Reducing Interpersonal Violence

A Psychological Perspective

Clive Hollin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351803007
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie sociale

There are many types of interpersonal violence that can lead to short- and long-term physical and psychological effects on those involved. Reducing Interpersonal Violence reflects on the World Health Organization's stance that interpersonal violence is a public health problem and considers what steps can realistically be taken towards its reduction.

Clive Hollin examines interpersonal violence across a range of settings, from bullying at school and in the workplace, smacking children and partner violence in the home, to sexual and other forms of criminal violence in the community. This book summarises the research on evidence-based strategies to reduce violence and shows that reducing interpersonal violence can have a positive effect on people's wellbeing and may save a great deal of public expenditure.

This book is an invaluable resource for students and researchers in the fields of psychology, criminology, law, and police studies, as well as professionals such as probation staff and forensic psychologists.

1

Interpersonal violence

A psychological perspective

The World Report on Violence and Health published by the World Health Organization (Krug et al., 2002) was unequivocal in “Declaring violence a major and growing health problem across the world” (p. ix). However, despite the seriousness of the matter, there is some debate in the literature regarding a satisfactory definition of violence. Lee (2015) suggests a wide-ranging definition:

The intentional reduction of life or thriving of life in human being(s) by human being(s), through physical, structural, or other means of force, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in deprivation, maldevelopment, psychological harm, injury, death, or extinction of the species.

(p. 202)

Lee’s definition speaks to the widespread nature of violence and its many adverse physical, sometime fatal, and psychological consequences for the victim. The WHO report attempted to manage the diversity of acts that fall under the rubric of violence by forming the three categories of self-directed violence, interpersonal violence, and collective violence. The term interpersonal violence is used here in the same sense as in the World Report on Violence and Health. Thus, interpersonal violence covers of acts of principally face-to-face violence, excluding violence in the wider context of war and terrorism, between people either within the same family or wider community. In addition, many forms of interpersonal violence are punishable by law and may therefore be described as criminal violence.

Kazdin (2011) makes the point that interpersonal violence can be considered in two ways. The molecular view, to use Kazdin’s terminology, conceives of interpersonal violence as a set of different types of violent act, categorised by setting, type of perpetrator, the nature of the act and so on. Thus, for example, a meaningful distinction can be drawn between physical child abuse and the sexual assault of an adult. In contrast, Kazdin’s molar view takes interpersonal violence as a complex phenomenon, with no neat divisions between its many forms, which is embedded in a nest of other social, political, and economic problems such as inequality and poverty.

The sheer complexity of the molar view, Kazdin argues, means there can be no “silver bullet” that will make interpersonal violence disappear. This view resonates with the view of archaeologists such as LeBlanc (2003) who see warfare as an intractable aspect of human existence. There have been wars between nations and within nations since time immemorial, there are wars being fought as you read this sentence, and there will undoubtedly be wars to be fought in the future. Wars may start and wars may end; warfare is for ever. In contrast to the enormity of conflict between nations, some forms of interpersonal violence, such as violence in the context of sport, are generally accepted as commonplace “everyday” violence.

The scale of the problem of violence, alongside its dynamic, shifting and changing, complex nature means that the evidence base will always be incomplete. A World Health Organization Report (WHO, 2014) laments the gaps in the data which act to hinder progress in developing evidence-based violence prevention strategies. The lack of contemporaneous evidence acts to compound the difficulties of knowing which strategies to apply to reduce violence most effectively.

The broad understanding of interpersonal violence used here, which will be used as a springboard for considering strategies to reduce violence, is that interpersonal violence is a social act. This is not to discount non-social influences on behaviour (Fox, 2017), rather to say that the actions of those engaged in the violence are to be considered in their social and situational context. The notion of a person–situation interaction is, of course, highly familiar within mainstream psychology (e.g., Bandura, 1977) and has been applied specifically to violent behaviour (e.g., Allen, Anderson, & Bushman, 2018; Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Bandura, 1978; Nietzel, Hasemann, & Lynam, 1999).

A person–situation approach has three component parts. Thus, as applied to interpersonal violence, the first part is the setting in which the violence takes place. The setting has several characteristics, any and all of which may be present in a given incident, which include the type of place (home, public bar, street, etc.), the presence and numbers of other people, the physical temperature, and whether weapons are present (see Hollin, 2016; Krahé, 2013).

The second part lies in qualities of the individual in the given setting; these qualities will be a combination of static and dynamic factors. Static factors include the person’s age, gender, and whether they have a history of violence. Dynamic factors relate to the individual’s functioning during the incident which may fluctuate and change as events unfold. Thus, dynamic factors include the individual’s cognition and emotion as well as their mental health and use of drugs and alcohol. Finally, the third part concerns the nature of the interactions between those involved in the incident.

In many cases an act of interpersonal violence is the product of a series of exchanges between those involved. Luckenbill (1977) called these exchanges a situated transaction. In an analysis of incidents which had culminated in murder, although the sequence applies equally well to other types of interpersonal violence, Luckenbill described six stages in the build-up to the final act.

In the first stage the eventual victim makes the first move in the form of spoken words, an act, or a refusal to comply with a request from the other person. At stage two the eventual offender sees a personal insult in the other person’s words or actions leading, at stage three, to the offender seeking confirmation of the perceived insult and reacting with an insult of their own. This insult offers a challenge to the victim to continue the exchanges thereby placing the victim, at stage four, in the same position as the offender in stage two: their options are to respond to the challenge, to apologise, or to leave and “lose face”. If the victim responds, so accepting the challenge, a “working agreement” is in place such that violence becomes highly likely.

At stage five the physical battle commences with, in some instances, the use of weapons; Luckenbill reports that in just over one-third of cases the offender was carrying a gun or a knife while in other cases the offender either left and returned with a gun or knife or they seized whatever was at hand, such as a broken glass, to use as a weapon. The use of weapons is culturally bound: Luckenbill’s analysis was based on cases in California, USA. In about one-half of the incidents the victim was killed quickly with a single shot or stab; in the other cases the fight was two-sided, with both protagonists armed, and it was after an exchange of blows that the victim was killed. In the final stage about one-half of offenders ran from the scene, about one-third voluntarily waited for the police, and the remainder were prevented from leaving by bystanders until the police arrived.

It is implicit in the description of the social exchanges that, for both offender and victim, the perceptions of the other person’s actions and intentions are driving the sequence of interactions. However, as Luckenbill notes, these perceptions are not necessarily accurate and, given the context, situational factors may lead to misperceptions. The exchanges may take place in front of other people, both acquaintances and strangers, who may encourage the protagonists’ increasingly aggressive behaviour. In addition, as the transaction progresses so emotions are likely to become heightened with one or both of those involved becoming angry, excited, or anxious as violence draws close.

A myriad of factors may influence the outcome of these social exchanges. Individuals will act differently because of variations in their perception and appraisal of the situation and those involved. There will also be variations in each individual’s values, morals, social problem-solving skills, and experience of violence. In addition, factors such as the effects of alcohol, the use of weapons, the presence of mental disorder, and high levels of emotionality may influence interpersonal exchanges, making violence more or less likely to occur. As these factors are potentially active across different types of interpersonal violence a brief overview of each is given below.

The effects of alcohol

The association between alcohol and violence is firmly established in the research literature (e.g., Boden, Fergusson, & Horwood, 2013; Parrott & Eckhardt, 2018) and is recognised around the globe (World Health Organization, 2008). The Institute of Alcohol Studies (2010) have summarised some key statistics about the alcohol–crime relationship: (1) approximately one-third of violent offenders have a drink problem, including binge-drinking; (2) alcohol use is prevalent in close to one-half of convicted domestic violence offenders; (3) about 20 per cent of those arrested by the police test positive for alcohol; (4) alcohol is common in many different types of violent crimes against the person, including homicide, wounding, affray, and domestic violence, as well as property crime (Cordilia, 1985); (5) a high proportion of both offenders and victims of violent crime are under the influence at the time the offence occurs.

Of course, the setting in which the violence takes place is also important: violent incidents cluster around the immediate vicinity of bars and clubs, so it is highly likely that all those involved, offender, victim, and bystanders, will have consumed alcohol (Ratcliffe, 2012). It follows that alcohol problems are widespread among convicted violent offenders (MacAskill et al., 2011) and victims of violent crime (Branas et al., 2009). Yet further, the alcohol-crime relationship is found for males and females, adolescents and young adults (Popovici, et al., 2012).

The use of weapons

The presence of a weapon in a potentially violent situation acts to prime hostile thoughts among those involved, in turn making it more likely that the weapon will be used (Bartholow, et al., 2005; Benjamin & Bushman, 2018; Cukier & Eagen, 2018). If a weapon is used, with some weapons more lethal than others, the risk of serious injury and death is substantially increased. Brennan and Moore (2009) note that in both America and the UK weapons are used in about one-quarter of violent incidents. A person may have a weapon for several reasons: (i) the weapon may be for self-protection; (ii) to threaten other people; (iii) deliberately to harm another person; (iv) to act as a status symbol; (v) to bolster self-image.

Mental disorder

Another factor to consider lies in the quality of the violent individual’s mental health. The relationship between mental health and violence, mainly criminal violence, has concentrated upon the disorders of psychosis, mainly schizophrenia, and personality disorder.

There is research evidence to indicate that, compared with the general population, men and women with psychosis have an elevated risk of conviction for violent offences (e.g., Bonta, Blais, & Wilson, 2014; Douglas, Guy, & Hart, 2009; Fazel & Yu, 2009; Hodgins, 2008; Witt, van Dorn, & Fazel, 2013). It appears that people with a mental disorder are overly represented among perpetrators of homicide. In a typical study, Meehan et al. (2006) reviewed 1,594 cases of homicide in England and Wales committed between 1996 and 1999. They reported that 85 (5%) of the sample had a formal diagnosis of schizophrenia: this figure stands in contrast to an incidence of schizophrenia of 1 per cent in the general population.

Violence and schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is characterised by delusions, hallucinations, and confused speech which can be of sufficient severity to bring about changes in behaviour which precipitate social or occupational difficulties. Bo et al. (2011) described two trajectories to explain the association between schizophrenia and violence. In the first trajectory, the primary explanation lies in the presence of psychopathic and antisocial personality disorder with the psychotic symptoms of secondary concern. Those individuals in this trajectory had a history of antisocial behaviour which preceded the onset of schizophrenia. In the second trajectory, the primary explanation is a high occurrence of symptoms – including persecutory delusions, “threat control override” symptoms, and command hallucinations – often without a history of antisocial behaviour. Threat control override symptoms, often implicated in violence (Braham, Trower, & Birchwood, 2004; Bucci et al., 2013), may be experienced as a delusion that other people are trying to cause personal harm or control one’s thoughts and actions. These specific aspects of schizophrenia associated with violence should be seen in the larger context of social conditions and other physiological and psychological aspects of the disorder (Steinert & Whittington, 2013).

An individual may have concurrent, or comorbid, mental health problems. A large proportion, perhaps half, of people with schizophrenia have a comorbid substance use disorder (Volkow, 2009). Given the association between alcohol and violence, a combination of schizophrenia and alcohol misuse potentially raises the risk of violence (Fazel et al., 2009).

Violence and personality disorder

There are several types of personality disorder (PD) defined by diagnostic systems such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Yu, Geddes, and Fazel (2012) conducted a systematic review of the evidence and concluded that as compared to the general population PD was associated with a threefold higher risk of violence. The risk of violence associated with PD was similar to the risk levels for those with other mental disorders such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. However, if the PD was specifically Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) the risk of violence rose significantly to levels comparable to the risks associated with drug and alcohol abuse. In addition, APD increased the probability of reoffending to a higher level than other psychiatric conditions. In a British survey using DSM-IV, Coid et al. (2017) found that APD was the personality disorder most strongly associated with violence and was three times more prevalent in men than in women.

DSM-5 specifies four diagnostic criteria for APD (see Table 1.1): (1) a disregard for the rights of other people which is longstanding and may have been evident from childhood; (2) the individual has reached 18 years of age; (3) there is evidence of Conduct Disorder before the age of 15 years; (4) the antisocial behaviour is evident not only during an episode of schizophrenia or mania.

TABLE 1.1 Summary of DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for APD

A. Disregard for and violation of the rights of other people since 15 years of age as seen by: (i) Breaking the law; (ii) Lying and manipulation for profit or fun; (iii) Impulsive behaviour; (iv) High levels of aggression evinced by frequent involvement in fights and assaults; (v) Deliberate disregard for own and other people’s safety; (vi) A pattern of irresponsibility; (vii) An absence of remorse.

B. The individual is at least 18 years of age.

C. Conduct disorder was present before 15 years of age.

D. The individual was not diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder when the antisocial behaviour occurred.

DSM-5 presents several specific instances by which the first criterion, a callous disregard for the rights of others, may be seen which illustrate the essence of APD. These instances are: (a) failing to follow accepted social norms as seen by a repetition of behaviours that give grounds for criminal arrest; (b) deceit for gain or personal pleasure through consistent lying or cheating; (c) impulsive behaviour; (d) belligerence leading to involvement in numerous fights or assaults; (e) an irresponsible disregard for the safety of self or others; (f) repeatedly losing employment and failure to maintain financial responsibilities; (g) failure to show remorse for victims.

It is evident that APD is strongly associated with criminal behaviour, particularly when it is comorbid with substance use disorders (Roberts & Coid, 2010; Walter et al., 2010). This association applies to offenders in both the criminal justice and mental health care systems. Similarly, psychopathic disorder, which has features in common with personality disorder, is also strongly associated with the likelihood of violent conduct (Lestico et al., 2008).

Emotional arousal

Anger is the emotion most readily associated with interpersonal violence. A person typically becomes angry when cues from their immediate environment, such as the words or actions of other people, provoke physical feelings and thoughts w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1. Interpersonal violence: A psychological perspective
• 2. Principles of reducing behaviour
• 3. Reducing ‘everyday violence’
• 4. Reducing violence at home
• 5. Reducing sexual violence
• 6. Reducing criminal violence
• 7. Could we do better?
• References
• Index