Psychology of Violence (Term Paper Sample)

Psychology of Violence
The history of the world is mired with incidences of violence. Violence traces its origins back to prehistory, and there is barely a community, society or individual that has never experienced or witnessed some form of violence. A single incidence of violence can be powerful and unbearable whether it is terrorism, war, suicide, homicide or even systemic injustices (structural violence – whereby there are access barriers to health care, social justice, or some other type of resource that can prevent violence or mitigate its effects and lead to a longer life. The common type of violence, however, is the over one and a half million deaths per annum that result from violence globally. These figures do not take into account the hundreds of millions who suffer each year from other less visible forms of violence, such as psychological trauma or social trauma, or those who suffer other forms of violence that result in injuries. Still, this doesn’t even start to cover the negative effects of death that can permeate through generations of families and societies for many years. Those negative effects include: economic costs, for instance, the time spent away from work due to non-fatal injuries; medical expenses; legal expenses and the destruction of regional or national economies that could take many years to rebuild CITATION Lee15 \l 1033 (Lee, 2015).
Compare and Contrast the Major Theories of the Etiology of Violence
According to researchers Hass and Cusson (2015), violence is any form of aggression against another individual; it may be an act of violence itself or the threat of committing such an act. The body of research reviewed shows that there is no single globally accepted theory of violence. Different subjects have different theories of violence. For instance, the theories of violence in sociology, psychology and psychiatry are based on varying premises CITATION Haa15 \l 1033 (Haas & Cusson, 2015).
Even within certain fields, some theories try to explain why individuals become aggressive towards others or become deviant. The challenge of finding a theory that will be widely accepted becomes even more difficult since aspects of aggression and deviance are interrelated: some forms of deviance entail causing others harm (and is thus aggressive behavior) while other forms of aggression violate normal behavior (and is thus effectively deviant behavior) CITATION Fel08 \l 1033 (Felson, Deane, & Armstrong, 2008).
According to the psychopathological theory of violence biological inclination, insufficient parental guidance or care and trauma can disturb normal development. The body of research in psychopathology, for instance, the work by Raine (2013) has shown that, marital violence during pregnancy, childhood malnourishment, and also childhood abuse can greatly affect the normal development of the brain. Male children have been found to be more susceptible compared to female children with this regard CITATION Haa15 \l 1033 (Haas & Cusson, 2015). Male children usually being overactive often risk having accidents; such accidents increase the potential of having more accidents because they cause deficient gross motor coordination, hyperactivity or attention deficit disorders. In other words, accidents that result in traumatic brain injuries can cause impaired development or alter the child’s personality. Either way, the school of thought in psychopathology is that aggression is not directly linked to childhood accidents/risks, but instead caused by a collection of traits in an individual whom for various reasons, couldn’t handle the risks or couldn’t grow normally under normal settings CITATION Haa15 \l 1033 (Haas & Cusson, 2015).
Theories on interpersonal violence can be classified into 2 categories: (a) Interactionist, and (b) evolutionary.
Evolutionary interpersonal violence theories involve concepts of inclusive fitness and keen selection. Theories under this category are based on the social biological concept that interpersonal violence might be a form of survival mechanism – in that, it increases the fitness of the species over long periods of time. From the sociobiological viewpoint, it is rational to expect only a low likelihood of aggression or violence between individuals who are closely related. Moreover, sociobiology also expects that there will likely be a higher chance of violence between men in the context of man versus man competition. This evolutionary viewpoint also indicates that there is a lower likelihood of violence between women or females compared to men. Most of these predictions are solid ethological principles that have been observed not only among humans, but also among other higher animals CITATION McC08 \l 1033 (McCall & Shields, 2008).
Interactionist violence or aggression theories are important, in that, they offer an analytical model and descriptive terminology for investigating patterns of human behavior in the social context. Interactionist theories are useful in the sense that they allow one to distinguish logical thoughts, feelings, and instincts. Theories under this category help to investigate small variables in social encounters and how these variables trigger certain behaviors by taking the encounters as scripted affairs. These viewpoints are important in structuring violence and aggression as things to do with cognitive and human social processes (McCall & Shields, 2008).
Researchers Bushman and Anderson (2002) proposed an aggression model, which incorporated several lower level theories based on different "domains”. They referred to their model as the general aggression model (GAM). GAM was based on the notion of knowledge structures and the manner in which they interact to bring about certain patterns of behavior. Knowledge structures are brought about by experience or the environment, and can end up being somewhat automatic in certain scenarios, in addition to being associated with behavior, beliefs and emotions. Primarily, knowledge structures are utilized as environmental guide responses and they include behavioral scripts, which determine the patterns of behavior that suit certain situations, person schemata (categorizes different types of persons) and perceptual schemata (categorizes events and objects) CITATION McC08 \l 1033 (McCall & Shields, 2008).
The general aggression model focuses on the traits of an individual and the scenario or event as it relates to the individual’s current internal state (cognition, arousal or emotion), and eventually his or her assessment and the decision-making processes. The processes of evaluating a situation and making a decision can result in either rational or impulsive behavior, which cycle back and trigger the next social interaction (McCall & Shields, 2008).
Discriminate the Psychosocial, Gender, Culture and Diversity Aspects of Violence
Psychosocial Violence
In the last few years, enormous attention has been focused on violence particularly among the country’s youth. Acts of violence such as the shooting at Aurora Movie Theatre, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook school have had a huge effect on the American society. Such acts exemplify the prevalent societal violence in the U.S. (Kelly, 2014). Quite a number of studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of such acts of violence on victims. Researchers Kelly (2010) and Graham-Bermann and Seng (2005), in their studies revealed that exposure to societal violence has profound negative effect not only on the physical health of the victim but also their mental health. Moreover, further studies have revealed that the impact of violence is not only immediate but can also last many years after the occurrence of the incident (Scarpa, 2001). The lasting impact of societal violence on the country’s youth requires the attention of HCPs (Health care professionals) particularly nurses (Kelly, 2014).
Gender-based Violence
The term "gender based violence" is frequently utilized interchangeably with the term "violence against women" since usually the majority of gender-based violence cases involve men inflicting harm on women. It is important to note that the "gender-based" component of the original term points to the fact that most of the aggression caused against women is often just a physical expression of the underlying power inequalities between the two sexes CITATION EIG15 \l 1033 (EIGE, 2015). However, it is also true that violence against men by women does occur. For example, men can experience verbal or physical attacks for say having sex with other men. Spousal battering has also been known to affect both men and women. Men can also be targets of attacks in family settings either when they were children or by their wives as mentioned earlier CITATION Gen15 \l 1033 (GenderViolence.org, 2015). However, gender-based violence most often affects women. The different kinds of violence that women can experience include:
* Economic violence
* Sexual violence
* Child abuse
* Emotional and psychological violence
* Domestic violence
* Physical violence (GenderViolence.org, 2015).
Culture and Diversity Aspects of Violence
According to Galtung (1990), cultural violence refers to the parts of culture,such as mathematics or logic, art and languages, philosophies, ideologies or religions that can be utilized to justify structural or actual physical aggression. Cultural violence legitimizes or makes aggression to feel right. Similar to the way political science deals with two issues – the utilization of power and the justification of that use – violence theories are also about two issues – the use of violence and the justification of that use CITATION Gal90 \l 1033 (Galtung, 1990).
As mentioned above, the study of cultural viol...