Prior to starting this discussion, please read Chapters 6 and 7 in your textbook (both chapters located in attachments below), watch the
Columbine: Understanding WhyLinks to an external site.
video, and read the
Dylan Klebold’s Diversion DocumentsLinks to an external site.
and
Eric Harris’s Diversion DocumentsLinks to an external site.
juvenile diversion program papers.
Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Please elaborate on the following:
Reference for the textbook (Use this reference as one of your references): DeLisi, M., Schwartz, S., & Klein, E. (2020).
Criminal psychology
(2nd ed.). Zovio.
7
Juveniles and Crime
Михаил Руденко/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to
• Define juvenile delinquency.
• Explore why the general perception and treatment of juvenile delinquents can be harshly punitive.
• Discuss Moffitt’s theories related to juvenile delinquency.
• Analyze research related to juvenile brain development.
• Describe resources related to prevention and intervention for juvenile offenders.
• Explain the main differences between primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs.
• Analyze a case and subsequent legislation regarding a crime committed by a juvenile.
• Analyze trends and patterns in juvenile incarceration.
119
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Introduction
Section 7.1
Introductory Case Study: Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas was a 17-year-old Florida high school senior who had never been in trouble with
the law when he was charged with the attempted first-degree murder of his classmate, Daniel
Vukovich. Thomas’s girlfriend, 18-year-old Jessica Umberger, had convinced Thomas that Vukovich stole marijuana from Thomas’s home when Thomas wasn’t there. Umberger told Thomas,
in front of their group of friends, that he would have to “take care” of Vukovich to send a clear
message that stealing from him was unacceptable. If there was any doubt about what Umberger
meant by “take care of,” she erased that uncertainty by posting on social media about the plan
to attack Vukovich.
On the morning of February 19, 2015, 18-year-old Rebecca Gotay, a close friend of Umberger’s
and Thomas’s, drove the couple to Vukovich’s home, where Thomas attacked Vukovich with a
crowbar. Vukovich suffered multiple head fractures and had to be airlifted to the nearest trauma
hospital for lifesaving surgery. Fortunately, Vukovich made a full recovery in a relatively short
time.
Vukovich’s mother had no idea who could have attacked her son so viciously in his driveway
in the tony community of Satellite Beach, Florida. However, due to Umberger’s multiple social
media posts and text messages and general high school gossip, police zeroed in on the three
young suspects rather quickly. Thomas, Umberger, and Gotay were arrested for the attempted
first-degree murder of Vukovich. The three young defendants faced life in prison without the possibility of parole. Despite the fact that Thomas was a juvenile at the time of the crime, the state
chose to prosecute him as an adult based on the seriousness of the case. Umberger and Gotay,
who were already legal adults, were also prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system.
Thomas’s charges were eventually reduced to attempted second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 10 years in state prison. Umberger and Gotay were each sentenced to 7 years in state
prison for aggravated battery with intent to do harm.
As you read this chapter, consider the following questions regarding this case:
1. Do you think the punishments were too harsh or too lenient for Thomas, Umberger,
and Gotay? Why?
2. Do you think juveniles can make sound decisions, or do you think it is beyond their
capacity?
3. Do you think that it is appropriate to try juveniles as adults? Why or why not?
7.1 Introduction
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), more than
900,000 juveniles under age 18 were arrested in 2015. The number of juveniles arrested
in 2016 fell by approximately 7%, when a little more than 850,000 juveniles were arrested
for some type of delinquent behavior. Of those, approximately 176,000 were under age 15
(OJJDP, 2018).
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Section 7.2
What Is Juvenile Delinquency?
The criminal behaviors that led to juvenile arrests ranged from relatively minor infractions
such as breaking curfew ordinances up to the most serious types of criminal behavior, such
as homicide, assault, battery, and rape. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform
Crime Report reveals that approximately 21,000 juveniles were arrested in 2017 for the violent crime of aggravated assault; in contrast, more than 70,000 were arrested for drug-related
offenses. For the most serious crime of homicide, there were less than 1,000 juveniles arrested
in 2016 and 2017 (FBI, 2018). Regardless of what crime led to arrest, the most common classification for juveniles who encounter the juvenile justice system is that of juvenile delinquent.
7.2 What Is Juvenile Delinquency?
Although delinquent is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary (Garner, 2014) as someone of any
age who commits crimes, the term is most commonly applied to juveniles. A juvenile delinquent is an individual under age 18 who is arrested for criminal behavior. The term juvenile
delinquency is specifically defined by the U.S. Department of Justice (2018) as
the violation of a law of the United States committed by a person prior to his
eighteenth birthday which would have been a crime if committed by an adult.
A person over eighteen but under twenty-one years of age is also accorded
juvenile treatment if the act of juvenile delinquency occurred prior to his eighteenth birthday.
In the United States, there are many jurisdictions
in which there is no minimum age at which police
may arrest and the state may prosecute individuals
in the juvenile justice system. In fact, according to
the National Juvenile Defender Center (2019), in 28
states minors of any age can be arrested and adjudicated as juvenile delinquents. Florida holds the
distinction for arresting the youngest child in the
nation, at just 4 years old (Alanez, 2016). The toddler was taken into custody along with other children in his family for criminal mischief. The group
of very young children, the oldest of which was 11,
were accused of vandalizing a neighbor’s shed with
markers and spray paint. Ultimately, they were not
prosecuted, because they were simply young children misbehaving.
Juvenile Delinquent Versus Youthful
Offender
Although juvenile delinquents are defined as those
who have not yet attained the age of legal adulthood
(which is age 18 in most jurisdictions), the federal
Will Dickey/Florida Times-Union/Associated Press
Cristian Fernandez was 12 years old
when he killed his 2-year-old half
brother and was thus considered a
juvenile delinquent.
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Section 7.2
What Is Juvenile Delinquency?
government has the discretion to consider a young adult under age 25 a youthful offender
(Pryor et al., 2017). A youthful offender is someone who is no longer a minor and thus is
not eligible to be sentenced in the juvenile justice system. However, youthful offender status
means that if adjudicated (i.e., judged) guilty of the offense, the young adult will be placed in
a special youthful offender facility and have access to specialized interventions designed to
facilitate rehabilitation. However, in many states youthful offender status may be granted only
until age 21 and may not be granted at all for serious and violent crimes such as homicide or
rape. These are the types of serious crimes for which many states will transfer the youthful
offender or the juvenile to the adult criminal system for prosecution.
Types and Demographics of Juvenile Arrests
The most common types of crimes committed by those classified as youthful offenders and
juvenile delinquents are nonviolent offenses, typically drug offenses (Pryor et al., 2017). This
is not significantly different than the types of crimes committed by adult offenders. Table 7.1
shows demographic characteristics of the juveniles arrested in the United States in 2017.
Table 7.1: Demographic characteristics of juvenile arrests, 2017
Most serious offense
Number
of juvenile
arrests
Female
Under
age 15
White
Black
American
Indian
Asian
All offenses
809,700
29%
28%
62%
35%
2%
1%
Murder and nonnegligent
manslaughter
Rape
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Burglary
Larceny-theft
Motor vehicle theft
Arson
Simple assault
Forgery and counterfeiting
Fraud
Embezzlement
Stolen property (buying,
receiving, possessing)
Vandalism
910
8%
9%
38%
61%
1%
1%
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
19,330
28,220
30,850
118,660
16,300
2,240
123,040
1,220
4,760
640
10%
26%
12%
37%
18%
14%
37%
22%
33%
43%
19%
33%
31%
28%
24%
57%
39%
14%
20%
8%
32%
54%
56%
57%
45%
73%
58%
58%
46%
55%
67%
42%
41%
39%
52%
25%
39%
40%
51%
41%
0%
2%
2%
2%
2%
1%
2%
1%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
2%
10,500
16%
21%
41%
57%
1%
2%
36,720
18%
40%
69%
28%
2%
1%
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(continued)
Section 7.2
What Is Juvenile Delinquency?
Table 7.1: Demographic characteristics of juvenile arrests, 2017 (continued)
Most serious offense
Weapons (carrying,
possessing, etc.)
Prostitution and
commercialized vice
Sex offenses (except rape
& prostitution)
Drug abuse violations
Gambling
Offenses against the
family and children
Driving under the influence
Liquor laws
Drunkenness
Disorderly conduct
Vagrancy
All other offenses (except traffic)
Curfew and loitering
Violent Crime Index*
Property Crime Index**
Violent crimes
Number
of juvenile
arrests
Female
Under
age 15
White
Black
American
Indian
Asian
18,370
10%
29%
54%
44%
1%
2%
280
61%
14%
45%
53%
1%
1%
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
94,830
24%
15%
74%
22%
2%
2%
270
18%
13%
21%
76%
1%
1%
3,770
37%
34%
58%
28%
14%
1%
6,080
25%
2%
89%
7%
3%
2%
33,560
4,300
62,530
730
149,050
30,130
NA
168,050
48,470
41%
30%
36%
22%
28%
30%
NA
30%
20%
12%
13%
39%
26%
25%
29%
NA
29%
27%
87%
78%
54%
53%
66%
56%
NA
56%
45%
6%
8%
43%
45%
30%
41%
5%
12%
2%
1%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
2%
NA
NA
NA
52%
1%
1%
40%
2%
*Violent Crime Index includes murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
2%
**Property Crime Index includes burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
Source: Statistical Briefing Book, by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2018 (https://www.ojjdp.gov
/ojstatbb/crime/qa05104.asp?qaDate=2017).
A closer look at the arrest data in Table 7.1 shows that violent crimes that include murder
and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault account for
less than 6% of all juvenile arrests. According to the OJJDP (2018), the juvenile arrestee group
consisted of mostly White (62%; Black = 35%) males (71%; females = 29%), aged 15 to 17
(72%; 14 and younger = 28%). Interestingly, the demographic makeup of the United States
consists of only approximately 14% Black individuals (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018), and thus
having a disproportionately high percentage of Black minors arrested for any crime signals a
potential underlying racial bias issue.
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Section 7.2
What Is Juvenile Delinquency?
The table’s data on gender is consistent with what the
research shows regarding female versus male delinquents. Females are more frequently arrested for
crimes such as prostitution and crimes related to alcohol and drinking, whereas males are more likely to be
arrested for violent crimes, vandalism, and weapons.
Perception of Juvenile Delinquents
Although juveniles are not arrested nearly as frequently as adults, it can be argued that they are the
Males are most likely to be arrested
most misunderstood and vilified group of offenders
for violent crimes, vandalism, and
in the country. Despite the fact that the juvenile jusweapons, while females are more
tice system is designed to offer greater understanding,
frequently arrested for crimes such
rehabilitation, and leniency to juvenile offenders than
as prostitution and drunkenness.
that afforded to adults, harsh judgments and advocacy
in favor of stiffer sentencing of juvenile offenders are not uncommon. Pickett and Chiricos
(2012) examined attitudes of adults toward punitive juvenile justice policies, including the
decision to transfer certain juvenile offenders to the adult court system. Findings showed that
White individuals who tested high in “racial resentment” were significantly more likely than
those who lacked such bias to support harsh punishments, including transferring juveniles to
the adult criminal justice system for prosecution. See Spotlight: Bias and Juvenile Incarceration to read about a now discredited theory about juveniles that involved personal bias.
FelixRenaud/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Spotlight: Bias and Juvenile Incarceration
The negative perception of juvenile offenders is nothing new. As Pickett and Chiricos (2012)
point out, the racial bias that drives this philosophy has arisen in the post–civil rights era. It
appeared to have reached fever pitch in 1995, when political scientist John DiIulio wrote an
explosive article predicting that a new breed of juvenile offender that he dubbed the superpredator was going to invade the idyllic American lifestyle. Without any credible scientific
data, DiIulio (1995) wrote that so-called superpredators were mostly from Black inner-city
neighborhoods, lived in single-parent households, had fathers who had a criminal record, and
had at least one parent who abused drugs and/or alcohol. DiIulio also stated that these innercity superpredators were “morally impoverished” and were going to invade “upscale” suburbia and “even the rural heartland” (as cited in Drum, 2016).
Although you may be able to point to many issues with DiIulio’s theory, in a real-world context the major problem with it is that there has never been any credible scientific evidence in
support of the idea of children as superpredators. DiIulio, who was on the political science
faculty at Princeton University, wrote about his superpredator theory on behalf of a conservative special interest group to which he belonged. DiIulio’s rhetoric struck fear in many major
stakeholders in the criminal justice system.
By 2001, in response to declining juvenile crime rates and significant criticism from scholars, DiIulio had retracted most of his unsupported claims about the existence of the juvenile
superpredator and acknowledged deep regret over his mistake (Becker, 2001). This is now
commonly referred to as “the myth of the juvenile superpredator” (Vitale, 2018) by scholars and scientists who have debunked this pseudoscientific theory that appears to have been
based on DiIulio’s own personal, political, and social-class biases.
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Section 7.3
Moffitt’s Theories Related to Juvenile Delinquency
7.3 Moffitt’s Theories Related to Juvenile Delinquency
The risk factors associated with criminal behavior are covered throughout this text. In the
context of juvenile delinquency, Chapters 4 and 5 cover the situational/environmental and
biological factors that may be related to criminal behavior in juveniles. However, here we’ll
discuss an influential and highly regarded theory that deals directly with juvenile delinquency typologies. Terrie Moffitt’s (1993) developmental taxonomy theory details two general types of juvenile criminals: adolescence-limited offender and life-course-persistent
offender. Although considered a developmental psychology theory, Moffitt’s theory encompasses all three major areas of psychology that influence human behavior: biological, social,
and developmental.
Moffitt’s typologies pertain to relatively serious forms of psychopathology that generally
affect less than 10% of the population. The most acutely antisocial traits and behaviors are
fortunately the rarest. It is also important to highlight that many juveniles who exhibit risk
factors that include early onset conduct issues and certain traits such as callous-unemotional
traits (discussed in Chapter 3) tend to mature past their antisocial/delinquent behavior
(Skeem, Scott, & Mulvey, 2014). Experts on juvenile criminal behavior are finding that antisocial behavior in childhood is not necessarily a deterministic path toward criminal behavior as
an adult (see Mulvey, 2011; Piquero, Connell, Piquero, Farrington, & Jennings, 2013; Skeem,
Scott, et al., 2014; Vincent, Guy, & Grisso, 2012). That is, although certain minors commit
repeated acts of juvenile delinquency, it is entirely possible that they outgrow the behavior
and live conventional lives as adults.
Despite this possibility, Moffitt’s typologies are important to the understanding of juvenile
delinquent behavior.
Adolescence-Limited Offender
The first of Moffitt’s types consists of a large group that comprises mostly low-level offenders who engage in antisocial behavior briefly during adolescence. Moffitt called this group
adolescence-limited (AL) offenders, because their antisocial behavior and deviance is theorized to be caused by mostly sociological factors that speak to the uneven transition from
child to adult status.
Moffitt calls this transition period the “maturity
gap,” whereby adolescents experience dissatisfaction with their dependent status as a child and
impatience for what they anticipate are the privileges and rights of adulthood. Because statuses
are inconsistently available to teens (for example,
earning a driver’s license, using tobacco, voting,
and using alcohol are all legal at different ages),
this leads to feelings of frustration and acting-out
behaviors.
By engaging in antisocial behavior and mimicking
the behavior of antisocial peers, youths are simply
asserting autonomy and attempting to hasten their
Михаил Руденко/iStock/Getty Images Plus
The “maturity gap” refers to the period
in which children express frustration
and impatience for adult privileges
such as driving, voting, and buying
alcohol and tobacco.
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Moffitt’s Theories Related to Juvenile Delinquency
Section 7.3
social maturation. These processes are not only normal but also normative and are generally
limited to status-striving behaviors that relate mostly to alcohol use. Moffitt’s theory on this
type of offender is that as youth mature into adulthood and assume adult responsibilities, the
motivation to commit delinquency ends.
Life-Course-Persistent Offender
The second offender prototype in Moffitt’s taxonomy is a group called life-course-persistent
(LCP) offenders. This group is small—only about 10% of the juvenile offender population—
but those who fall into this category are pathological in their offending and commit crimes at
high rates over a long period. According to Moffitt (2003), LCP offending is likely the result of
neuropsychological deficits (recall the executive functions discussed in Chapter 5 and social
cognitive approaches to crime discussed in Chapter 4) that interact with disadvantaged early
home environments:
The child’s risk emerges from inherited or acquired deficits, difficult temperament, or hyperactivity. The environment’s risk comprises factors such
as inadequate parenting, disrupted family bonds, and poverty. The environmental risk domain expands beyond the family as the child ages, to include
poor relations with people such as peers and teachers. Opportunities to learn
prosocial skills are lost. Over the first two decades of development, transactions between the individual and the environment gradually construct a disordered personality with hallmark features of physical aggression and antisocial behavior persisting to midlife . . . the life-course-persistent pattern of
antisocial behavior appears to have substantial heritable liability. (pp. 50–53)
Although sociological processes or factors are also invoked to explain more severe forms of
antisocial behavior, its etiology is believed to be more dependent on biological, genetic, and
biosocial variables. Indeed, a variety of criminological explanations view recurrent problem
behavior as manifestations of some individual-level pathology that remains stable within an
individual across social settings and circumstances. More pointedly, this theoretical perspective asserts that serious offenders have been problematic since early childhood, and their
multifaceted acts of wayward behavior are, quite simply, demonstrative of their psychopathology (DeLisi, 2005).
Studies Supporting Moffitt’s Theory
There is widespread empirical support for many of the ideas in Moffitt’s taxonomy. Longitudinal data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study has shown that
AL and LCP offenders can be distinguished as early as age 3 based on neurological abnormalities, cognitive problems, hyperactivity, undercontrolled temperaments characterized by low
self-regulation, and other risk factors. These early life factors predict externalizing symptoms,
delinquency, and violence into adulthood (for a research overview, see Moffitt, 2003).
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Moffitt’s Theories Related to Juvenile Delinquency
Section 7.3
Examples of studies that support Moffitt’s theory include a widely cited large-scale study that
employed data from Canada, New Zealand, and the United States; Broidy and her colleagues
(2003) found evidence of an LCP offending male whose life was characterized by cognitive
problems, neuropsychological deficits, aggression, and other externalizing symptoms. In one
of the largest studies of an offender subgroup consistent with the LCP prototype, Vaughn,
DeLisi, and their colleagues (2011) studied the externalizing behavior spectrum among more
than 43,000 participants in the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). They measured 34 forms of externalizing behavior spanning various forms
of substance use and abuse; assorted examples of school, work, and relationship maladaptive
behaviors; and diverse forms of criminal and antisocial behavior. A severe group consisting of
about 5% of the NESARC was found, and members of this group displayed significantly higher
levels of externalizing symptoms and psychiatric disturbance—a profile that is congruent
with Moffitt’s (1993, 2003) notion of the LCP offender.
Criticisms
Despite the impressive empirical support and influence of Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy,
it has received criticism. For example, Sampson and Laub (2003) suggested that the notion of
an LCP offender is a misnomer because virtually all offenders—even those who when younger
were serious, high-rate offenders—desist as they age. The researchers followed a cohort of
offenders through age 70 and found that life-course desistance rather than persistence was the
usual developmental pattern.
More recently, Walters (2011) used sophisticated analyses that find latent groupings in data
among nearly 2,000 participants from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Data to
examine the existence of AL and LCP offender groups. He found no evidence that the offender
prototypes were categorically distinct groups. Instead, they were located on a dimensional
spectrum of antisocial traits, on which AL and LCP offenders are different in degree but not in
kind. Walters (2011) concluded, however, that it is more of a technical point whether Moffitt’s
taxonomy is a true taxonomy, because the knowledge about AL and LCP offenders is still valid
and informs research and policy.
Another key criticism of Moffitt’s theory is that it was developed based on male juvenile
offenders and thus may not adequately predict and explain female juvenile offender behavior.
To address this criticism, Moffitt and Caspi (2001) examined whether the theory could be
applied to female juvenile offenders, and their research yielded partial support that it does
apply. That is, their research showed that the LCP type is significantly more prevalent in boys
than in girls, with less than 2% of female offenders meeting this category’s criteria. This is
supported by other researchers who evaluated the gender-specific relevance of the theory
(see Côté, Zoccolillo, Tremblay, Nagin, & Vitaro, 2001; Fontaine, Carbonneau, Vitaro, Barker, &
Tremblay, 2009). However, for those who meet the AL type criteria, this category appears to
apply equally to both female and male juvenile delinquents. Perhaps one of the biggest predictors of whether females engage in delinquent behavior at an early age is association with
delinquent peers, especially if the influence is a delinquent boy (Moffitt, 2003). That is, girls
may be drawn into criminal behavior by having a close relationship with a male counterpart
who commits crimes, whereas boys are often drawn into delinquent behavior by their group
of friends.
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Juvenile Brain and Delinquent Behavior
Section 7.4
Extending Moffitt’s Theory
A group of researchers continued Moffitt’s theory, finding a third and final group that is also
relatively small (about 10% of the population). This group, called “abstainers,” is composed
of those individuals who do not engage in any form of antisocial behavior, even during adolescence. Research suggests that abstainers are higher functioning individuals who never felt
the “teenage angst” that AL offenders did (Vaughn, DeLisi, et al., 2011). Abstainers have been
shown to be an acutely prosocial group even at an early age. The group is characterized by
high psychosocial health and school performance and significantly fewer mood, anxiety, and
personality disorders than those who engage in deviance. As a result, there is neither the
motivation nor the interest to engage in trivial forms of delinquency and substance experimentation like their peers. Using data from the NESARC, Vaughn et al. (2011) found that
about 11% of the general public abstains from substance use and antisocial behavior in the
United States.
7.4 Juvenile Brain and Delinquent Behavior
A dynamic area of research on developing theories of juvenile criminal behavior comes out of
neuroscience and neuropsychology. Juvenile brain is a term of endearment for the lack of a
fully mature human brain and its influence on the risk-taking behaviors of adolescents. That
is, juvenile brain refers to the normal structural differences that exist between younger brains
and those of fully grown adults. It is now generally accepted among the relevant scientific,
medical, and even criminal justice communities that the human brain is not fully mature until
sometime after age 25, with the frontal lobe being the last part of the brain to develop (Johnson, Blum, & Giedd, 2009). The frontal lobe is arguably the most important part of the brain
when considering the ability to control one’s impulses and to think and reason rationally (see
Figure 7.1; American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016). It is responsible for
cognitive processes that include impulse control, judgment, planning, and the ability to reason effectively.
According to Tierney and Nelson (2009), the neural networks that help brain cells communicate information use chemical signals, and these networks are robust in teenagers. There
are advantages to having robust neural networks, particularly when it comes to learning new
tasks. For example, thanks to these robust neural networks, children are able to learn complex
new information such as foreign languages and musical instruments much more easily than
adults, who have less robust neural networks. A disadvantage, though, is that these robust
neural networks also render kids more vulnerable to sleep deprivation, a common issue for
many American teenagers, and to inflated emotional reactions to stressful situations.
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Section 7.4
Juvenile Brain and Delinquent Behavior
Figure 7.1: Lobes of the brain and behavior
The four lobes of the brain—frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital—are responsible for different
behaviors, whether physical or mental. In the context of juvenile brain, the most important lobe for
controlling impulses, sound judgment and reasoning, and higher thought processes is the frontal lobe.
Frontal lobe
Motor activity
Higher thought processes
Problem solving
Emotional traits
Reasoning (judgment)
Speaking
Voluntary motor activity
Parietal lobe
Knowing right from left
Sensation
Reading
Body orientation
Occipital lobe
Visual cortex
Vision
Color perception
Temporal lobe
Auditory cortex
Language
Speech
Understanding language
Behavior
Memory
Hearing
From “Brain Injury Overview: What Is It and What Does It Affect?,” by Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, 2018 (https://www.sralab.org
/lifecenter/resources/brain-injury-overview-what-it-and-what-does-it-affect).
Emotion-Based Decision Making
Research on juvenile brain development shows that if teenagers are asked hypothetical questions about risk and reward, they will often state similar responses as adults. That is, teens
may provide the same informational answers as adults. However, they are emotionally immature, and thus when answering the questions in a controlled setting such as a research laboratory, they likely are not in the same emotional state as when they are tasked with actually
making important decisions (Casey, Jones, & Hare, 2008). Generally speaking, juveniles find
it more difficult than adults to interrupt an action once they have started performing it. Likewise, they tend to lack the ability to think before acting, as well as to choose between safe
versus risky alternatives.
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Juvenile Brain and Delinquent Behavior
Section 7.4
For example, when asked if they would get into the car with a drunk driver, most juveniles will
state without hesitation the appropriate response and deny that they would do so. However,
research shows that when actually in this situation, the majority would find it incredibly difficult to avoid getting into the car despite knowing that the driver had been drinking (Steinberg, 2004).
These findings show that juveniles may know the difference between right and wrong, but
under certain conditions they are prone to making objectively bad decisions. This is partially
attributable to the juvenile’s inability to predict potential consequences of making questionable decisions; however, much is attributable to juveniles’ drive for new experiences and
thrill-seeking impulses. That is, juveniles, particularly boys, seem driven to seek experiences
that produce strong feelings and sensations (Steinberg, 2004).
Social Pressure–Based Decision Making
Juveniles’ judgment can also be significantly affected by social pressure, the power of which
should not be underestimated when considered in the context of influencing behavior. Resisting social pressure is incredibly difficult for juveniles. Much of their troubling behavior—from
aggression to reckless driving to substance use and abuse—occurs in groups due to group
pressure and peer influence. The effects of social pressure on teens’ behaviors may be directly
attributable to their immature, not yet fully developed brains.
In a psychological experiment conducted by Haddad, Harrison, Norman, and Lau (2014), the
researchers examined the effects that perceived peer observation had on risky decision making in adults and adolescents using a virtual social context that enabled experimental control
over peer interactions. Participants—40 adolescents and 28 adults—completed a risk-taking
task across four conditions. The risk-taking task was a gambling task in which participants
wagered nonmonetary bets under various conditions. One condition was “private,” with no
peers observing the participant. Another condition occurred while participants believed they
were being observed by peers. A third condition was receiving “risky” advice from the fictitious peers, and the fourth condition was receiving “safe” advice from the peers.
Results of this study showed that when making high-risk gambles, adolescents made more
risky decisions under the peer observation condition than their adult participant counterparts did. The adolescent group tended to resist “safe” advice for high-risk gambles significantly more often than adults did. Although both groups of participants tended to follow
“risky” advice for high-risk gambles, the adolescent participants were significantly more
likely than adults to make risky decisions when they believed they were being observed by
their peers. These findings highlight that when adolescents believed they were observed by
peers, they were significantly more likely than adults to behave in a risky manner.
This phenomenon is observable and applies to the introductory case study at the beginning of
this chapter. Dylan Thomas’s behavior and Jessica Umberger’s and Rebecca Gotay’s observations of Thomas’s behavior—along with their encouragement—were the catalysts for Thomas
to take aggressive criminal action against Daniel Vukovich. Umberger and Gotay were active
participants in the crime, applying social pressure that incited Thomas to go through with
assaulting Vukovich. Although Thomas was ultimately responsible for harming Vukovich, the
effect that his teenage brain had on his ability to think and reason appropriately cannot be
overlooked or underestimated.
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Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
Section 7.5
7.5 Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
There are an overwhelming number of prevention and intervention programs for young
offenders who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. The focus of the judicial
system is on making decisions that are in the best interests of the child. Unfortunately, though,
the vast majority of existing delinquency prevention and intervention programs have not
been subject to data effectiveness evaluations.
According to Evans-Chase and Zhou (2014), of the prevention programs that have been evaluated for efficacy, the results are less than favorable. Data effectiveness evaluations require
significant resources, which most agencies that offer not-for-profit juvenile delinquency programs do not have. The lack of efficacy observed in juvenile treatment programs is attributable largely to a lack of the juvenile offender having the insight that change needs to occur and
the lack of motivation to change (Shaw, Gilliom, Ingoldsby, & Nagin, 2003; Tarolla, Rabinowitz,
Wagner, & Tubman, 2002). It may also be at least partly attributable to the trend of treating
juveniles to harsh punishments with the attitude that any rehabilitative resources would be
wasted on them.
However, the justice system and thus public conscience is changing based on the brain science that tells us that kids must have a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that they can
change (see Graham v. Florida, 2010; Miller v. Alabama, 2012). In order to do this, there have
to be interventions in place to address reducing or eliminating risk factors for offending prior
to when the adverse behavior patterns emerge (primary intervention), to address those who
are showing early signs of developing antisocial behavior but who have not yet offended (secondary intervention), and to intervene with treatment when minors have committed serious
offenses or are repeat offenders (tertiary intervention), despite having received primary and
secondary interventions.
Primary Intervention
Primary intervention, best conceptualized as prevention programming, occurs when children have been identified as being at risk of developing serious antisocial behavior patterns
due to exposure to external stressors. These can include being abused or neglected, living in
abject poverty, peer rejection, having an incarcerated parent, and any other adverse childhood experiences (Ruffolo, Sarri, & Goodkind, 2004; see Spotlight: Head Start Program to
learn more about a successful type of primary intervention program). Research shows that
adverse childhood experiences place juveniles at risk not only for victimization but also for
perpetration of violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2019). See Figure
7.2 for a look at adolescent risk behaviors by family income.
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Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
Section 7.5
Figure 7.2: Adolescent risk behaviors by family income level
As this graph shows, although juveniles from low-income families are as likely to use or sell drugs
as are their higher income counterparts, the former are significantly more likely to engage in violent
criminal behavior. Primary intervention could be helpful for youth from lower income families to
ensure that they avoid risk of victimization and perpetration of violence.
Adapted with permission from the Brookings Institution.
In order to overcome any risk caused by exposure to adverse early childhood trauma, primary
prevention programs focus on building resilience. Resilience is a protective factor that represents the extent to which an individual recovers quickly from difficult situations. Bonanno
(2014) asserts that resilience is our ability to maintain equilibrium in the face of adversity. In
2004 Waaktaar, Christie, Borge, and Torgerson examined resilience as a protective factor for
high-risk youths by focusing on four resilience factors: self-efficacy, positive peer relations,
creativity, and coherence.
Self-efficacy is the extent to which an individual believes she or he has the ability to complete
a task successfully (Bandura, 1989). Positive peer relations refers to prosocial interactions
such as helping peers, teamwork, and collaborative learning. Creativity refers to artistic talent
through music, writing, or dance. Coherence refers to recognizing a coherent meaning to past,
present, and future life through maintaining positive cognition and not blaming oneself for circumstances beyond one’s control. Results showed that therapeutic interventions that focused
on these four protective factors significantly increased resilience (Waaktaar et al., 2004).
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Section 7.5
Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
Spotlight: Head Start Program
An example of a primary prevention program
is the federally funded Head Start program. In
response to the War on Poverty in the 1960s,
President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized funding for Head Start as an 8-week pilot program.
The program was aimed at promoting school
readiness and overall healthy development in
children from high-poverty areas. Johnson’s goal
in funding Head Start was to eradicate poverty
through education that would presumably lead
to better job opportunities.
The program focuses on early childhood development interventions on behalf of children who
are categorized as “low poverty” from birth to
5 years of age. This category includes homeless children, those in foster care, and kids from
families who receive public assistance. Head
Start has evolved from a short-term program to
one offering services continuously during early
childhood.
John R. Crane/Danville Register & Bee/
Associated Press
Children from a Head Start program
plant flowers near the former
elementary school that now houses
their program.
Services offered by Head Start programs vary by jurisdiction and are often tailored to the individual child and family. However, all Head Start programs have four main components: education, health, parent involvement, and social services. The educational aspect places emphasis
on language and literacy, as well as strengthening parental bonds and teaching parents that
they are their child’s most important teacher. The health aspect includes assessment of health
services (such as immunizations) that the children may need, and social services provide outreach to determine what services families may need.
Although the Head Start program receives federal funding, it is offered and administered by
many states in more than 2,800 programs nationwide. Head Start serves over 1 million children annually.
The impact of Head Start on low-SES communities is overwhelmingly positive. For example,
children who receive Head Start services in early childhood are more likely to graduate high
school and go on to college (Bauer & Schanzenbach, 2016; Deming, 2009), are more likely
to be physically healthier than their non–Head Start counterparts (Deming, 2009; Johnson,
2010), and are significantly less likely to be arrested and charged with a crime than siblings
who did not receive Head Start benefits (Garces, Thomas, & Currie, 2002).
For more information on Head Start, check out the following websites:
• https://www.nhsa.org
• https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/616
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Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
Section 7.5
Secondary Intervention
Secondary intervention strategies are aimed at treating young offenders who have had limited contact with the juvenile justice system and who have been identified as high risk for
developing serious antisocial behavior patterns. These juveniles may also have mental health
issues, including substance abuse or addiction problems, depression, anxiety, or other mental
illnesses.
One issue with secondary prevention programs is that because they generally are not applied
until the youth is an adolescent and the negative behavioral patterns have begun, they tend
to be relatively ineffective in reducing recidivism (Schwalbe, Gearing, MacKenzie, Brewer, &
Ibrahim, 2012).
Diversion Programming
Perhaps the most common form of secondary intervention is juvenile diversion programming. The goal of diversion programs is to intervene in a less formal manner than processing
the youth through the juvenile justice system. Entering a diversion program—such as community service—helps youths avoid formal charges as long as the conditions of the program
are met.
However, Schwalbe and colleagues (2012), in their meta-analysis on juvenile diversion program efficacy, showed that only family counseling interventions and restorative justice interventions had a significant positive effect on reducing recidivism.
Restorative Justice
Restorative justice is a holistic approach to justice that focuses on precisely what harm was
done and how the harm can be repaired or mitigated; it includes those most affected by the
harm by making them active participants in the criminal justice process and outcome (Centre
for Justice & Reconciliation, 2019). It is being implemented more frequently in both the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. In fact, in 1994 the OJJDP funded the Balanced and
Restorative Justice (BARJ) Project to provide training and support to juvenile justice system
stakeholders in states that were seeking to engage in juvenile justice reform (Pavelka, 2016).
Rather than focusing exclusively on punishment, the BARJ Project focuses on offender accountability and peace building. That is, the offender, through this intervention, comes to recognize
the harm done to victims and the community as a result of his or her actions. There are a number of jurisdictions that have juvenile restorative justice programs. The OJJDP provides guidance
and support to jurisdictions that wish to implement BARJ programs. Many states have some
form of BARJ that is administered either in the juvenile court system or at school in an effort to
address delinquent behavior without transferring juveniles to the criminal justice system. For
more information about BARJ and restorative justice programs, visit the following links:
• https://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/implementing/balanced.html
• https://dcf.vermont.gov/youth/justice/BARJ
Not every offender and victim are well suited to the restorative justice process, however. For
example, if the offender does not accept responsibility for causing harm, or if it is determined
that the victim would suffer further trauma as a result, then this intervention is ill advised.
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Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
Section 7.5
Moreover, the victim and/or the offender may decline to participate in the restorative justice
process. Last, most jurisdictions do not have funding for restorative justice programs. As of
2016, only 20 states had language in their statutes that incorporated restorative justice interventions (Pavelka, 2016).
It is important to keep in mind that just because the Schwalbe et al. (2012) meta-analysis
only showed significant results in reducing recidivism for family counseling interventions
and restorative justice interventions, this is not conclusive evidence that the other types of
secondary intervention programs were completely ineffective in helping juvenile offenders.
Psychological research studies evaluate data and highlight statistically significant results.
Therefore, the study results can best be conceptualized as inconclusive where other types
of secondary intervention programs are concerned. Other types of secondary interventions
may not have shown a statistically significant effect on reducing recidivism, but there could
be a number of explanations for this; for example, there may not have been enough programs
included in the study to make a determination.
See Spotlight: Scared Straight Programs to learn about a now discredited theory regarding a
type of secondary intervention for juvenile delinquents.
Spotlight: Scared Straight Programs
Although the superordinate goal of any intervention is to reduce recidivism, perhaps another
important focus should be on ensuring that intervention programs do not show an increase in
recidivism rates.
Following a 1978 documentary at a New Jersey prison entitled Scared Straight, in the 1980s
and 1990s at least 30 jurisdictions nationwide replicated the Scared Straight program, and
almost every other state had some form of it. (It was also implemented abroad in the United
Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Norway, and Canada.) These programs took troubled youth and
placed them in prison for the day alongside some of the most violent convicted felons, who
would “scare” the kids into behaving appropriately. The youth who were selected for this type
of program exhibited antisocial behaviors and were determined to be at high risk for juvenile
delinquency. The adult inmates tasked with hosting the minors, some as young as age 11, were
trained to use tactics such as open hostility, instilling fear, and menacing intimidation without
actually making physical contact with the kids (Bernard & Kurlychek, 2010).
On the surface, it seems as though such an intervention would prove effective in teaching
juveniles that they do not want to end up in prison; thus, they would be “scared straight.” The
research on its efficacy shows otherwise. Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino, and Buehler (2003)
conducted a meta-analysis on Scared Straight programs and found that these interventions
were not only worthless in terms of reducing recidivism but actually resulted in quite the
opposite: They appeared to increase recidivism by up to 70%. A follow-up study by Kim, Merlo,
and Benekos (2013) showed that, when compared to at-risk juveniles who did not attend a
Scared Straight program, those who did showed significantly higher recidivism rates.
Although taxpayers were told that Scared Straight programs were a low-cost secondary intervention, there was an estimated cost of approximately $17,000 for each Scared Straight program participant who later recidivated. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (2018) has
concluded that although the intervention was well-intentioned, it had dire consequences for
the juvenile participants, the community, and taxpayers.
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Prevention and Intervention for Juvenile Offenders
Section 7.5
Tertiary Intervention
Tertiary interventions can best be thought of as intensive psychosocial treatment interventions. The focus of treatment interventions is to solve problems that have already arisen, such
as juvenile delinquency.
A treatment approach is used when juveniles have been adjudicated delinquent but could
perhaps benefit from mental health counseling, drug treatment, or another form of intensive intervention. These interventions are often court mandated and represent a final effort
to rehabilitate youths who have regularly committed serious and possibly violent offenses.
The treatment can be inpatient but is usually on an outpatient basis due to a lack of funding for maintaining residential facilities (Skeem, Scott, et al., 2014). Treatment almost always
includes group, rather than individual, counseling sessions led by a qualified professional.
It is difficult to determine the efficacy of many of these types of therapeutic interventions
because, just as in secondary interventions, a lack of resources is prohibitive to collecting and
analyzing data (Lipsey, Howell, Kelly, Chapman, & Carver, 2010).
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based therapeutic intervention that
focuses on altering negative cognitions and behaviors and teaching self-regulation skills
(Beck, 2011). CBT has been well researched and proved as an effective therapeutic modality
for facilitating positive attitude and behavioral change, as well as positive coping strategies in
juveniles (Benjamin et al., 2011). Although CBT is considered an evidence-based intervention
with strong empirical support that it improves positive coping strategies, it is important to
understand that a lack of resources to directly study the impact of CBT in reducing or preventing delinquency has made it virtually impossible to determine the extent of its effectiveness.
Functional Family Therapy and Multisystemic Therapy
Research has shown that treatment interventions that focus on risk, needs, and responsivity
of the individual—together with family, peer, and community inclusion—have a good chance
of success (Andrews & Bonta, 2007). These therapeutic interventions include intensive programs such as functional family therapy and multisystemic therapy. Functional family therapy
(FFT) focuses on intensive family therapy that is designed to help dysfunctional families learn
to become healthy and functional (Sexton & Turner, 2010). Multisystemic therapy (MST)
focuses on the individual but includes the family, peers, schools, and community (Henggeler,
2011). Each of these treatment modalities has a considerable amount of empirical support
for success. For example, in a meta-analysis conducted by Baldwin, Christian, Berkeljon, and
Shadish in 2012, an analysis of 24 studies on the impact of both FFT and MST showed that
they were highly effective interventions in reducing delinquent behavior.
Although it is a challenge to determine precisely what mode of intervention will be effective
as well as to find the resources to fund intervention programs, research has shown that most
interventions are helpful on some level. These findings support the need for juvenile justice
intervention funding, including a budget for ongoing research and development of intervention initiatives. Given what researchers and practitioners are learning from neuroscience on
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Section 7.6
Juveniles and Crime: A Case Study
juvenile brain, it may be that incorporating prevention programming into educational curriculum at schools remains the first line of defense against the development of serious antisocial
behaviors. Perhaps the philosophy of prevention and intervention programs should be rooted
in the idea that juvenile brains have not yet fully developed, and thus investing in rehabilitative efforts that foster emotional growth and positive self-concept may prove the best strategy with the most successful outcome for the individual juvenile and the community at large.
7.6 Juveniles and Crime: A Case Study
On the evening of April 14, 2013, Chip and Claudia Northup went to bed peacefully. They were
an elderly couple, active in their church and living an idyllic life in Davis, California. When they
did not show up to church the next morning, congregants noticed. Family members called
them repeatedly and became increasingly concerned when the couple didn’t answer their
phone.
Chip’s daughter decided to visit their home and was horrified to find that Chip and Claudia
had been murdered in their sleep. The seasoned investigators were aghast at the savagery at
this crime scene, and worse, the police had no leads. The house was not ransacked, and there
were no missing valuables. It appeared that the killer had gone into the house for the sole
purpose of murdering the couple.
It took approximately 2 months before an anonymous tipster came forward claiming that he had
information about who committed the crime. The
young tipster stated that his friend, 15-year-old
Daniel Marsh, wanted to know what it would be
like to kill someone and had confessed to murdering Chip and Claudia, who were his next-door
neighbors. Police first brought in the tipster, Alvaro
Garibay, who came forward because he feared
that he would be Marsh’s next victim. Police then
brought in Marsh for questioning. After about
4 hours, Marsh finally confessed to the murders of
Chip and Claudia Northup.
The interrogation revealed that Marsh was a highfunctioning but troubled teenager. When Marsh
was 10 years old, his mother had an affair with a
woman—Marsh’s former kindergarten teacher—
and subsequently left Marsh’s father in order to
pursue that relationship. Marsh told police during the interrogation that he was so enraged that
he wanted to kill his teacher. However, that same
year, Marsh had also been honored by the Red Cross
for performing CPR on his father, who had a heart
attack while driving. As he entered his early teens,
Anne Chadwick Williams/The Sacramento Bee/
Associated Press
Fifteen-year-old Daniel Marsh, shown
here at age 11, confessed to murdering
his elderly next door neighbors
because he wanted to know what it
would be like to kill someone.
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Juveniles and Crime: A Case Study
Section 7.6
Marsh’s anger and depression were evident, and many mental health professionals tried to
intervene.
According to Garibay, Marsh’s mood and behavior had improved remarkably after the murders. Marsh’s grades had improved, his overall demeanor was better, and he had earned the
distinction of Student of the Month at his high school in the month after the murders. Marsh
told police during his interrogation, “I’m not gonna lie. It felt amazing. It was pure happiness,
and adrenaline and dopamine, just all of it rushing over me” (as cited in Moriarty, 2019).
Marsh also told the FBI investigator in graphic detail that while the investigator was interrogating him, he had been fantasizing about how he would kill the agent. Marsh stated that the
FBI agent should not take it personally because he constantly fantasized about killing most
people he met.
Marsh’s case was not handled in the juvenile justice system. Prosecutors decided that despite
the fact that Marsh was just 15 years old, his case would be transferred to the adult criminal
justice system. During his trial, his defense team claimed that Marsh was legally insane and
that Zoloft was at least partly to blame for the violent murders of Chip and Claudia Northup.
The jury rejected the insanity defense and found Marsh guilty of two counts of first-degree
murder (we’ll discuss types of homicide and sentencing in Chapter 8). The judge sentenced
Marsh to 52 years to life in prison. That is, Marsh must serve a minimum of 52 years before he
can be considered for parole, but he may get relief earlier than that.
To read more about Marsh’s case and to see clips of his interrogation, visit https://www.cbs
news.com, type “Daniel Marsh” into the search bar, and click the first link for the article titled
“Could a new Calif. Law free a convicted killer when he turns 25?”
Legislation
In 2018 California governor Jerry Brown signed into law a controversial piece of legislation
prohibiting the transfer to adult court of any juvenile under age 16, regardless of the seriousness of the crime. If Marsh’s legal team gets its way, Marsh’s case will be retroactively
remanded to juvenile court for adjudication, meaning that even if Marsh receives the maximum juvenile sentence, he will be eligible for release at age 25.
Analysis
Marsh’s case highlights that juvenile brain cannot and does not account completely for juvenile criminal behavior. In Marsh’s case, there was evidence of mental illness—including being
involuntarily committed to a mental health facility after multiple suicide attempts and threats
of homicidal violence prior to actually committing the murders. As you’ve learned in Chapters
2 and 3, seriously mentally ill individuals are more likely to be victims of crime than they are
to be perpetrators, but there are exceptions, such as when the nature of the perpetrator’s
dysfunction is psychopathy.
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Summary and Conclusion
Nevertheless, juveniles are considered good candidates for rehabilitation, even when diagnosed with serious mental illness, because they are still growing and maturing both mentally
and physically. Therefore, a focus on prevention programs seems to show the most promise for altering delinquent behavior and keeping juveniles from becoming adult criminals
(Greenwood, 2008). Had Daniel Marsh undergone treatment or been involved in a prevention
program, perhaps he wouldn’t have committed this crime.
7.7 Trends and Patterns in Juvenile Incarceration
Despite the fact that relatively recent neuroscience research has shown that a lack of brain
maturity has a dire impact on juveniles’ ability to make sound decisions, the United States
incarcerates significantly more juveniles than any other nation in the world (Sawyer & Wagner, 2019).
However, since 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court has made landmark decisions concerning how
juveniles should be perceived and treated by the criminal justice system (see Graham v. Florida, 2010; Miller v. Alabama, 2012; Roper v. Simmons, 2005). That is, the Supreme Court has
incorporated the emerging juvenile brain science into its decision making to determine that
minors, even those who commit acts of violence, must be given a meaningful opportunity for
rehabilitation and to demonstrate that they have been rehabilitated. These ideas are becoming part of the public conscience as laws concerning juvenile delinquency prosecutions and
juvenile transfer to adult courts continue to evolve. The result is a downward trend in juvenile
incarceration.
Summary and Conclusion
There are close to 1 million juveniles arrested in the United States each year for various
crimes, mostly for nonviolent offenses. Juvenile delinquents are classified as such when
their behavior rises to the level of habitually committing crimes. The general perception and
treatment of juvenile delinquents can be harshly punitive.
One of the keys to understanding the psychology of juvenile criminal behavior is to examine
common risk factors associated with the behavior. Moffitt’s theory of juvenile development—
which includes the adolescence-limited offender and the life-course-persistent offender—is
considered a developmental psychology theory, but it also encompasses all three major areas
of psychology that influence human behavior: biological, social, and developmental. Though
her theory has been widely supported, there are also criticisms of the separate classifications
of juvenile offender.
A dynamic area of juvenile development research is rooted in neuroscience and is often
referred to as juvenile brain, which indicates the lack of a fully mature adult brain and the
influence of the immature brain on the risk-taking behaviors of adolescents. Some of the factors of juvenile brain are emotion-based and social pressure–based decision making.
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Summary and Conclusion
For those juveniles who are identified as at risk due to adverse childhood experiences such
as poor economic conditions, exposure to trauma and violence, and substance abuse or
other psychopathology as covered in the chapter, research shows some promising interventions. Primary intervention programs show the highest level of success in preventing the
development of serious antisocial behaviors as children mature. However, it is a challenge
to identify risk factors in children who are not yet exhibiting problem behaviors. Secondary interventions show great promise in juveniles who are beginning to engage in antisocial
behaviors. The least successful level of intervention is tertiary treatment, because these
interventions are often applied when the juvenile is older, has committed serious offenses,
and may have serious mental health issues, making it difficult to attain the level of success
of a primary intervention designed to prevent problem behavior from developing. The best
approach is early intervention.
One of the most troubling aspects of juvenile justice is that the United States significantly
outpaces the rest of the world in the numbers of young people sent to prison each year.
Much of this results from transferring juveniles to adult court, but it is also due to a lack of
resources devoted to developing interventions that will divert children from jail and help
transform them into productive, law-abiding citizens. Resources should be funneled into
research for improving existing interventions and developing new interventions as an alternative to criminalizing juvenile behavior. This benefits the juvenile, the taxpayers, and the
community at large.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Define juvenile delinquency and youthful offender. What are the key features that
distinguish each of these from the other?
2. Discuss the issue of racialization of juvenile offenders. What does this term mean? Is
there evidence of racial bias in the juvenile justice system?
3. Discuss the myth of the superpredator. What were some of the issues with labeling
certain teens as superpredators?
4. Consider a 15-year-old who has been adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent. What
would be the best level of treatment for this individual? What challenges exist for
this level of treatment?
5. Discuss juvenile brain. What are its features? Why does it present problems for some
teenagers in managing their behavior?
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Summary and Conclusion
Key Terms
adolescence-limited (AL) offenders Individuals who offend briefly during adolescence. Their antisocial behavior and deviance are theorized to be caused by mostly
sociological factors that speak to the uneven
transition from child to adult status.
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) An
evidence-based therapeutic intervention
focused on altering negative behaviors and
cognitions and teaching self-regulation
skills.
diversion programming The diverting of
juvenile delinquents to social service providers and other community services to
address their underlying problems instead
of sending them to juvenile court.
functional family therapy (FFT) An intensive family therapy designed to help dysfunctional families learn to become healthy
and functional.
juvenile brain A term used to describe
the impulsive and risk-taking behavior of
adolescents due to the lack of a fully mature
adult brain.
juvenile delinquent An individual under
age 18 who is arrested for criminal behavior.
life-course-persistent (LCP) offenders Pathological offenders with neuropsychological deficits and an adverse home
environment.
primary intervention A form of intervention that can best be conceptualized as
prevention programming, the primary goal
of which is to build resilience.
resilience A protective factor that represents the extent to which an individual
recovers quickly from difficult situations.
restorative justice A holistic approach
to justice that focuses on what harm has
been done and how to repair that harm; it
includes all major stakeholders, including
the victims, in the process.
secondary intervention A form of intervention that is aimed at treating young
offenders who have had limited contact with
the juvenile justice system and who have
been identified as high risk for developing
serious antisocial behavior patterns.
tertiary intervention A form of intervention that is best conceptualized as intensive psychosocial treatment delivered to
juvenile offenders with serious antisocial
behavioral problems; involves mental health
counseling.
youthful offender A young adult who is
aged 18 to 25 and thus is not eligible to be
sentenced in the juvenile justice system but
may be placed in a special youthful offender
facility and have access to specialized interventions designed to facilitate rehabilitation.
multisystemic therapy (MST) An intensive
therapy that focuses on the individual but
also includes the family, peers, school, and
community in the process.
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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
the…
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