Crossing the Line
Andy Martens, Spee Kosloff & Lydia Eckstein Jackson
Social Psychological and Personality Science, July 2010, Pages 268-273
Abstract:
Research using a bug-killing paradigm has suggested that increased initial killing may promote increased subsequent killing. Here, the authors tested whether this effect is due to killing per se or merely due to practice and whether this initial repeated bug killing exerts its effect by desensitizing people or by motivating them to kill more. Participants were asked to place bugs into an "extermination grinder" at their own pace after putting either one or five bugs into the grinder initially. Participants either believed they were actually killing the bugs or knew they were not. Results showed that the initial-killing effect occurred only when people thought they were killing, suggesting this is not merely a practice effect. Also, suggesting a motivational component, among participants who killed five bugs initially, those who believed they were killing went on to kill more than those who knew the killing was simulated.
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Graham Ousey & Matthew Lee
Homicide Studies, August 2010, Pages 268-295
Abstract:
Extant research testing the Southern culture of violence theory has not fully investigated the logical implications of the theoretical mechanisms asserted to be at work. This analysis builds on prior research by examining the effects of a widely used measure of Southern cultural influence on homicide-type differentiation across cities and over time. Specifically, we examine whether the measure of Southern cultural influence is more likely to generate argument or conflict homicides than other types and whether the Southern influence has been diminishing over time. The results of multilevel latent variable models of homicide-type differentiation for 1980, 1990, and 2000 suggest that the Southern cultural influence does contribute to differentiation toward more argument homicides relative to other types. Relative to felony homicides, the data indicate this pattern has been easing off over time, but relative to drug and gang homicides, it has not.
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Automatic Effects of Alcohol and Aggressive Cues on Aggressive Thoughts and Behaviors
Baptiste Subra, Dominique Muller, Laurent Bègue, Brad Bushman & Florian Delmas
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Numerous studies have shown that alcohol increases aggression. In this article it is proposed that the link between alcohol and aggression is so strong that mere exposure to alcohol-related cues will automatically activate aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Two experiments tested this automaticity theory of alcohol-related aggression. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to alcohol- or weapon-related primes made faster lexical decisions about aggression-related words than did participants exposed to neutral primes. In Experiment 2, participants exposed to alcohol- or aggression-related subliminal primes were more aggressive toward the experimenter than were participants exposed to neutral subliminal primes. In both experiments, the effects of alcohol-related cues were as strong as the effect of aggression-related cues on aggressive thoughts and behaviors. People do not need to drink a drop of alcohol to become aggressive; exposure to alcohol cues is enough to automatically increase aggression.
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Andrew Welsh
Sex Roles, June 2010, Pages 762-773
Abstract:
The slasher horror film has been deplored based on claims that it depicts eroticized violence against predominately female characters as punishment for sexual activities. To test this assertion, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine the extent to which gender differences are evident in the association between character survival and engagement in sexual activities. Information pertaining to gender, engagement in sexual activities, and survival was coded for film characters from a simple random sample of 50 English-language, North American slasher films released between 1960 and 2009. Results indicated that sexual female characters were less likely to survive and had significantly longer death scenes as compared to those female characters who did not engage in sexual behaviors.
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Christopher Ferguson & Stephanie Rueda
European Psychologist, February 2010, Pages 99-108
Abstract:
This article explores commonly discussed theories of violent video game effects: the social learning, mood management, and catharsis hypotheses. An experimental study was carried out to examine violent video game effects. In this study, 103 young adults were given a frustration task and then randomized to play no game, a nonviolent game, a violent game with good versus evil theme (i.e., playing as a good character taking on evil), or a violent game in which they played as a "bad guy." Results indicated that randomized video game play had no effect on aggressive behavior; real-life violent video game-playing history, however, was predictive of decreased hostile feelings and decreased depression following the frustration task. Results do not support a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior, but do suggest that violent games reduce depression and hostile feelings in players through mood management.
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William Swann, Ángel Gómez, Carmen Huici, Francisco Morales & Gregory Hixon
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Identity fusion is a feeling of oneness with the group that induces people to tether their feelings of personal agency to the group. We accordingly proposed that increasing the agency of fused persons by elevating autonomic arousal would amplify their tendency to endorse and actually enact pro-ingroup behavior. In 4 experiments, increasing autonomic arousal through physical exercise elevated heart rates and fusion-unrelated activity among all participants. Fused participants, however, uniquely responded to arousal by translating elevated agency into endorsement of pro-group activity. These effects emerged both for endorsement of extreme behaviors for the group and for overt behaviors, specifically helping behavior (donating money to needy in-group members), and the speed with which participants raced a fusion-related avatar. The effects also generalized across 3 different arousal inductions (dodgeball, wind sprints, and Exercycle). Finally, fusion-related agency partially mediated the interactive effects of fusion and arousal on pro-group behavior. Apparently, autonomic arousal increases agency and identity fusion channels increased agency into pro-group behavior.
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Peter Fischer, Alexander Haslam & Laura Smith
Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, June 2010, Pages 143-150
Abstract:
Researchers have recently asserted that social identity salience moderates the way in which people react to external stressors. However, previous research has mainly investigated this idea in the context of internal coping processes in response to personal threat. The present research examines people's willingness to respond to collective threat by means of aggressive acts of revenge. A study with 80 female participants revealed that aggressive revenge intentions were most pronounced when the form of collective threat was relevant to a currently salient social identity. Specifically, we found that a threat to national identity (the 7/7/2005 London bombings) led to greater aggression and greater support for revenge when national rather than gender identity was salient. In contrast, a threat to gender identity (Taliban misogyny) led to greater aggression and greater support for revenge when gender rather than national identity was salient. Implications for research on social identity, stress, and responses to terrorism are discussed.
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The acute effect of local homicides on children's cognitive performance
Patrick Sharkey
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 29 June 2010, Pages 11733-11738
Abstract:
This study estimates the acute effect of exposure to a local homicide on the cognitive performance of children across a community. Data are from a sample of children age 5-17 y in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. The effect of local homicides on vocabulary and reading assessments is identified by exploiting exogenous variation in the relative timing of homicides and interview assessments among children in the same neighborhood but assessed at different times. Among African-Americans, the strongest results show that exposure to a homicide in the block group that occurs less than a week before the assessment reduces performance on vocabulary and reading assessments by between ∼0.5 and ∼0.66 SD, respectively. Main results are replicated using a second independent dataset from Chicago. Findings suggest the need for broader recognition of the impact that extreme acts of violence have on children across a neighborhood, regardless of whether the violence is witnessed directly.
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Thomas Denson, William von Hippel, Richard Kemp & Lydia Teo
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Impaired executive control is implicated in aggression. Research suggests that the acute administration of glucose can improve executive control. In two experiments undergraduates completed a measure of trait aggression and consumed a glucose or placebo beverage before being given the chance to administer a blast of white noise to a fictitious participant. In Experiment 1, all participants were provoked and mentally depleted or not. Glucose was most effective in reducing aggression for those high in trait aggression even when depleted. In Experiment 2, participants were provoked or not. When provoked, glucose reduced aggression among those high in trait aggression. However, when not provoked, glucose increased aggression among those high in trait aggression. These data suggest that the acute administration of glucose can be beneficial in reducing aggression in response to provocation among those high in trait aggression.
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Value of Statistical Life and Cause of Accident: A Choice Experiment
Fredrik Carlsson, Dinky Daruvala & Henrik Jaldell
Risk Analysis, June 2010, Pages 975-986
Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to compare the value of statistical life (VSL) estimates for traffic, drowning, and fire accidents. Using a choice experiment in a mail survey of 5,000 Swedish respondents we estimated the willingness to pay for risk reductions in the three accidents. In the experiment respondents were asked a series of questions, whether they would choose risk reducing investments where type of accident, cost of the investment, the risk reduction acquired, and the baseline risk varied between questions. The VSLs for fire and drowning accidents were found to be about 1/3 lower than that for traffic accidents. Although respondents worry more about traffic accidents, this alone cannot explain the difference in VSL estimates. The difference between fire and drowning accidents was not found to be statistically significant.
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Exogenous cortisol enhances aggressive behavior in females, but not in males
Robina Böhnke, Katja Bertsch, Menno Kruk, Steffen Richter & Ewald Naumann
Psychoneuroendocrinology, August 2010, Pages 1034-1044
Abstract:
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays a major role in the development, elicitation, and enhancement of aggressive behavior in animals. Increasing evidence suggests that this is also true for humans. Here, we report on a study of the role of basal and acute HPA axis activity in a sample of 48 healthy male and female adults. We pharmacologically enhanced cortisol levels and used the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) to induce and measure aggression (divided into three blocks). Participants either received an oral dose of 20 mg hydrocortisone (cortisol group) or a placebo (placebo group). Half of each group received high or low levels of provocation with the TAP, respectively. Before, we assessed the cortisol awakening response as a trait measure of basal HPA axis activity. Participants in the cortisol group reacted more aggressively in the third block of the TAP compared to the placebo group. Furthermore, gender interacted with treatment: only females, but not males showed enhanced aggressive behavior after cortisol administration. There was no significant difference in males between the placebo and cortisol group. Basal HPA axis activity was negatively related to aggressive behavior, but again only in females and most strongly within the placebo group. This study provides the first evidence for a causal involvement of acute HPA axis activation in aggressive behavior in humans.
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Neural Mechanisms of the Testosterone-Aggression Relation: The Role of Orbitofrontal Cortex
Pranjal Mehta & Jennifer Beer
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, October 2010, Pages 2357-2368
Abstract:
Testosterone plays a role in aggressive behavior, but the mechanisms remain unclear. The present study tested the hypothesis that testosterone influences aggression through the OFC, a region implicated in self-regulation and impulse control. In a decision-making paradigm in which people chose between aggression and monetary reward (the ultimatum game), testosterone was associated with increased aggression following social provocation (rejecting unfair offers). The effect of testosterone on aggression was explained by reduced activity in the medial OFC. The findings suggest that testosterone increases the propensity toward aggression because of reduced activation of the neural circuitry of impulse control and self-regulation.
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Yongwen Jiang, Donald Kent Perry & Jana Earl Hesser
American Journal of Public Health, forthcoming
Objectives: We analyzed Rhode Island's 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data to investigate suicide patterns and their association with suicide risk predictors among public high school students.
Methods: We used latent class regression analysis of Rhode Island's 2007 YRBS data (from a random sample of 2210 public high school students) to model latent classes of suicide risk and identify predictors of latent class membership.
Results: Four latent classes of suicide risk were modeled and predictors were associated with each: class 1 (emotionally healthy, 74%); class 2 (considered and planned suicide, 14%) was associated with being female, having low grades, being gay/lesbian/bisexual/unsure, feeling unsafe at school, having experienced forced sexual intercourse, and self-perceived overweight; class 3 (attempted suicide, 6%) was associated with speaking a language other than English at home, being gay/lesbian/bisexual/unsure, feeling unsafe at school, and forced sexual intercourse; and class 4 (planned and attempted suicide, 6%) was associated with the previously mentioned predictors and with being in 9th or 10th grade and currently smoking.
Conclusions: A single model characterized and quantified 4 patterns of suicide risk among adolescents and identified predictors for 3 at-risk classes. Interventions for high-risk youths may help prevent adolescent suicides.
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Douglas Cooper, Jamie Goldenberg & Jamie Arndt
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
From the perspective of the terror management health model (TMHM), expectancies as to whether a health behavior is likely to effectively protect one's health (i.e., response efficacy) and whether an individual is optimistic about the outcomes of his or her health risk assessment (i.e., health optimism) should have a more potent influence on health decisions when thoughts of death are conscious and the health risk domain is potentially fatal. Supporting this, health optimism and response efficacy were found to moderate skin cancer prevention intentions in response to conscious, but not nonconscious, reminders of death, whereas this same relationship was not found in the context of priming thoughts associated with uncertainty. Moreover, these effects were not observed in response to nonfatal dental care outcomes. Discussion focuses on the implications of TMHM for existing health models and health promotion.
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Suicide in England and Wales 1861-2007: A time-trends analysis
Kyla Thomas & David Gunnell
International Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Background: Suicide is one of the leading causes of premature mortality worldwide. Few studies have assessed long-term trends or sex differences in its incidence over time. We have investigated the age-, sex- and method-specific trends in suicide in England and Wales from 1861 to 2007.
Methods: Overall age-standardized suicide rates using the European Standard Population and age-, sex- and method-specific rates were calculated for ages 15 years from 1861 to 2007.
Results: Rates in males were consistently higher than females throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, although the male-to-female sex ratio fluctuated from 4 : 1 in the 1880s to 1.5 : 1 in the 1960s. Suicide rates increased in all age groups in the 1930s, coinciding with the Great Depression. The highest male rates (30.3 per 100 000) were recorded in 1905 and 1934 and have since been declining. Female rates peaked in the 1960s (11.8 per 100 000), declining afterwards. In both sexes the lowest recorded rates were in the 21st century. There was a rapid rise in the use of domestic gas as a method of suicide in both sexes following its introduction at the end of the 19th century. There was no evidence that this rise was accompanied by a decline in the use of other methods. Self-poisoning also increased in popularity from the 1860s (5% of suicides) to the 1990s (22% of suicides).
Conclusions: The epidemiology of suicide in England and Wales has changed markedly over the past 146 years. The rapid rise in gas suicide deaths in the 1920s highlights how quickly a new method of suicide can be established in a population when it is easily available. The increase in suicides during the Great Depression has implications in relation to the current economic crisis. Changes in the acceptability and lethality of various suicide methods may account for the large variations in sex ratios over time.
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Andreas Dinkel, Jens Baumert, Natalia Erazo & Karl-Heinz Ladwig
Journal of Psychiatric Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Current knowledge on behavioural patterns and personal characteristics of subjects who choose the railway as means of suicide is sparse. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of three distinct behaviour patterns (jumping, lying, wandering) in railway suicides and to explore associated variables. Cases were derived from the National Central Registry of person accidents on the German railway net covering the period from 2002 to 2006. A retrospective analysis of registry protocols of all 4127 suicidal acts allowed classification of behaviour patterns in 1004 cases. Types of suicidal behaviour occurred with nearly equal frequencies; jumping in 32.2%, lying in 32.6% and wandering in 34.2% of cases. Age and sex were not associated with type of suicidal behaviour. The proportion of jumping was highest during 9:01 am to 6:00 pm while at night, lying was used most frequently. Jumping predominated in the station area, while lying and wandering on the open track. Fatality was highest in liers and lowest in jumpers. The frequency of jumping decreased during the study period by 12.6% (p < .05). These findings may help to elucidate differential risk features of this highly lethal suicide method.