Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Chapter 6 in your textbook (located in attachments below). You may also want to review Chapter 8: Homicide in your textbook (also located below).
Your post should be at least 300 words in length. Support your claims with examples from the required materials and/or other scholarly sources, and properly cite any references.
Please elaborate on the following as you complete your discussion:
In your textbook, there are four different types of homicide offenders discussed: domestic-violence homicide offenders, felony homicide offenders, accident homicide offenders, and altercation-precipitated homicide offenders.
Based on your client’s case (your client is Aileen Wuornos, Florida serial killer) explain which type, if any, describes your client’s homicide offender type.
If you find that your client does not fall under any of the four types, elaborate on why you arrived at this conclusion.
Analyze common themes that arise in the research about the life experiences of homicide offenders.
8
Homicide
South_agency/E+/Getty Images Plus
Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
• Explain the availability heuristic and its impact on understanding homicide.
• Differentiate between the categories of homicide.
• Differentiate between serial, mass, and spree murderers.
• Describe the types of family violence that could end in homicide.
• Analyze the demographics of homicide.
• Analyze the extent to which homicide offenders may recidivate.
143
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Introduction
Section 8.1
Introductory Case Study: Jessica Colpitts
In Orofina, Idaho, in May 2017, Samantha Fignani suffered a fatal gunshot wound in her home.
She was just 23 years old. Her family, including her two young daughters, were devastated and
hoped for swift justice. The police took only 2 days to locate Fignani’s killer, a woman named Jessica Colpitts. According to police, Colpitts became enraged when her boyfriend, Joseph Walker,
admitted that he had been romantically involved with Fignani behind Colpitts’s back.
The police had an eyewitness to the shooting, along with jail telephone call recordings of conversations between Walker and Colpitts about Walker’s affair with Fignani. Not too long after the
jail telephone call, Colpitts enlisted the assistance of her friend, Cassie Madsen, to confront Fignani about the affair. Colpitts’s car was spotted on video driving toward Fignani’s home. Madsen
denied knowing that Colpitts would actually kill Fignani during the confrontation. Colpitts had
never been violent before and had never expressed a desire to harm anyone.
However, Colpitts fatally shot Fignani with a shotgun and then laughed as she and Madsen fled
the scene. At trial, Madsen testified that she was stunned that anyone could be so cold as to
laugh about having just shot someone to death in front of the victim’s children. Colpitts’s defense
attorneys tried to convince the jury that Madsen was the killer because there had been a fallout
between Madsen and Fignani over drugs. (Fignani was dealing methamphetamine and would
no longer sell to Madsen.) However, the jury rejected that argument and voted unanimously to
convict Jessica Colpitts of first-degree murder for killing Samantha Fignani.
As you read this chapter, consider the following questions regarding this case:
1. Why is homicide considered one of the most fascinating—and arguably the most challenging—issues in the psychological study of crime?
2. Do you think that Colpitts’s socioeconomic status and other situational factors led to
her committing murder?
3. A love triangle ending in murder might sound familiar. Do you think that homicides are
prevalent in today’s culture?
8.1 Introduction
Homicide may seem as though it is highly prevalent in our culture. True crime episodes of
Dateline and 48 Hours, other documentaries focused on homicide cases, and a number of fictional television shows and movies that glamorize murder and murderers seem to support
the belief that homicide is a frequently occurring crime. However, the data does not support
that notion. It’s important to understand the psychological foundation of our perceptions of
homicide frequency and the individuals who commit such violent acts, as well as the types of
homicides and associated variables.
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Availability Heuristic
Section 8.2
Though it may seem that individuals who commit homicide must be mentally ill, you may
recall from Chapter 2 that most individuals who suffer from serious mental illness are significantly more likely to be victimized than they are to perpetrate a crime. Perpetrators of homicide, for the most part, tend to appear outwardly normal. Recall Jessica Colpitts’s case from
the beginning of the chapter. It seems that she was fueled by jealousy and perhaps an inability
to control her impulses, despite a lack of any prior evidence that she was capable of such violence. In some other cases, murderers epitomize psychopaths in that they are cool, calm, and
calculated. Perhaps you are wondering how it is possible that seemingly normal individuals
are capable of perpetrating such brutal acts of violence, including taking another’s life. This is
a question for which there may be no precise or satisfactory response; however, this chapter
will examine some common features of individuals who kill.
The reality is that most homicide victims are killed by people who are known to them, and
in many cases the murderous violence was shockingly unpredictable. It may be rather unsettling to grasp that we cannot always predict with precision who will become homicidal or
when homicidal behavior will occur, but we will examine the tendencies and variables that
may lead up to these criminal acts.
8.2 Availability Heuristic
Given that there is so much news coverage of murder and homicide, it may lead us to assume
that murders are frequently occurring events. The truth is that homicides are rare. In 2017,
there were approximately 17,200 homicides in the United States. This may sound like a lot
of victims—and it is—but when considering this number out of the 1.2 million total violent
crimes reported by law enforcement agencies to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR)
program, it is a small proportion of the violent crime category. Specifically, only 1.4% of all
violent crimes in 2017 were homicides (FBI, 2018). This rate represents a slight decrease of
approximately 0.7% from 2016 but also shows a significant increase of approximately 17%
from 2013, when there were an estimated 14,200 homicides in the United States. This means
that homicides have increased over time.
Interestingly, where you live may determine whether you perceive that homicide is a frequently occurring crime. This is based on a social psychology concept called the availability
heuristic. The availability heuristic refers to the likelihood that individuals overestimate the
prevalence of certain events based on how easily these events come to mind. For example,
the UCR shows that nearly half of all murders in the United States in 2017 were committed
in the South (see Table 8.1). Therefore, in southern states, the news media frequently reports
stories of homicides, given that the majority of murders occur in that part of the country. The
availability heuristic predicts that individuals who live in the South will be more prone to
overestimate the prevalence of homicides than individuals in the Northeast, where the homicide rate is much lower.
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Section 8.3
Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Table 8.1: Offense and population percentage distribution by U.S. region, 2017
Region
U.S. total*
Northeast
Midwest
South
West
Population
100.0
17.3
20.9
38.0
23.8
100.0
11.3
22.6
45.9
20.2
Violent crime
Murder and nonnegligent
manslaughter
Rape
100.0
100.0
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Property crime
Burglary
Larceny-theft
Motor vehicle theft
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
13.4
12.4
15.3
12.9
11.4
9.1
12.6
7.3
*Because of rounding, the percentages may not add up to 100.0.
20.2
24.6
19.1
19.9
19.6
19.6
19.8
17.8
40.8
37.0
38.0
42.5
41.9
44.9
42.1
35.5
25.5
26.0
27.7
24.7
27.0
26.3
25.5
39.4
Note. Sufficient data are not available to estimate totals for arson. Therefore, no arson data are published in this table.
Source: “Table 3: Crime in the United States,” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018 (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s
/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-3/table-3.xls#overview).
8.3 Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
The concept of murder is commonly understood, but Black’s Law Dictionary (Garner, 2014)
has a substantive and technical definition of murder that includes a clear psychological
component—the ability to form intent to commit murder. In criminal law, intent refers to
the subjective state of mind in which the perpetrator makes “a decision to bring about a
prohibited consequence” (R. v. Mohan, 1994). Specifically, the definition includes language
referring to the perpetrator’s mental state, such as “of sound mind and discretion,” and
“deliberate action” (Garner, 2014, p. 1170) to describe the perpetrator’s goal of causing lifeending harm to the victim. The existence of these psychological and behavioral elements
are components of determining whether the murder constitutes criminal homicide, murder that contains the element of intent to cause the death of another and is considered
neither excusable nor justifiable, such as in Jessica Colpitts’s case.
The legal system further classifies criminal homicide into subtypes of murder, generally broken down into “degrees,” such as first-, second-, and third-degree murder (or manslaughter).
These subtypes are related to the perpetrator’s mental state and are influenced by the perceived heinousness of the murder. The classification system used by authorities to categorize types of homicides and perpetrators is in place for the purpose of record keeping and
reporting. This facilitates ease of research in terms of analyzing whether there is something
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Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Section 8.3
fundamentally different from a behavioral and psychological perspective between individuals who, for example, commit first- or third-degree murder or between serial killers and mass
murderers.
First-Degree Murder
First-degree murder, also known as premeditated murder, refers to the unlawful killing of
another that must have the intentional element of malice aforethought (Garner, 2014). Malice aforethought refers to the intent to cause significant harm to another. Premeditation
refers to planning, but it does not necessarily require a significant amount of time to form a
plan. Premeditation can occur in an instant, according to the law in most states. The seriousness of first-degree murder is such that the punishment may be as serious as the death penalty or life in prison, depending on the jurisdiction in which the murder took place. In the case
study at the beginning of the chapter, Jessica Colpitts was found guilty of first-degree murder
in the death of Samantha Fignani. The jury found that Colpitts willfully, and with malice aforethought, intended to cause Fignani harm by ending her life with the shotgun she brought to
Fignani’s home when Colpitts confronted her about the affair.
One type of first-degree murder is felony homicide. Felony homicide, or a homicide that
occurs during the commission of another felony, occurs as a form of instrumental aggression.
You will recall from Chapter 6 that instrumental aggression is “cool” aggression and occurs as
a means to an end. In felony homicide, the central goal of the perpetrator is typically to obtain
criminally some reward, such as cash, objects, or other desired goods possessed by another
person. The violent behavior is a means to obtain that goal. In the context of law, felony homicide is generally conceptualized as premeditated, first-degree murder.
Second-Degree Murder
Second-degree murder is commonly thought of as “depraved heart/mind” murder. The legal
definition used in most states for second-degree murder reveals the mental state underlying and driving the deadly form of human behavior with the use of words such as “depraved
mind,” “depraved heart,” and “reckless disregard” for the life of another. Though very serious
because it is an intentional killing, it lacks the first-degree murder element of premeditation
(Garner, 2014). Second-degree murder is punishable by life in prison in many jurisdictions,
but the judge may opt to sentence the perpetrator to a term of years instead of a life sentence.
One type of second-degree murder is altercation homicide. Altercation homicide occurs as
a result of hostile aggression. Recall from Chapter 6 that hostile aggression is “hot” aggression—that is, an impulsive reaction motivated by anger in response to the actual or perceived
aggressive behavior of the provocateur. The underlying motivation behind hostile aggression
is to cause harm, including homicide. In the context of the law, altercation homicide can best
be conceptualized as “heat of passion,” second-degree murder.
See Case Study: Josiah Hadley to read about how homicide charges take into consideration the
psychological functioning leading up to and at the time of the crime.
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Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Section 8.3
Case Study: Josiah Hadley
Griselle Martinez was just 22 years old when she was killed by her boyfriend, 24-year-old
Josiah Hadley. Martinez and Hadley were out with friends when they began arguing. The couple returned home, and as the evening wore on, the argument escalated to a physical altercation. A friend who was at their apartment when the physical altercation took place told police
that he saw Hadley over Martinez’s body, punching her. Hadley and his friends rushed Martinez to the hospital, where she died.
Hadley, his parents, and Martinez’s family were grief stricken. This was not something they
ever imagined was possible, given that Hadley was described by everyone who knew him as a
kind, caring, deeply religious, and responsible young man. Nevertheless, at trial the jury found
that Hadley killed Martinez with a depraved mind (i.e., showing no regard for human life;
second-degree murder). The jury believed that as the argument continued for hours, Hadley
became angry and lost his ability to control his own behavior.
Third-Degree Murder
Third-degree murder, more commonly known as manslaughter, is defined as an unintentional yet criminal homicide that lacks malice and premeditation (Garner, 2014). Manslaughter is a very serious crime because human life is lost as the direct result of the unlawful
behavior of another. However, in manslaughter the perpetrator has significantly less culpability than in first- or second-degree murder.
Manslaughter has two major categories: voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter.
Voluntary Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter is a “heat of passion” murder that lacks intent to commit murder
(Garner, 2014). The most commonly used example of voluntary manslaughter is that of a
spouse who arrives home unexpectedly to find the other spouse having an affair and “in the
heat of passion” murders the spouse and/or the paramour.
The “heat of passion” may also be present in non–love triangle cases, such as that of Diana
Lalchan, who shot her controlling and abusive husband, Christopher, in the back of the head
during a verbal argument. Diana feared that her husband was planning to kill her based on
the years of abuse she suffered. The state’s position was—and the jury agreed—that this was
not a case of self-defense. Christopher was not physically harming Diana at the time of the
shooting, and thus there was no imminent danger to her at that time. However, the years of
abuse influenced Diana’s perception that she was in danger, causing her to shoot Christopher.
The jury agreed that Diana had been abused by Christopher previously, yet they judged her
reaction at the time of his death as “extreme.” The jury found Diana guilty of voluntary manslaughter. That is, they found that in the “heat of the moment,” Diana killed her husband to
protect herself without malicious intent to cause him harm.
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Section 8.3
Categories, Definitions, and Statistics of Homicide
Involuntary Manslaughter
Involuntary manslaughter is an accidental murder that occurs during the commission of
an illegal act (Garner, 2014). To understand involuntary manslaughter, let’s explore the case
of Michigan state trooper Mark Bessner, whose actions led to the death of teenager Damon
Grimes. Bessner, in the passenger seat of his patrol vehicle while another officer was driving,
was in pursuit of Grimes, who was riding on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV). Bessner shot Grimes
with a Taser, leading Grimes to crash the vehicle and subsequently die. The state asserted
that Bessner shot Grimes knowing that the Taser would render Grimes unable to maintain
control of the ATV, thus potentially leading
to serious bodily harm, including death. The
jury was able to consider that Bessner had
previously improperly used his Taser on a
handcuffed man in another case, which was
a serious violation of police department
policy. Bessner had been disciplined by the
police department for that incident.
In this case, the jury found that Bessner did
not intend to kill Grimes but that his habit of
using his Taser unlawfully led directly to the
death of Grimes. They rendered a verdict of
guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
LIVINUS/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Involuntary manslaughter, such as killing
someone during a car accident, is an example
of an accidental murder.
Determining Mental State
The key element that distinguishes between the four major legal categories of murder we
have covered so far is the perpetrator’s psychological or mental state at the time just prior
to, during, and sometimes even after the commission of a homicide. It is important to understand that in the criminal justice system, each victim is considered a distinct and separate
count of murder, regardless of the type of murder the state charges. In other words, regardless of the total number of victims a perpetrator murders, each of those victims is treated as
an individual crime. Thus, if the perpetrator’s mental state varies such that malice, premeditation, and intent are different for each victim, then the type of murder charge will reflect that.
For example, in a convenience store robbery in which the perpetrator kills a bystander and
the clerk, each victim would be treated as a separate murder count, and thus there would be
two murder charges. The perpetrator may face a first-degree murder charge for planning to
rob the store and kill the clerk but perhaps a second-degree murder charge for killing the
bystander if the perpetrator did not plan to kill the second person at the scene.
Justifiable Homicide
Not all murders are deemed criminal. Justifiable homicide, described as killing someone out
of necessity, occurs because the victim perceives that he or she must defend him- or herself
from certain death.
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Section 8.4
Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Consider the case of Ethan Gratton, who shot and killed his friend in self-defense after the
friend and another man assaulted Gratton during an argument. The men punched Gratton
so hard that he lost a tooth and suffered a concussion and a broken nose. In the middle of
the attack, Gratton pulled his gun from his pocket and shot both men, killing his friend. The
other man survived. The state prosecuted Gratton because it believed he formed the intent
to kill. That is, the state’s position was that Gratton premeditated his friend’s death. The jury
disagreed and acquitted Gratton at trial. Although the friend died by Gratton’s hand, the jury
found that Gratton was justified in shooting the men in order to defend himself from further
injury, including his own death.
8.4 Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Additional murder classifications based on features of the crime scene or scenes have been
identified. These are serial killers and mass murderers. Serial killers and mass murderers are
generally charged with a single count of first-degree murder for each individual victim. The
number of first-degree murder cases the defendant faces depends on how many victims there
were in total. The distinguishing characteristic between a mass murderer and a serial killer is
the elapsed time between murders.
Additionally, it is worth noting that while less than 2% of all violent crimes are homicides,
serial murder is extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of all homicides (FBI, 2008).
Serial Killer
The FBI classifies a serial killer as a single perpetrator who murders three or more people on
separate occasions. The temporal separation between murders is often referred to as a coolingoff period. For a historical example of a serial killer, see Case Study: Clementine Barnabet.
Case Study: Clementine Barnabet
In January 1911 Louisiana authorities were notified of a horrific discovery that included three
obvious homicides. There was a couple and their young son lying in bed together. Police reports
stated that it was an incredibly gruesome scene in which the family of three had suffered massive head injuries, leaving them barely recognizable. Also found at the scene was a bucket full of
blood and a bloody ax. Newspaper reporters called the crime the most brutal they had ever seen,
but it was not the last. Ax murders continued throughout 1911 and 1912 in parts of Louisiana
and neighboring Texas. Police investigated several different men for the murders and eventually
arrested Raymond Barnabet, who was a local sharecropper with a criminal record for relatively
minor crimes.
Raymond Barnabet, by all accounts, was not a good man. He was controlling, possessive, and
abusive toward his wife and two children, Clementine and Zepherin. Clementine, approximately
17 years old, was happy to talk to police about a night that her father arrived home wearing
blood-soaked clothing. She told them that Raymond had threatened to kill her if she revealed this
information to anyone. At trial, both Clementine and her brother testified against their father.
(continued)
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Section 8.4
Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Case Study: Clementine Barnabet (continued)
However, while Raymond was in jail and his case was working its way through the legal system,
another ax murder took place. Once again, the murder claimed the lives of an entire family, but
because Raymond was in jail, he was effectively ruled out as the culprit. Police were already
suspicious of Clementine because they had found blood on women’s clothing that was hanging
in Clementine’s room when they arrested her father. Clementine asserted that her father had
wiped the blood on her clothing, but police investigators could not verify that Clementine had
an alibi for the evening of the most recent ax murder.
Police arrested Clementine and discovered through her confession that she had killed 35 people over approximately a one-and-a-half-year period. According to police, Clementine killed
these families because she believed that doing so would give her supernatural powers. The
media suggested that the murders were part of a voodoo ritual that Clementine and “many
others,” who were never identified, were involved in. They also suggested that Clementine
was a high priestess in a religious cult called the Church of Sacrifice. (The existence of such a
church has never been confirmed.) However, it is possible that this part of the story was fabrication based on the racial and class biases of that era, given that Clementine was an African
American woman in the Deep South during a time in history when African Americans’ rights
were limited through use of curfews, segregation, and other restrictions under the doctrine
that deemed African Americans “separate but equal.” The media may have been creating stories that took advantage of Clementine.
In Clementine’s case, she murdered entire families (multiple victims) at each crime scene, and
she was classified as a serial killer because there was a temporal separation between each set
of murders. That is, Clementine murdered, then some time passed, then she murdered again,
and so on until she was arrested.
Mass Murderer
Mass murder occurs when there are multiple victims (at least four) in a single location,
with no subsequent murder events because the murderer is typically captured or killed
before he or she can do any additional harm (FBI, 2008). Perhaps the most salient type of
mass murderer in recent history is that of
the mass shooter.
The deadliest mass shooting in the United
States to date is the Las Vegas massacre on
October 1, 2017, that claimed 58 lives. The
shooter, Stephen Paddock, killed himself
on the scene. The Pulse Nightclub shooting
perpetrated by Omar Mateen in Orlando,
Florida, on June 12, 2016, claimed 49 lives
and is the second most deadly mass murder in U.S. history to date.
However, mass murderers do not always
kill dozens of people in public places. See
Case Study: John List for another example
of who can be considered a mass murderer.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department/Associated Press
The interior of Stephen Paddock’s room at
Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada,
where Paddock fired on attendees of a nearby
music festival.
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Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, and Spree Killers
Section 8.4
Case Study: John List
In 1971 New Jersey accountant John List shot and killed his family of five, including his wife,
a teenage daughter, two teenage sons, and his own mother. It was weeks before neighbors
became concerned that they had not seen anyone entering or leaving the home and reported it
to police. When police entered the home, they heard loud organ music playing over the home’s
intercom system. In addition to discovering the five victims in the home, police also discovered
a five-page letter that List wrote to his pastor stating that he perpetrated the murders because
he “had seen too much evil in the world” and wanted to save the souls of his family members.
Between the murders and the police entering the home, List changed his identity to avoid
being found. He changed his name to Robert Clark and started a new life in Virginia, where he
lived quietly for approximately 18 years. In 1989 the FBI broadcast List’s case on a television
show called America’s Most Wanted, asking for the public’s assistance in locating John List.
A woman in Virginia called the tip line and reported that her neighbor, Robert Clark, looked
remarkably similar to the age-progressed image shown to viewers.
Thanks to the tip, the FBI finally captured List, who was working as an accountant, had remarried, and was active in his local church. At trial, the jury found List guilty of five counts of
murder, and he received five separate life sentences, one for each of the victims. List later
stated that he killed his family instead of himself because he feared that suicide would prevent
him from going to Heaven, where he was hoping to be reunited with the family members he
murdered.
Although List fatally shot his victims and this is the mode of death in many all-too-familiar
mass murder cases, he carried out the crime in the privacy of his own home instead of a public
venue. Nevertheless, List fits the FBI definition of mass murderer because he killed five people
in a single location with no cooling-off period between the murders. Moreover, there is no evidence that List committed any subsequent murders at any other location.
Spree Killer
Though the FBI murder classification system no longer uses the term spree killer, the media
sometimes still refers to these types of killers, which is why we’re discussing it here. Spree
killer was defined as someone who murders multiple people over a short time period but
in different geographic locations with no cooling-off period between murders. However, the
FBI received much criticism about the arbitrary definition of a cooling-off period (FBI, 2008).
Therefore, the FBI stopped using the term in 2005, deciding that spree killers were actually
serial killers whose murders may occur with little to no break between them.
To help explain why there was the third category in the first place, the example of Dwight
Lamon Jones may be helpful. In 2018 Jones went on a murderous rampage, killing six victims
in three Arizona cities over a 5-day period before killing himself. All the victims were professionals who were either directly or indirectly involved in Jones’s divorce proceedings years
earlier. It is important to note that, even though prior to 2005 he would have been considered
a spree killer, in the context of the current FBI murder classification typology, Jones’s category
is serial killer because his homicides took place over a short time period.
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
8.5 Family Violence
According to the UCR, in most of the 15,129 murders that were solved in the United States in
2017, the perpetrators were known to the victim either as an acquaintance or family member,
with only 9.7% of the cases being committed by a stranger (FBI, 2018). This indicates that
family and intimate partner violence are a leading cause of death by homicide. Figure 8.1
shows homicide victims by relationship to the perpetrator.
Figure 8.1: Homicide victims by their relationship
In this figure, the bar graphs and pie chart visually represent the relationships of the 15,129 murder
victims to their offenders in 2017.
Family
110
Husband
549
Wife
Mother
169
Father
186
Unknown
7,557 victims
Family
1,867 victims
50.0%
12.3%
253
Son
9.7%
179
Daughter
28.0%
98
Brother
27
Sister
Other known
4,236 victims
296
Other family
0
100
200
300
400
500
Stranger
1,469 victims
600
Other known
2,999
Acquaintance
431
Friend
181
Boyfriend
488
Girlfriend
114
Neighbor
Employee
17
Employer
6
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
From “UCR Supplemental Homicide Data 2017,” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the
-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/expanded-homicide).
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
Family violence is the umbrella term for any type of family violence in which there are a
small but significant number of family members who are emotionally or physically abused
or killed at the hands of another member of the family. These can include intimate partner
violence, familicide, filicide, and parricide.
It is difficult to get accurate data on the prevalence of the latter three types of homicides, perhaps because they are so rare and are not necessarily distinguished from other types of family
violence when the data are collected and recorded.
Intimate Partner Violence
According to the National Coalition Against
Domestic Violence (NCADV; 2019), approximately 10 million people annually experience intimate partner violence. Intimate
partner violence (previously known as
domestic violence) is the deliberate intimidation of a romantic partner—current or
former—that can include physical, sexual,
or other violence and abusive behavior as
a means of gaining or asserting dominance
AntonioGuillem/iStock/Getty Images Plus and control over the person (NCADV, 2019).
Physical or sexual intimidation of a romantic
Intimate partner violence is an all-inclusive
partner is known as intimate partner violence.
term meant to update the term domestic
Left unchecked, this can lead to intimate
violence to include same-sex partners and
partner homicide.
others who may or may not be married or
residing in the same household. This abuse
is frequently systematic with varying degrees of severity. That is, for some victims the abuse
is psychological and emotional, never resulting in physical injury. For others the abuse is
physical, leading to injury and possibly even death.
The NCADV (2019) reports that, on average, 1 in 3 female murder victims are killed by an
intimate partner, in contrast to 1 in 20 male victims who are killed by an intimate partner.
Nearly half of all female homicide victims are killed by a current intimate partner or a former partner, with approximately 10% of these homicide victims experiencing violence at the
hands of their murderer in the 30 days prior to being killed (Petrosky et al., 2017). However,
intimate partners were not the only individuals murdered in at least some of these homicide
cases. Approximately 20% of all murder victims were friends, family, and/or acquaintances
of domestic violence victims and were murdered because they were somehow related to or
intervened on behalf of the victim (NCADV, 2019).
See Case Study: Robert McCoy to read about a case in which intimate partner violence led to
multiple homicides.
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
Case Study: Robert McCoy
Yolanda McCoy separated from her controlling and abusive husband, Robert McCoy, in 2008.
One day as she arrived home from work, her estranged husband was waiting for her inside
her new residence. He put a knife to her throat and held Yolanda and their 1-year-old child
hostage. Yolanda was eventually able to contact the police, but before they arrived, Robert fled
the scene.
Fearing for her life, Yolanda took her teenage son from a previous relationship to her parents’
home in a neighboring city because she believed he would be safe there. Yolanda then moved
to a nearby city with her 1-year-old with the hope that the police would soon capture Robert
and he would go to jail. However, despite their best efforts, the police had been unsuccessful
in locating him.
Approximately 2 weeks after holding Yolanda hostage, Robert, armed with a gun and furious
that he could not find Yolanda, went to her parents’ home and demanded that they tell him
Yolanda’s whereabouts. Yolanda’s mother immediately called 911, and she was heard on the
recording saying, “She’s not here, Robert. Robert, Yolanda is not here.” A voice believed to
be Robert’s was shouting in the background, and then there were gunshots fired. Yolanda’s
mother, stepfather, and teenage son, Gregory, were all killed execution style. Witnesses saw
Robert running from the home, and the police later recovered his abandoned car near the
scene.
Eventually, Robert was captured, tried, and sentenced to Louisiana’s death row to serve three
death sentences, one for each of the three murders he is alleged to have committed.
Familicide
Familicide is a murder-suicide in which the murderer is a family member who kills multiple
family members and then kills him- or herself. To understand this type of family violence, let’s
explore the case of Terry Strawn.
Strawn was named Hillsborough County, Florida, Officer of the Year in 2009. He worked
effectively as a police officer for many years before his retirement in 2016. However, family
financial issues caused him to return to the sheriff’s department as a school resource officer.
Strawn’s goal was to help improve school security in the wake of the mass shooting at another
Florida school in 2018.
On the morning of December 19, 2018, Strawn broadcast over his police radio, admitting to
killing his wife, daughter, and granddaughter and revealing the locations of their bodies. He
went on to say that he loved the sheriff’s department but was despondent and intended to
take his own life at a high school that was near the locations of the three murders he committed earlier that day. His colleagues arrived at the high school, but despite their best efforts
to stop him, Strawn killed himself. Further investigation showed that the family had filed for
bankruptcy protection a few years earlier and may have been having significant financial
issues.
Regardless of the underlying reasons, Strawn committed familicide—he murdered his family
and then killed himself.
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Section 8.5
Family Violence
Parricide
Parricide is the killing of one’s parents. Recall Figure 8.1, which shows that in 2017, 169
homicide victims were the mother of the perpetrator and 186 were the father of the perpetrator (FBI, 2018).
To put these data into context, for the year 2017, less than 1% (about 0.02%; 355 cases) of
total homicides in the United States were perpetrated by children on a parent. It may seem
that these low numbers do not accurately reflect the reality of the situation, due to the fact
that when cases like these occur, they are covered extensively by the media. We tend to hear
about these cases more frequently and in more detail than with many other homicide cases,
and they become salient to us because of the level of shock and distinctiveness from other
types of homicides.
Consider the case of Andrea Balcer, who was
just 17 years old when she killed her parents in Winthrop, Maine. Andrea was struggling with psychological stress because she
believed that her parents would be unsupportive of her desire to transition from male
to female. According to Andrea, she “snapped”
and killed both of her parents but spared her
brother, Christopher, who later advocated
against Andrea for a harsh sentence, citing
her lack of remorse. The state charged Andrea
as an adult in part due to the brutality of the
crime, which included Andrea stabbing her
mother in the back repeatedly as her mother
was giving her a hug.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP/Associated Press
Andrea Balcer delivers a statement in 2018
before being sentenced to 40 years for killing
her parents 2 years prior.
To avoid trial and a possible life sentence for each murder, Andrea accepted a plea bargain
for a term of 40 years in prison. The judge rejected her mental health mitigation, stating that
many individuals struggling with lack of support from family and community when they experience psychological stress surrounding gender identity do not use this as an excuse to kill.
In parricide cases, there is often a teenage perpetrator who believes that if his or her parents
were dead, he or she could go on to live a life free of parental oppression.
Filicide
Filicide involves cases in which parents kill their children. In 2017 approximately 432 homicide victims were children who were murdered by their parents (about 0.03%). Figure 8.1
also shows that sons were killed by a parent in 253 cases and daughters were killed by a parent in 179 cases.
Consider the case of Julie Schenecker. For most of her life, Schenecker had suffered from bipolar disorder possibly with psychotic features (see Chapter 2 for more information on this
disorder). However, no one believed she would ever harm her children. While her husband,
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Demographics of Homicide
Section 8.6
Parker, was in the army stationed overseas, Julie drove her 13-year-old son, Beau, to soccer
practice, and she fatally shot him while in the car for “talking back.” After killing Beau, Schenecker turned the car around to go back home. When she arrived, she went inside and fatally
shot her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx. When the children’s grandmother became concerned
that she could not reach Schenecker or the kids, she had police do a welfare check at the home.
The police discovered Beau’s body still in the SUV where he was killed, and they discovered
Calyx covered with a sheet on her bed. Police also discovered a journal of Schenecker’s in
which she wrote about planning to kill the children. At trial, the jury rejected Schenecker’s
insanity defense, citing the premeditated plan to kill the children. (An insanity defense is
one in which the defendant asserts in court that he or she could not appreciate the criminal
nature of his or her actions at the time of the crime or did not understand the difference
between right and wrong, as a direct result of mental defect.) Schenecker was sentenced to
life in prison.
Assessing Balcer’s and Schenecker’s Mental States
In Balcer’s and Schenecker’s cases, there were indications that each was suffering from either
psychological stress or a mental disorder. However, in the criminal justice system, mental
state is considered within the context of whether there was intent to kill, premeditation, and/
or malice.
In Maine, where Balcer was sentenced, the law includes only one statute that criminalizes
almost all types of murder. The statute includes the previously discussed components of firstand second-degree murder, as well as manslaughter. Presumably, the defendant is sentenced
based on what facts in evidence show the perpetrator’s mental state at the time of the crime.
In the Balcer case, she plead guilty to two counts of murder, one for each of her parents. She
was sentenced to 40 years for each homicide.
In Florida, where Schenecker was sentenced, there is a separate statute for each type of criminal homicide discussed earlier in this chapter. Although there was evidence presented at trial
that Schenecker’s criminal behavior was likely attributable to psychiatric dysfunction, as evidenced by her taking psychotropic medications to treat bipolar disorder, the jury found her
guilty of first-degree murder. They decided that Schenecker’s mental state at the time of the
crime included the premeditated attempt to murder her children with malice aforethought.
Due to Florida’s criminal justice system mandate that anyone found guilty of first-degree
murder must serve a life sentence without parole, the jury’s verdict left the judge no option
other than to sentence Schenecker to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
8.6 Demographics of Homicide
There are a number of demographic variables correlated with homicidal behavior, including
race, age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Overall, it is important to consider how demographic, biopsychosocial, and other situational factors impact crime and its prevention.
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Demographics of Homicide
Section 8.6
Race
Perhaps the most controversial of the demographic variables associated with homicide is
that of race, ethnicity, and culture. This variable is controversial because criminal justice data
show consistently that African Americans are overrepresented as defendants in the criminal justice system. As of July 1, 2018, the U.S. African American population was estimated
at 13.1% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019). According to the UCR homicide data on race, 54.2% of
perpetrators were African American, a startling figure considering that less than 15% of the
U.S. population is African American (FBI, 2018). Clinical psychology research informs us that
there are no significant differences in the behavioral and mental health functioning of individuals based on race. A lack of behavioral and psychological differences suggests that the
racial inequities may be due to explicit and implicit racial biases (Goel, Rao, & Shroff, 2016;
Hetey & Eberhardt, 2014; Kay et al., 2009).
Hetey and Eberhardt (2018) examined factors related to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The primary goal of the research was to identify areas of psychology research
that may mitigate the effects of inherent racial bias in the criminal justice system. One popular
intervention is to widely disseminate information on racial inequality in the criminal justice system to the masses. However, social psychology researchers have found that educating
White people about observable racial bias in the criminal justice system caused them to be
more punitive instead of less punitive when the defendant was Black (Hetey & Eberhardt,
2014; Peffley & Hurwitz, 2007).
Hetey and Eberhardt (2018) proposed that additional research be undertaken on three key
interventions in an effort to effectively communicate information about racial disparities and
develop interventions that will reduce or eliminate negative stereotype activation. These proposed areas of research are (a) the best ways to offer context when presenting statistics on
racial disparity; (b) how to effectively challenge negative implicit associations based on race
(e.g., reduce or eliminate implicit bias); and (c) how to highlight the roles that institutions, as
opposed to individuals, have in facilitating and perpetuating racial disparities in the criminal
justice system.
Age
Although the scope of this chapter focuses on adult homicide perpetrators (juvenile perpetrators are discussed in Chapter 7), it is important to note that even adult homicide offenders
tend to be young. When examining homicide cases in which a perpetrator has been identified,
approximately 54% of homicide perpetrators are aged 20 to 34, with more than three quarters of this group falling under age 29 (FBI, 2018).
Gender
The overwhelming majority (88.1%) of homicide offenders are male (FBI, 2018). However,
there are differences between male and female homicide perpetrators based on who they
tend to kill. Data show that more than half of female homicide offenders murder an intimate
partner or family member, whereas about 75% of male offenders are significantly more likely
to kill an acquaintance or a stranger (Fox & Fridel, 2017).
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Section 8.6
Demographics of Homicide
A potential gap in the gender variable reporting is that data are collected and reported based
on male–female gender categories even though an increasing number of individuals identify
as gender nonconforming or transgender. There is no specific information to determine to
which gender category transgender perpetrators (or victims) are assigned. Therefore, caution must be used when interpreting and drawing gender-based conclusions, as these may
be inaccurate.
An example of this conundrum is in the previously discussed case of Andrea Balcer. Despite
the fact that Balcer identifies as a female, her legal name is Andrew, and she has not undergone sex reassignment surgery (which is currently required in the state of Maine to change
gender on a birth certificate). Therefore, the Maine Department of Corrections has placed
Balcer in a male prison facility under her legal name of Andrew Taney Balcer and has listed
her gender as male (State of Maine Department of Corrections, 2019).
Socioeconomic Status
Though socioeconomic status is discussed in more depth in Chapter 4, it bears mentioning here that poverty is a key risk factor in predicting criminal behavior, including homicide. Although social class and poverty are
not adequate predictors of future criminal
behavior on their own, when combined
with additional variables—such as access to
weapons and repeat exposure to violence—
they are typically cited as an underlying risk
factor for homicidal behavior.
Many children who grow up in high-crime
and high-violence areas will not go on to
commit homicide. However, research suggests that the greater the exposure to violence and crime, the greater the likelihood
of engaging in criminal behavior, including
homicide. This is attributable to a lack of
financial, medical, and social resources.
gorodenkoff/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Studies indicate that the more individuals are
exposed to violence, the greater the odds are
that they will commit violent crimes. This,
combined with low socioeconomic status, is a
risk factor for criminal behavior.
Access to Weapons
Although access to weapons and the use of a weapon by homicide perpetrators is not a
demographic variable, weapon accessibility is a strong predictor of violent behavior, including homicide. In 2017 approximately 73% of homicides were committed using a firearm,
the majority of which were handguns (FBI, 2018). This number has increased from 2013,
in which a firearm was the weapon used in approximately 69% of homicides. The next most
frequently used weapon in homicides in 2017—though significantly less than firearms—was
knives/cutting instruments, at 11%.
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Criminal Recidivism Among Homicide Offenders
Section 8.7
Another sobering statistic is that for children age 18 and under, gunshot wounds are the leading cause of death by homicide (N = 680; FBI, 2018). More than half of these homicides were
perpetrated on victims ages 13 to 16. For young adults ages 18 to 22, the total number of
homicides by gunshot wound is more than double that of the 18 and under group (N = 1,551
vs. N = 680).
Given the increase in mass murder via gun violence in the past several years, there is much
public debate about gun control. The public discourse tends to suggest that if there are no
guns, there will be no violent crime or violent crime will be greatly reduced. It is important
to understand that neither guns nor any other type of weapons cause homicides. However,
the data show a strong association between accessibility to weapons and homicides. That is,
it may be that the availability of firearms and the laws that entitle people to carry firearms
contribute to deaths by gunshot wound.
8.7 Criminal Recidivism Among Homicide Offenders
Perhaps the strongest influence on criminal homicide behavior is the power of the situation.
That is, even with someone who has no discernible biological or developmental risk factors
that may lead us to believe he or she is capable of killing, the way a situation is structured can
be a predictor of homicidal behavior. Important considerations are whether the perpetrator is under the influence of alcohol or recreational drugs, whether he or she is provoked or
despondent, or any number of other situational factors that have a strong and direct impact
on his or her behavior.
Although it could be helpful to be able to predict with precision what combination of situational, biological, and developmental factors may lead to homicide, the best that criminal
psychology researchers can do is evaluate past cases for indicators of similar characteristics
among killers and their homicides. A historical gap in the research is that most homicidal
behavior research focuses on serial killers and mass murderers, with very little research on
the characteristics of individual killers. However, researchers in New Jersey examined individual killers in relation to recidivism (the tendency of an individual to relapse into criminal
behavior) and what drove them to kill in the first place, providing us with a novel typology of
what drives someone to kill.
Roberts, Zgoba, and Shahidullah (2007) conducted a study of more than 300 perpetrators
of homicide who had been released from New Jersey state prisons from 1990 to 2000. The
researchers tracked these individuals for 5 years to measure their recidivism rates. They
hypothesized that homicide perpetrators who had no criminal history prior to their murder
charge would be the least likely to return to prison. Their findings identified four major homicide perpetrator types.
1. perpetrators who killed someone during a family violence incident (family violence
homicide offenders)
2. perpetrators who killed during the commission of another felony such as armed robbery (felony homicide offenders)
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Summary and Conclusion
3. perpetrators who killed someone during the course of an automobile accident (typically DUI related; accidental homicide offenders)
4. perpetrators who killed as a result of provocation (altercation-precipitated homicide
offenders)
Overall, none of the offenders committed another homicide. However, many of these individuals committed other crimes, including violent or drug-related offenses. The highest recidivism rates were observed in the felony homicide group, followed by the group of homicide
perpetrators who were provoked by an altercation. Only 10% of the family violence homicide
offenders recidivated due to a new violent or drug-related offense.
These categories are helpful for understanding what some precipitating factors may be for
homicidal behavior, along with whether these individuals are likely to kill again.
Summary and Conclusion
Regardless of the variables that lead to homicide, this deadly form of violence is one that
shocks and fascinates the public conscience. Though it may seem that homicides occur frequently, the data show that homicides are rare, depending on where in the United States one
resides. Recall the availability heuristic, which refers to the likelihood that individuals overestimate the prevalence of certain events based on how easily these events come to mind.
It’s important to remember that there are different types of criminal homicide. For example,
the chapter covered several subcategories of murder, including first- and second-degree
murder. While any type of homicide is serious, first-degree murder cases are commonly
considered among the most serious and heinous crimes.
People who have murdered more than one victim are also classified into different categories
based on the patterns of their murders. A mass murderer kills four or more people at one
location during one continuous time period, while spree killers murder two or more victims
at more than one location. Finally, serial killers murder three or more victims, and each victim is murdered on separate occasions.
The chapter also discussed family violence, which includes intimate partner violence,
familicide, parricide, and filicide. Though these types of homicides are rare, it is important to
understand the context in which they occur.
Although demographic and other psychosocial variables are merely correlational when measured in conjunction with homicides, the chapter discussed race, age, gender, socioeconomic
status, and access to weapons in an effort to identify variables that may lead to violence and
homicide.
Although television, movies, and true crime stories fascinate and provide interesting entertainment, it is important to remember that homicide is a major trauma to the loved ones
of victims. Therefore, criminologists, psychologists, law enforcement, and other interested
stakeholders continue to examine homicidal behavior in an effort to devise interventions to
prevent and significantly reduce homicides.
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Summary and Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Why aren’t all homicides deemed criminal?
2. Discuss the issue of racial bias as it relates to the association between race and
homicide.
3. Discuss the accessibility of firearms as a predictor of homicide. Which demographic
group is the most likely to die of gunshot wounds in the United States?
4. Think about the region in which you live. Does the media frequently run news stories about homicides, or are these types of stories infrequent? Consider the availability heuristic.
Key Terms
altercation homicide A type of homicide
that occurs as a result of the perpetrator
feeling intense anger and provocation.
Considered “heat of passion,” second-degree
murder.
availability heuristic The likelihood that
individuals overestimate the prevalence of
certain events based on how easily these
events come to mind.
criminal homicide A murder that contains
the element of intention to cause the
death of another and is considered neither
excusable nor justifiable.
familicide A murder-suicide in which the
murderer is a family member who kills
multiple family members and then kills himor herself.
family violence An umbrella term used to
describe any type of family violence in which
there are a small but significant number
of family members who are emotionally or
physically abused or killed at the hands of
another member of the family, such as in
intimate partner violence, familicide, filicide,
and parricide.
felony homicide A homicide that occurs
during the commission of another felony,
which is typically a crime to obtain some
reward such as cash, objects, or other
desired goods possessed by another person.
Considered first-degree murder.
filicide A type of homicide in which a
parent murders his or her child or children.
first-degree murder The unlawful killing
of another that must have the intentional
elements of malice aforethought and
premeditation.
intimate partner violence The deliberate
intimidation of a romantic partner—current
or former—that can include physical, sexual,
or other violence and abusive behavior as
a means of gaining or asserting dominance
and control over the person. Previously
known as domestic violence.
involuntary manslaughter An accidental
murder that occurs during the commission
of an illegal act. Considered a category of
third-degree murder.
justifiable homicide The act of killing
someone out of necessity. Occurs because
the victim perceives he or she must defend
him- or herself from certain death.
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Summary and Conclusion
malice aforethought The intent to cause
significant harm to another.
manslaughter See third-degree murder.
mass murder A type of murder that occurs
when there are multiple victims (at least
four) in a single location with no subsequent
murder events.
parricide A type of homicide in which a
child murders his or her parent(s).
premeditation The planning of a homicide.
Does not necessarily require a significant
amount of time to form a plan.
second-degree murder An act of
intentional killing that lacks the firstdegree murder element of premeditation.
Commonly thought of as “depraved heart/
mind” murder.
serial killer A single perpetrator who
murders three or more people on separate
occasions.
spree killer A term no longer used by
the FBI, but when used by the media, it is
defined as someone who murders multiple
people over a short time period in different
geographic locations with no cooling-off
period between murders.
third-degree murder Commonly known
as manslaughter; an unintentional yet
criminal homicide that lacks malice and
premeditation. Its two major categories are
voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.
voluntary manslaughter A “heat of
passion” murder that lacks intent to commit
murder. Considered a category of thirddegree murder.
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Aggression and Violence
6
FatCamera/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
• Define the concept of aggression.
• Evaluate behavior to determine if it meets the criteria for aggression.
• Identify the various categories of aggression.
• Distinguish between biological and evolutionary psychological theories of aggression.
• Examine the role that social learning plays in developing and eliciting aggressive behavior.
• Analyze the developmental and situational factors that may lead to aggression.
• Understand the connection between gender and aggression.
99
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Introduction
Section 6.1
Introductory Case Study: Scott Beierle
Scott Beierle, a 40-year-old military veteran and former public school teacher living in Florida,
lost his job for asking a female student if she was ticklish and then inappropriately touching
her. Over the years, he was arrested multiple times for approaching women in public places and
groping them. The charges rarely resulted in any meaningful punishment, since victims often did
not pursue prosecution.
Beierle had posted multiple YouTube videos in which he expressed racist and sexist views, including bitter hatred of women. For example, in one video Beierle stated that “promiscuous women
should be crucified” and that minority women, along with those who date minority men, were
“disgusting.” In the videos, Beierle also compared himself to mass murderer Elliot Rodger, who
killed six people near the University of California at Santa Barbara campus in 2014. It was clear
to those who came in contact with Beierle and his videos that he harbored deep anger and resentment. However, it was unclear what precipitated these feelings. Then the unthinkable happened.
On November 2, 2018, Beierle walked into the Hot Yoga Tallahassee yoga studio with a gym bag
and a yoga mat, posing as a patron. Just as class was about to begin, Beierle took a handgun out
of his bag and opened fire on the other patrons in the studio, killing 21-year-old Maura Binkley
and 61-year-old Nancy Van Vessem and wounding five others before turning the gun on himself.
Other than Beierle’s arrest history and YouTube videos, there was no other evidence police had
that could explain what led to his aggression that resulted in a shocking act of physical violence.
As you read this chapter, consider the following questions regarding this case:
1. What about Beierle’s behavior meets the criteria to be labeled aggressive?
2. Which of the categories of aggression does Beierle’s behavior fall under?
3. Which of the theories of aggression help explain Beierle’s behavior?
4. What, if anything, could have been done to prevent Beierle’s behavior?
6.1 Introduction
Researchers are more interested than ever before in examining the factors related to violent
and aggressive behavior, due in no small part to the increasing frequency of mass shootings.
Identifying the root cause(s) of violence and aggression may help psychologists devise interventions designed to prevent deadly aggression such as mass violence. However, it is important to understand that examining the problems of aggression and violence has been of great
interest to philosophers, psychologists, and criminologists throughout history.
Philosophers Thomas Hobbes (in the 1500s) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (in the 1700s) had
strong views on aggression and violence. For example, Hobbes believed that aggression was
biological. His view was that violence resulted because humans are evil by nature and thus
must be controlled by the community to prevent aggressive behavior. Rousseau disagreed.
His perspective was that humans learn aggressive behavior by interacting with others. Many
early philosophical and psychological perspectives on aggression posit that this type of behavior is always violent and thus always criminal. However, research shows this is not the case.
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What Is Aggression?
Section 6.2
Throughout the chapter, you will read about various theories of aggression and the supporting research. You will learn that not all aggression is physical, and it is not always violent.
In order to formally study aggressive behavior and violent behavior, psychology researchers
have identified categories of aggression that help us make sense of the nature of aggression
and violence and of whether the behavior rises to the level of criminality. Keep in mind as
you read the chapter that not all aggressive behavior is violent but that all violent behavior is
aggressive. Perhaps to aid your understanding of this, the best place to start is with precisely
defining the concept of aggression.
6.2 What Is Aggression?
Defining aggression is not as simple and straightforward an undertaking as it may seem.
Think about how often the term aggressive is used to describe someone else’s behavior, such
as yelling at someone, cutting off other drivers on the roadway, spreading cruel rumors about
someone, or punching a wall when angry. These are commonly thought of as clear examples
of aggression.
However, social psychologists Baron and Richardson (1994) define aggression as any form of
behavior directed toward the goal of harming another living being who is motivated to avoid
being harmed. According to social psychologists, the key elements required to categorize a
behavior as aggressive are
1. there must be an observed behavior,
2. there must be a goal to harm,
3. that harm must be directed at another living being, and
4. that living being must be motivated to avoid the harm.
These four elements render the act aggressive in nature. When considering this definition, the
example of punching a wall when angry would not be considered aggressive because there
is a missing element: There is no other living being who is motivated to avoid being harmed.
According to the definition above, which of these can we classify as aggression?
• A hitman murders an unfaithful husband for $1,000.
• A woman, angry with her supervisor, tells a coworker that the supervisor is cheating
on her husband with another coworker.
• A teenager helps an elderly woman cross the street but accidentally trips the
woman, who falls and suffers a fractured wrist.
First, we want to examine if any of these examples has the four elements of behavior, goal to
harm, directed at another living being, and another person motivated to avoid the harm. Therefore, if you guessed that the first two are examples of aggression, you are correct. The hitman
example clearly contains all four elements, including the key element of intent to cause harm.
In the context of the criminal justice system, intent to cause harm is a key element in whether
the behavior constitutes a crime or is merely an unfortunate accident. This is discussed in
more depth in Chapter 8.
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Section 6.3
Categories of Aggression
The second example, in which a woman spreads a malicious rumor about her boss, also constitutes aggressive behavior. The woman intended to harm her supervisor, and presumably
her supervisor is motivated to avoid such harm. Although the elderly woman in the third
example suffered an injury at the hands of the teenager, this is not aggression. The missing element in our definition of aggression in this context is that the teenager’s goal was to
help rather than to harm the woman. An accident is not intentional and thus does not constitute aggressive behavior. Unintentional harm is not without consequences, but carrying
out behavior that is intended to hurt someone is considered much worse than unintentional
harm (Ames & Fiske, 2013).
As you can see, there are a number of behaviors that can be categorized as aggressive when
accompanied by the four elements previously described.
6.3 Categories of Aggression
Social psychologists have created categories to describe the various dimensions of aggression. The main categories of aggression are hostile (emotional) aggression, instrumental
(cognitive) aggression, physical aggression, and nonphysical aggression (see Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1: Categories of aggression
The main categories of aggression are hostile, instrumental, physical, and nonphysical. Verbal and
relational aggression are subtypes of nonphysical aggression.
Categories of aggression
Hostile
Instrumental
Physical
Nonphysical
Verbal
Relational
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Section 6.3
Categories of Aggression
Hostile (Emotional) Aggression
Hostile aggression can best be thought of as reactive, impulsive, or “hot” aggression that
occurs as the result of a real or perceived threat or insult. Hostile aggression is driven by emotions, as in the case of Philip Wood.
In the summer of 2019, Wood, a 50-year-old man, was at a pub in Valley, Alabama, relaxing
and enjoying the evening with friends when another bar patron, Sidney Harmon, began to
argue with him. Witnesses were not sure what the disagreement was about, but as tempers
flared, the incident escalated. Wood then produced a knife and stabbed Harmon to death.
Wood immediately ran from the scene; however, there were several eyewitnesses who helped
police identify him, and he was later arrested.
Wood’s aggressive behavior occurred as the result of his anger, and in an impulsive and hostile act, he stabbed Harmon. In hostile aggression, the intent to harm arises in response to the
current situation. Because the two men were strangers to one another, there was no plan on
Wood’s behalf to harm Harmon until they began to argue at the bar.
Instrumental (Cognitive) Aggression
Instrumental aggression is the opposite of hostile aggression such that there is some level
of planning that goes into instrumental aggression. It can be thought of as “cool” aggression. Whereas the underlying motivation behind hostile aggression is emotion, instrumental
aggression lacks the emotional component and is often used as a means to some end. That
is, the goal in instrumental aggression is to harm someone for personal gain. See Case Study:
Comparing the Cases of Serina Wolfe and Daniel Rosado to explore different cases in which two
people employed instrumental aggression.
Case One
Case Study: Comparing the Cases of Serina Wolfe
and Daniel Rosado
In 2019 Serina Wolfe and her boyfriend were
living in Clearwater, Florida. Wolfe asked him to
buy her a plane ticket to New York so that she
could visit with friends and family. Her boyfriend refused to purchase the $300 plane ticket
for her. Wolfe was angry with her boyfriend
and wanted to get back at him. She hatched a
plan to take his credit card without him noticing and spend thousands of dollars. Wolfe stole
the card, went to a local restaurant, and used
her boyfriend’s credit card to leave a $5,000 tip
on a $50 restaurant bill. Wolfe was arrested for
grand theft after police discovered that she was
the one who took the card and made the charge.
Alife/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Instrumental or “cool” aggression
involves planning and is focused on
personal gain, such as Serina Wolfe
stealing her boyfriend’s credit card.
(continued on next page)
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Categories of Aggression
Section 6.3
Case Study: Comparing the Cases of Serina Wolfe
and Daniel Rosado (continued)
In Wolfe’s case, she planned how she was going to harm her boyfriend and carried out her plan
as a means of punishing him for not buying her the plane ticket. Wolfe’s instrumental aggression led to a being charged with a crime.
Case Two
On May 1, 2019, Daniel Rosado went into Middlesex Savings Bank in Massachusetts armed
with a gun and a plan to rob the bank. Rosado entered the bank, pulled out his gun, shot into
the ceiling, and demanded that the bank teller fill his bag with cash. The robbery was foiled
when a bank customer was able to sneak out and flag down a police officer, who exchanged
gunfire with Rosado as he fled the scene. Another patron tackled Rosado on the street as he
fled, but Rosado was able to slip away. However, Rosado was apprehended in Rhode Island 3
weeks after the attempted bank robbery.
In Rosado’s case, his intent was to harm any bank staff, customers, or police who got in the
way of his attempt to steal the cash that day. Rosado’s aggressive behavior was the means to
an end to rob the bank. He planned the attack such that he armed himself, shot the gun into
the bank ceiling and at police who tried to stop him, and tussled with a bystander who tackled
him to the ground to stop him. Rosado’s acts that day provide a clear example of instrumental
aggression.
Physical (Violent) Aggression
Physical aggression is perhaps the type of behavior most frequently thought of as aggressive in nature. Physical aggression can include hitting, biting, scratching, kicking, stabbing,
shooting, punching, or any other physical act that is intended to cause bodily harm to another
living being. It is important to note that physical aggression constitutes violent behavior. That
is, violence is aggressive behavior that uses physical force intended to cause bodily injury
or death. It is also important to point out that physical aggression may seem to be hostile or
“hot” aggression. However, as you have learned so far, the intent to harm someone does not
always include causing physical harm, and the intent to cause bodily harm can fall under hostile aggression or instrumental aggression.
For example, Philip Wood caused fatal bodily harm to Sidney Harmon when he stabbed Harmon. That is, Wood used physical (violent) aggression (stabbing) in the heat of a spontaneous
argument. This resulted in Harmon’s grave bodily injuries and untimely death. Therefore,
Wood engaged in hostile physical aggression.
Contrarily, Daniel Rosado engaged in instrumental physical aggression when he shot at police
and wrestled with a bystander as he attempted to flee the bank. In Rosado’s case, the aggression was part of his plan to elude capture. Both Wood and Rosado used violence to achieve
their goals of harming another living being. However, Wood’s violence was motivated by emotion in the heat of the moment, whereas Rosado’s was motivated by his plan to obtain the
desired cash from the bank even if it meant causing bodily harm to anyone who attempted to
thwart him.
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Section 6.3
Categories of Aggression
Nonphysical Aggression
Nonphysical aggression isn’t what we usually think about when we consider aggression, but
it can be just as harmful as physical aggression. The two types of nonphysical aggression are
verbal and relational.
Verbal Aggression
Verbal aggression is a form of nonphysical
aggression that includes shouting, swearing, name-calling, or any other nonphysical
verbal behavior that is intended to harm
another living being when that individual
is motivated to avoid being harmed. Verbal aggression often accompanies physical
aggression; however, there are instances
in which the aggressive behavior is limited
to words expressed from one individual to
another.
fizkes/iStock/Getty Images Plus
An example of verbal aggression occurred
Verbal aggression includes shouting, swearing,
on January 2, 2019, when a woman boardname-calling, and any other nonphysical
ing a United Airlines flight from Las Vegas,
verbal behaviors that are intended to harm
Nevada, to Newark, New Jersey, began
someone; it can be accompanied by physical
hurling insults at the two women she was
aggression.
seated between. The woman began telling
the other two passengers that she was feeling “squished” between them but “at least they’ll
keep me warm” (as cited in CBS News, 2019). She complained that the two passengers were
overweight and that she did not know how she would survive the flight for the next 4 hours.
One of the passengers complained to a flight attendant, and other passengers sitting nearby
admonished the woman for her behavior. Flight attendants then tried to move the verbally
aggressive woman to another seat, but the woman continued to yell insults at the other passengers and again toward the women she was seated between. The woman was ejected from
the flight as a result of her behavior.
It is clear that the verbally aggressive woman intended to hurt the other two passengers
with her words, but it is less clear whether this behavior constitutes hostile or instrumental
aggression. In order to make this determination, we would need more information about her
ultimate motive. If she sat down and became angry upon seeing and feeling limited space at
her seat and had no other motive than to shame and embarrass the women, then we can categorize this as hostile aggression. However, if her ultimate goal was to cause such discomfort
to the women that one or both asked to be moved to another seat, then the verbally aggressive
woman engaged in instrumental aggression. This is because the verbally aggressive words
would serve as a means to some other goal besides simply causing harm to the women.
See Spotlight: Exploring Criminality of Verbal Aggression to explore whether verbal aggression
can be considered criminal.
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Categories of Aggression
Section 6.3
Spotlight: Exploring Criminality of Verbal Aggression
Is verbal aggression considered criminal behavior? While some may believe that verbal aggression cannot ever be labeled criminal due to First Amendment free-speech protections, there
are in fact some jurisdictions in which an individual’s specific use of words spoken to another
person can be adjudicated criminal behavior. Generally speaking, this falls under malicious
harassment criminal codes that include physical aggression as well as verbal aggression. For
example, in the state of Washington, individuals convicted of malicious harassment can face up
to 5 years in prison and be fined up to $10,000. (Visit the following link for more information
regarding the state’s legal code for this specific crime: https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default
.aspx?cite=9a.36.080.)
Visit the following link to read about some situations in which verbal aggression can legally be
considered criminal: https://answers.uslegal.com/criminal/assault/23815/.
Relational (Social) Aggression
Another form of nonphysical aggression is relational (social) aggression, which occurs
when the desired intent is to harm another’s relationships or social standing. In relational
aggression, the behavior does not involve a direct confrontation with the intended target of
the harm. It is more covert. Archer and Coyne (2005) identified certain behaviors exhibited
in relational aggression, including but not limited to spreading malicious gossip, ostracizing
someone from a social group, giving someone the silent treatment, turning people against
one another, stealing another’s spouse or partner, and flirting with someone else to incite a
jealous response from one’s partner. Relational aggression is more common among females.
Relational aggression has been studied extensively in schoolchildren, and findings show that
the old adage “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” appears
to be incorrect. That is, relational aggression is often considered bullying, especially in social
environments in which groups of people gather regularly, such as at school or the workplace.
Social psychologists have found that young victims of relational aggression are far more likely
to experience negative mental health outcomes. These include depression, anxiety, and even
engaging in harmful behaviors, including attempting suicide (see Craig, 1998; Hinduja &
Patchin, 2000; Olafson & Viemero, 2000; Paquette & Underwood, 1999; Sharp, 1995). See
Case Study: Michelle Carter to read about a recent famous case involving relational aggression.
In theory, relational aggression could be a form of hostile aggression if, for example, the
behavior was impulsive and the only goal of the behavior was to harm the target. However, if
the ultimate goal of the behavior is to cause the target harm for some other purpose, such as
to raise the aggressor’s social standing, and this behavior was planned, then it can be considered instrumental aggression.
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Psychological Theories of Aggression
Section 6.4
Case Study: Michelle Carter
Teenagers Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy III were in a long-distance relationship for 2 years.
Roy lived in a verbally and physically abusive home and had attempted suicide previously. In
July 2014 Carter sent Roy a series of text messages over a 2-week period encouraging him to
“just do it already.”
Roy got into his pickup truck, drove to a local empty parking lot, and turned on the generator
he brought with him to produce carbon monoxide poisoning. As the truck filled with the poisonous gas, Roy got scared and jumped out of the truck. He called Carter, who told him to get
back into the truck and do it. Carter never called for help, nor did she admit to anyone that she
had spoken to him twice while he was in the midst of carrying out his suicide.
Carter instead publicly mourned Roy’s death and seemed to revel in the attention she received
as the grieving girlfriend. She even comforted Roy’s mother and seemed to enjoy the attention
the Roy family gave her for being such a “caring friend” to Conrad. When the text messages
were discovered on Roy’s phone, however, police arrested Carter, and she was charged with
manslaughter for effectively bullying Roy into suicide.
There has never been any evidence produced to suggest that Carter was angry with Roy, and
because they appeared to get along well with one another, Carter’s behavior does not fall under
the category of hostile aggression. This type of relational aggression can be categorized as
instrumental aggression. That is, it seems that the text message evidence supports the state’s
position that Carter’s goal was to gain attention and sympathy as the grieving girlfriend. The
harm Carter caused Roy was a means to an end, with the end being basking in expressions of
sympathy from friends, family, and the community.
6.4 Psychological Theories of Aggression
Discovering where aggression originates is a topic of great debate among psychologists and
other social scientists. Is aggressive behavior learned or inherited? The topic of aggression is
another dimension of the nature-versus-nurture debate, and psychologists have developed
various theoretical perspectives based on their own area of interest.
Aggressive behavior is also studied in disciplines outside of psychology, including from a
sociological and criminological perspective. However, psychological theories of aggression
inform sociological and criminological research on aggression and provide the foundation
for understanding related factors. The question at the heart of examining aggression, including violence, is whether the underlying catalyst is dispositional (biological) or situational
(learned). The research on the biological underpinnings of aggression shows that there is
some validity to the idea that aggressive behavior is innate. In this section, we explore the
major theories of aggression from biological and evolutionary perspectives.
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Psychological Theories of Aggression
Section 6.4
Psychoanalytic/Freudian Theory of Aggression
Sigmund Freud created psychoanalysis, and thus this perspective is often referred to as Freudian theory (used interchangeably with the phrase psychoanalytic theory). The psychoanalytic
view of aggression is that it is biological in nature. That is, Freud’s position was that humans
are born with two distinct drives: “life instinct” and “death instinct.” Freud hypothesized
that these two drives often compete against one another in our subconscious minds and that
aggression occurs as a result of the conflict between the two opposing innate desires to either
live or die. Therefore, Freud believed that aggression represents the deflection of the death
instinct onto others. It is an interesting idea, but it has not been validated because psychologists have yet to determine a way to verify the existence of an unconscious mind.
From a criminal behavior perspective, Freud’s colleague Josef Breuer believed that catharsis was required to relieve the unconscious internal conflict between the desire to live and
the desire to die. Catharsis is the process
of releasing or purging repressed emotions.
For example, a psychologist may advise a client to find a constructive outlet to release
pent-up aggression. This release can occur
in a direct manner, or it can be accomplished
indirectly by engaging in psychotherapy and/
or enjoyable activities that provide a release
of the stress and anxiety that are thought to
be triggers to aggression. (Zillmann, Katcher,
and Milavsky [1972] found that engaging in
dislentev/iStock/Getty Images Plus
physical exercise as a constructive outlet may
Pent-up aggression requires some form of
actually increase aggression in some siturelease or outlet. A healthy way to release
ations, thereby contradicting the idea that
aggression is by practicing a relaxing,
catharsis via physical exercise may be effecenjoyable activity such as yoga at sunset.
tive at reducing aggression.)
Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis
Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears (1939) carried on the psychoanalytic tradition after
Freud’s death and asserted that aggression will always occur as a result of experiencing frustration. Dollard et al. called this perspective the frustration–aggression hypothesis. Psychologists were challenged to provide this hypothesis using the scientific method because
there seemed to be a significant level of disagreement among the relevant scientific community regarding the concepts of frustration and aggression.
Despite a lack of scientific validity in the frustration–aggression hypothesis, psychologists
continued to try to perfect the theory. Berkowitz (1969) later revised the frustration–
aggression hypothesis by asserting that although frustration may precede aggression, there
are other factors that may also precede aggressive behavior, such as pain, a heightened
state of arousal, and more.
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Psychological Theories of Aggression
Section 6.4
Excitation Transfer Theory
Social psychology researchers have found that arousal can lead to increased aggression as
well. For example, Zillmann et al. (1972) examined whether instigating physiological arousal
would lead to aggression. The researchers hypothesized that when one individual believes
he or she is receiving an electric shock by another and then assigned to engage in either
high- or low-intensity exercise, the target would experience a heightened state of physiological arousal that would later lead to aggression.
These findings were confirmed in a later study by Zillmann (1988) when he examined
whether physiological arousal had the potential to elicit aggression in any context. Zillmann
found that even without being instigated, simply exercising would induce a heightened state
of physiological arousal that could lead to later aggressive behavior. For example, if a participant engaged in high-intensity exercise and then a short period later was exposed to some
minor annoyance that might otherwise be ignored, the heightened physiological arousal from
exercising may lead the person (no matter what gender) to behave aggressively toward the
source of the annoyance. Zillmann referred to this phenomenon as excitation transfer theory, which is the theory that regardless of how physiological arousal is produced, the heightened state of arousal dissipates slowly, is not situation specific, and thus can generalize to
other situations, resulting in aggression.
For example, imagine a salesperson who goes out for a run prior to work and thus becomes
physiologically aroused from the exercise. When she arrives at work, she is called into her
manager’s office, where she is asked to work a little harder to increase sales productivity for
that month. The salesperson becomes verbally aggressive and lashes out at her manager. This
occurs despite the fact that the sales manager typically asks staff to increase productivity to
meet certain sales goals. In this case the salesperson’s physiological arousal was still high by
the time she arrived at work; this arousal generalized to the sales manager when a simple
request was made.
Evolutionary Theory of Aggression
Evolutionary psychologists hypothesize that aggression developed as a means of helping
our species survive and thrive; thus, it is biological in nature. Buss and Shackelford (1997)
attempted to account for aggression from an evolutionary perspective and identified various adaptive issues that may explain the historical development of aggressive behavior in
humans.
One issue the researchers proposed was taking others’ resources when resources were
scarce. For example, there was a time when humans had to hunt for food in order to survive.
Resources may have been limited, leading to competition among other humans; aggression
resulted as a means of scaring off or even eliminating competition in order to keep oneself
and one’s family nourished. In addition to securing necessary survival resources, aggression
was useful to bolster one’s social status by demonstrating strength that was perceived as
power.
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Learning Theories of Aggression
Section 6.5
Buss and Shackelford (1997) further suggested that aggression may also have evolved as the
result of attempting to prevent infidelity, thereby reducing the likelihood that resources may
be depleted by unrelated offspring. This particular adaptive problem of raising another’s offspring has found some support in statistics that suggest that in homes where there is a stepparent, stepchildren are anywhere from 40 to 100 times more likely to be killed or maimed
by that stepparent (Daly & Wilson, 2001). This is referred to as the Cinderella effect, based
on the fairy tale in which the ugly stepmother treats Cinderella, her stepdaughter, horribly
compared to her own daughters. The Cinderella effect is the evolutionary psychology phenomenon that posits that the prevalence of child abuse perpetrated by stepparents on their
stepchildren is significantly higher than that perpetrated by biological parents on their own
children (Daly & Wilson, 2001). This type of aggression may represent criminal behavior,
especially if violence (physical aggression) is involved. In fact, Daly and Wilson’s data come
from criminal child abuse statistics records in which the injury or death of the child was perpetrated by a stepparent.
6.5 Learning Theories of Aggression
Social psychologists are likely to subscribe to the perspective that aggressive behavior develops through observational learning. That is, people are influenced to behave aggressively
because they see others doing so. This section will explore aggression from a social psychology perspective (e.g., mimicry of behaviors) and also from a behavioral/learning psychology
perspective (e.g., behavior reinforcement).
Social Learning Theory of Aggression
According to Albert Bandura (1978), “People are not born with preformed repertoires of
aggressive behavior; they must learn them” (p. 14). Recall the discussion in Chapter 4 regarding Bandura’s social learning theory. Bandura (1977) coined the term social learning theory
to describe his finding that social behavior, including aggression, is learned by observation
of others as well as through rewards and punishments. In his model, observational learning,
reinforced performance, and structural determinants—such as socioeconomic status, family
background, cultural features, and other sociological factors—are the origins of aggression.
In the early 1960s Bandura conducted a study with the goal of determining the importance
of imitation and learned behavior. Specifically, he sought to understand how children would
behave after they watched an adult act aggressively toward a Bobo doll. In the famous Bobo
doll experiment, Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) had a total sample of 72 children (36 boys
and 36 girls) ages 3 to 6 years. There were three experimental groups in which 24 children
observed an adult model aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll, 24 observed the adult
model nonaggressive behavior, and 24 had no model. The children were then placed in the
room with the doll. The findings showed that children tended to mimic the behavior of the
model they had observed when the model left the room and they were alone with the Bobo
doll. That is, those in the aggressive model condition were significantly more likely to behave
aggressively with the doll than those in the no-model and nonaggressive-model groups.
Interestingly, Bandura et al. (1961) also found that female participants engaged in more
physically aggressive play with the doll when their model was male and engaged in more
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Section 6.5
Learning Theories of Aggression
verbally aggressive behavior if their model
was female. Boys were more likely to imitate the model’s physical aggression when
their model was male rather than female.
That is, both boys and girls were more
likely to imitate physical aggression when
they observed that behavior modeled by an
adult male.
Moreover, the researchers found that
aggressive behavior was reinforced when
the aggressor was rewarded for that behavRawpixel/iStock/Getty Images Plus
ior and reduced when the aggressor was
The well-known Bobo doll experiment
punished for such behavior. For example,
demonstrated social learning theory by
if the child received accolades for behavillustrating how children mimicked the
ing aggressively, he or she was likely to
behavior of the adult they had observed when
behave more aggressively in the future. On
the adult left the room and they were alone
the other hand, if the child was admonished
with the doll.
and suffered negative consequences for
behaving aggressively, he or she was likely to behave less aggressively in the future. These
findings provide strong empirical support for aggression as a learned set of behaviors.
Bandura and other social psychologists have tested the validity of social learning theory as
it applies to prosocial helping behaviors. That is, social psychologists have found that when
the modeled behaviors included helping and kindness, children were likely to model those
behaviors (see Bandura, 1977; Rushton, 1980). This is especially true when caretakers reinforce the behavior. For example, if a child shares her lunch with a classmate who forgot his
lunchbox that day and the teacher tells her how kind she is to share, that positive reinforcement is likely to elicit future prosocial behavior.
Social Contagion Theory
Similar to social learning theory, social contagion theory is a type of social influence that
occurs when a modeled behavior spreads from one crowd participant to another after observing the behavior or by media coverage of the behavior. It has traditionally been researched
in the context of consumer behavior (Rogers, 1995), rule breaking (Ritter & Holmes, 1969),
suicides (Marsden, 1998; Phillips, 1974), criminal behavior (Jones & Jones, 1995), and more
recently, mass shootings. That is, social contagion is generally studied in the context of individuals being exposed to certain behaviors and attitudes either directly by firsthand experience or indirectly through stories of these occurrences. Researchers then measure the propensity for those behaviors to be mimicked by others, which creates what can be thought of
as a “cultural infection.”
Although social learning theory could apply in this context, Bandura’s social learning theory was tested on children and did not measure the spread of the learned behaviors to the
masses. Bandura also used a hybrid of social learning through modeling and behavioral
learning through conditioning with rewards and punishments to measure the impact of the
learned behaviors. Social contagion research focuses solely on mimicking the behaviors after
exposure.
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Section 6.5
Learning Theories of Aggression
To evaluate the magnitude of social contagion of mass shootings, Towers, Gomez-Lievano,
Khan, Mubayi, and Castillo-Chavez (2015) noted that mass shootings appeared to occur in
clusters. The researchers analyzed news reports of mass shootings from 1997 to 2013, defining mass shooting as any in which there were at least four victims murdered during the event.
Towers et al. found that following such shootings, a “contagion” period occurred for up to
approximately 2 weeks, during which there was a 20% to 30% increase in similarly violent
incidents. The researchers concluded that media coverage publicizing these acts of violence
contributed to social contagion of mass violence. It is important to understand that these data
are merely correlational (a related but not necessarily a causal relationship) but are compelling enough to warrant attention, especially if less media coverage sensationalizing such violent events might contribute to saving lives.
See Figure 6.2 for an example of how social contagion may lead to more active shooter incidents.
Figure 6.2: 250 active shooter incidents in United States, 2000–2017
This figure serves as an example of how social contagion may lead to more active shooter incidents.
The number of incidents generally increases from 2000 to 2016, with a spike in incidents in 2017.
Although this graph does not directly indicate the cause of the increase, it is worth considering the
effect of media coverage of aggression and violence on behavior.
1
2000
6
2001
4
2002
11
2003
4
2004
9
2005
10
2006
14
Year
2007
8
2008
19
2009
26
2010
10
2011
21
2012
17
2013
2014
20
2015
20
2016
20
30
2017
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Number of incidents
From “Quick Look: 250 Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000–2017, Casualty Breakdown Per Year,” by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. (https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter
-incidents-graphic).
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Section 6.6
Factors Related to Aggression
6.6 Factors Related to Aggression
Some developmental psychologists believe that there is a biological basis for aggression and
that individuals are genetically predisposed to it, but others believe that aggression develops
as a result of exposure to others’ aggressive behavior. Many have conducted research on the
implications of aggression regardless of where it originates. The research on developmental
and situational factors related to aggression lends validity to the psychological and social
learning perspectives.
Developmental Factors
Given its important role in explaining antisocial conduct, psychologists have focused on early
childhood aggression as a potential precursor of aggression in adolescence and adulthood.
Raine and his colleagues (1998) observed, “Because aggression in early childhood is capable
of predicting aggression in adulthood, some of the foundations for later aggressive and violent behavior are probably set in the first few years of life” (p. 745). Aggression is central to
antisocial behavior and has been observed across data sources. For example, Daniel Nagin
and Richard Tremblay (2001) found that kindergarten boys who are oppositional and hyperactive are about 3 times more likely than other children to be highly aggressive in high school.
In a classic study, Caspi, Elder, and Bem (1987) examined longitudinal data spanning 30 years
on boys and girls ages 8 to 10 who had frequent temper tantrums. Were temper tantrums
merely a passing phase of late childhood, or did they have enduring meaning? The results
were alarming. Caspi and colleagues found that the explosive, poorly tempered outbursts of
childhood similarly emerged in adult contexts when people had to subordinate themselves,
such as in work and school settings. Having a bad temper as a child predicted middle adulthood occupational mobility (i.e., frequent
job changes due to quitting or firing), lower
educational attainment, and divorce. These
effects were similar for males and females.
Pediatric psychology researchers have
found that infant persistence, or how often
an infant seeks parental attention and then
continues to fuss when his or her mother
is unresponsive, has been linked to aggression at age 2 and conduct problems during the preschool years (Shaw, Bell, &
Gilliom, 2000). Moreover, in their longitudinal …
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