Quotes

"He who angers you conquers you" -- Elizabeth Kenny "Non-violence is the first article of my faith and it is the last article of my creed“ -- Mahatma Gandhi "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war“ -- Einstein “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one" -- Benjamin Franklin "If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape 100 days of sorrow“ --- Chinese Proverb

What are some examples of aggressive or violent behavior?

What cultural factors influence the rate of violent crime?

Aggression definition: Any behavior that is intended to harm another living being

Types of Aggression

Physical Verbal Direct

(victim present) Hitting, stabbing, shooting, Yelling, name calling, cursing

Indirect

(victim not present) Letting air out of someone’s tires Spreading rumors

Relational (Social)

: Harming other social relationships/acceptance Gossiping, exclusion from a group, ignoring someone. On TV, most commonly performed by attractive females whose behavior is often rewarded and justified (Coyne & Archer, 2004)

Displaced:

Directed at a substitute target (e.g., boss yells at employee, employee yells at children/spouse when at home)

Comparison of Homicide Rates Across Countries

# 1 United States:11,877,218 # 2 United Kingdom:6,523,706 # 3 Germany:6,507,394 # 4 France:3,771,850 # 5 Russia:2,952,370 # 6 Japan:2,853,739 # 7 South Africa:2,683,849 # 8 Canada:2,516,918 # 9 Italy:2,231,550 # 10 India:1,764,630 # 11 Korea, South:1,543,220 # 12 Mexico:1,516,029 # 13 Netherlands:1,422,863 # 14 Poland:1,404,229 # 15 Argentina:1,340,529 # 16 Sweden:1,234,784 # 17 Belgium:973,548 # 18 Spain:923,271 # 19 Chile:593,997 # 20 Thailand:565,108 SOURCE: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)

Source: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/violent-crime

National Homicide & Forcible Rape

Year

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Homicide #

16,740 17,309 17,128 16,465 15,399 14,748

Homicide rate

5.6

5.8

5.7

5.4

5.0

4.8

Forcible Rape #

94,347 94,472 92,160 90,750 89,241 84,767

Forcible Rape Rate

31.8

31.6

30.6

29.8

29.1

27.5

Source: FBI at http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s. 2010/tables/10tbl01.xls

Violence on School Campuses Columbine High School: 14 students and 1 teacher killed Virginia Tech shooting 33 people killed

Capital Punishment --- The Death Penalty 3 Since 1976 157 Since 1976 1115 Since 1976

Is There A Racial Bias in the Application of the Death Penalty? Source: Deathpenaltyinfo.org

Execution Information In April (2012) Connecticut voted to abolish the death penalty, Click here to see states with and without the death penalty

Number of Exonerations By Basis and Over Time (N = 891) e.g., false or misleading forensic evidence, mistaken witness identification, official misconduct, perjury or false accusation.

Various crimes such as: Murder, Sex abuse/assault, Kidnapping, Assault, Robbery) Table Source: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/exonerations_us_1989_2012_key_figures.pdf

Main page: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx

Executing An Innocent Person?

The wrong Carlos: how Texas sent an innocent man to his death. Groundbreaking Columbia law school study sets out in shocking detail the flaws that led to Carlos DeLuna's execution in 1989 A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices on the US supreme court, made a bold statement. There has not been, he said, "a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops.” Scalia may have to eat his words. It is now clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit, and his name – Carlos DeLuna – is being shouted from the rooftops of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. The august journal has cleared its entire spring edition, doubling its normal size to 436 pages, to carry an extraordinary investigation by a Columbia law school professor and his students.

Los Tocayos Carlos: An Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution, is based on six years of intensive detective work by Professor James Liebman and 12 students. What they discovered stunned even Liebman, who, as an expert in America's use of captial punishment was well versed in its flaws. "It was a house of cards. We found that everything that could go wrong did go wrong," he says.

From the moment of his arrest until the day of his death by lethal injection six years later, DeLuna consistently protested he was innocent. He went further – he said that though he hadn't committed the murder, he knew who had. He even named the culprit: a notoriously violent criminal called Carlos Hernandez.

Source: The Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/15/carlos-texas-innocent-man death?newsfeed=true

Carlos DeLuna 'Los tocayos Carlos' – Hernandez and DeLuna looked so alike that they were sometimes mistaken for twins. Photographs: Corpus Christi police department/DeLuna family/Hernandez family/Texas dept of criminal justice/Corpus Christi Caller Times

Aggression Factors

Genetics

-- Identical twin studies; .30 correlation)

Physiology

Limbic system (e.g., amygdala) Hormones (testosterone; more equates to greater aggression) Neurotransmitters (serotonin; more leads to

lower

aggression)

Aggression Factors (cont.)

• Pain/discomfort (e.g., heat, frustration, stress) Social learning/Modeling (Role of the media)

Violent Crime Ratio 40 35 30 25 20 15 Temperature and Aggression (cont.) 40-57 69-72 78-80 85-88 93-95 Temperature (Fahrenheit)

Temperature and Aggression (cont.) .6

HBP per game .5

.4

.3

< 70 70-79 80-89 90 and above Temperature (Fahrenheit)

Phrases

: • • • “Hot headed” “Hot under the collar” “My blood is boiling”

Shock intensity 5.5

5.0

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

Alcohol and Aggression

Low aggressors High aggressors Sober Intoxicated

Alcohol and Aggression (Why the connection?

•

Impairment of cognitive processing

obvious ones) (e.g., “alcohol myopia” – narrows the range of cues focused upon; focus on the only most •

Disruption of executive (high level) functioning

(reduction of inhibitory control lowers ones inhibitions)

Characteristics of Violent Stimuli

A) Behavior is rewarded B) Exiting (emotionally arousing) C) Realistic D) Behavior is justified E) Behavior is not criticized F) intent to injure

Association Between Aggressive Behavior and:

•

Media Violence

(e.g., TV, Movies, Video Games) • Sports (e.g., Boxing) Modeling Explanation - • Publicity Effect • Victim Similarity (i.e., race of loser) • War War and Homicide Rates --- Pre and Post war rates • Dose of war • Labeling Issue

Media Influence

• Children spent about 53 hrs/week consuming media (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009) • 60 % of TV programs contain violence • 85 % of the most popular video games are violent • Television characters are 1000 times more likely to be murdered than those in real life (Robson, 1992)

Children’s shows Prime-time shows 80 70 % of characters 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Violent characters Victims of violence Perpetrators or victims of violence

Aggressive Cues and Violence

TV Show Neutral Violent (swat team and use of walkie-talkie) Interview before hockey game Tape recorder Walkie-talkie Played in hockey game • Those who watched the violent TV show and were interviewed with a walkie talkie (aggressive cue) behaved more aggressively

Aggression Levels High Medium Low Low aggressors High aggressors Neutral film Violent film

Video Games Playing violent video games lead to an increase in aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. But effects only last about 15 minutes (Sestir & Barthlow, 2010) If players think about the violence in the video game, effects can last up to 24 hours (Bushman & Gibson, 2010)

Violent Music Lyrics Effects on: • State hostility • Aggressive thoughts • Aggression-related thoughts, feelings --- Repeated exposure issue and role of imagination

Comparison of the Effect of Violent Media on Aggression with Effects From Other Domains Smoking and lung cancer Media violence and aggression Condom use and sexually transmitted HIV Passive smoking and lung cancer at work Lead exposure and children’s IQ Nicotine patch and smoking cessation Calcium intake and bone mass Homework and academic achievement Asbestos and laryngeal cancer Self-examination and breast cancer From Bushman, B.J., & Anderson, C. A. (2001). Media violence and the American public: Scientific facts versus media misinformation,

American Psychologist

, June/July, 477-489.

-.2 -.1 0 .1 .2 .3 .4

FCC Chairman Reed Hundt • “If a sitcom can sell soap, salsa, and cereal, then who could argue that TV violence cannot affect to some degree some viewers, particularly impressionable children?”

(2003)

Methods to Reduce Aggression

Catharsis:

The venting of one’s aggressive impulses (e.g., punching a pillow, hammering nails, slamming doors).

Venting (catharsis)

DOES NOT

work!!! Indeed, it can increase aggression!

Rewarding positive/non-aggressive

behavior

Social skills training

(how to better interpret verbal and non-verbal behaviors of other in social situations Exposure to

prosocial

role models/media

Violence Against Women --- Pornography

How would you

define

pornography? (Any examples?)

SUPREME COURT

• Explicit sex • Community standards • Content is without redeeming social value Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.

But I know it when I see it

, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” • Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964)

Goya, Francisco

The Nude Maja 1800 Oil on canvas 97 x 190 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid

Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique

The Turkish Bath 1862 Oil on canvas on wood Diameter 42 1/2" (108 cm) Musee du Louvre, Paris

Nude in the Sunlight

, 1876, 81x64,5cm. Paris, Musee d'Orsay.

Antonio Allegri

, known as

Correggio

1489?-1534

Venus

,

Satyr and Cupid

c. 1525

Jean-Jacques,

known as

James Pradier

1790-1852

Satyr and Bacchante

Dated 1834 Marble Michelangelo's statue of "David."

Defining Obscenity (1) an “average person, applying contemporary community standards must find . . . the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest”; (2) “the work must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically de- fined by the applicable state law; and (3) ”(3) “the work, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

Violence Against Women --- The Role of Violent vs. and Sexually Explicit Images

Some Film Type Studies:

• Sexually explicit (e.g., X-rated) • Sexually aggressive (e.g., rape scenes) • Violence (e.g., murder, assault) • “Teen sex” films • Neutral Angered or not

Effects on:

Reactions to films (e.g., habituation, viewed as less offensive/violent) Negative attitudes/perceptions towards females Violent behavior

Desensitization From: Linz, D, G., Donnerstein, E., & Penrod, S. (1988). Effects of long-term exposure to violent and sexually degrading depictions of women. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 55,

(5),758-768

Participants watch 1 film per day for 5 days. Then served as jurors in a mock jury trial • Female viewed as more responsible for the attack • Female seen as resisting less • Female perceived as being hurt less severely • Less sympathy for the victim From: Linz, Donnerstein, and Penrod (1984).

Films had no effect on male targets whereas both types of aggressive erotic films increased aggression toward the female Angered male subjects were more aggressive toward the female after viewing either aggressive erotic film but that only the positive-outcome aggressive film increased aggression in non-angered subjects.

1930s-era female statue representing the "Spirit of Justice” in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice

Frequency:

• R-rated film possess greater number and proportion of aggressive scenes • R-rated films have more graphic depictions of aggression (Palys, 1986) • “Porn” films (e.g., “stag” movies) from 1915 – 1972: Rape depictions occurred about 5% of the time (Slade, 1984). Images of sexual violence is included in 1/3000 pages and in less than 4/1000 pictures

Some General Findings:

• Sexually-aggressive films = highest aggression levels • Aggression-only films (no sex) = greater aggression than sexually explicit film and no difference between the sex-only film and the control condition (Donnerstein, Berkowitz, & Linz, 1986) This is material suited for prime-time programming!!! So, violent material (sexually explicit or not) promotes violent behavior

Summary

“… depictions of

violence against women

, whether in a sexually explicit context or not, should be the focus of concern.” (Linz & Donnerstein, 1990) “we should be concerned about the detrimental effects of exposure to violent images both in pornography and elsewhere ---particularly material that portrays the myth that women enjoy or in some way benefit from rape, torture, or other forms of sexual violence. The portrayal of this theme is not found only in pornography. To single out pornography for mire stringent legal action is inappropriate, based on the empirical research. Mass media depictions portray the same myth even though they contain little explicit sex or are only mildly sexually explicit …

It is now fairly well documented that violent material, whether sexually explicit or not, has the potential to promote violent behavior following exposure”

(Linz, Donnerstein, & Penrod, 1987 – in the American Psychologist)

Psychological vs. Legal Interpretations

California Assembly Bill 1179 (2005), Cal. Civ. Code Ann. §§ 1746– 1746.5 (West 2009) (Act): prohibits the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors, and requires their packaging to be labeled “18.” The Act covers games “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted” in a manner that “[a] reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors,” that is “patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suit- able for minors,” and that “causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.” § 1746.3.

§ 1746(d)(1)(A). Violation of the Act is punishable by a civil fine of up to $1,000.

Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn. (2010) Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media.

These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them,6 and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively (which would at least be a beginning). Instead, “nearly all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology.”