifying potentially violent or aggressive patients when it is used according to protocol. Efforts to improve the tool are warranted, as is evaluation of its benefit in settings with low prevalence of violence. Also, greater effort must be taken to prevent violence once an aggressive patient has been identified.

Markets of Protection

This article explores the continuities between the local state and the ‘terrorist’ extreme left-wing armed guerrilla Naxalite movement, the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), in Jharkhand, Eastern India. The article shows how the MCC gained grassroots support by having greater control over a ‘market of protection’, and not through a shared ideology. This protection is a ‘doubleedged commodity’ – it is protection to access the informal economy of the state but also protection from the possibilities of the protector’s activities. In selling protection, the MCC competes in a market previously controlled by the state. The MCC increases its control over the market as an idea of its immense power – as well as fear of the organization, emerging from both its visible and invisible qualities, including its propensity for violence – is created among its targets. Unveiling this market of protection demonstrates the contested boundaries between the state and the ‘terrorist’ in rural Jharkhand.

Comment on Kershaw

In his wide-ranging and thought-provoking analysis of war and political violence in twentieth-century Europe, Ian Kershaw contrasts the immense violence wrought in Europe in the first half of the century with its relatively pacific history in the second half. Resisting the temptation to think of the violence of the first half of the century as a dysfunctional interruption to an underlying tale of economic, social and political progress, the author poses three astute questions concerning: (i) the causes of state-sponsored violence; (ii) the reasons why some states presided over low levels of violence while others presided over levels that ‘soared into the stratosphere’; and (iii) whether there was something qualitatively new – or ‘modern’ – about that violence. Kershaw describes his piece as ‘thinking aloud’ and I read it in that spirit. I find myself in broad agreement with what he has to say, although we probably disagree over matters of emphasis – for example in respect of the significance of violence perpetrated by European states in their colonies, or the propensity for violence of liberal democratic states. I suspect that there is more principled disagreement about the salience of ‘ideology’ in fomenting the mass violence of the twentieth century. I have organised my responses according to the three stages of his argument; I end by considering the nature of ‘peace’ in Europe in the second half of the century and by offering a few reflections on the conceptualisation of political violence.

Does environmental exposure to manganese pose a health risk to healthy adults?

Manganese is an essential nutrient that also may be toxic at high concentrations. Subjects chronically exposed to manganese-laden dust in industrial settings develop neuropsychological changes that resemble Parkinson's disease. Manganese has been proposed as an additive to gasoline (as a replacement for the catalytic properties of lead), which has generated increased research interest in the possible deleterious effects of environmental exposure to manganese. Low-level exposure to manganese has been implicated in neurologic changes, decreased learning ability in school-aged children, and increased propensity for violence in adults. However, a thorough review of the literature shows very weak cause-and-effect relationships that do not justify concern about environmental exposure to manganese for most of the North American population.

Inadvertent Script Change and Increased Propensity for Violence: The Danger of Interactive Video Games

This article explores the idea that males are genetically predisposed to violence and aggression. It looks at the experience of men in combat and what behavior emerges in such a context, arguing that, in fact, most males are reluctant killers who will avoid killing if at all possible. The effects of military training on young men are described and related to the danger of interactive video games, which have the potential for producing violent script decisions in young males.