Development of violent behaviors by adolescents and young adults.
There have been studies conducted to find out the cause of violent behavior among adolescents and young adults. This is necessitated by the increased rates of violence experienced among many people. Criminologists claim that increased violent behaviors contribute to the rise of crime. For instance, there has been increased crime among the young people in the recent times. According to a research that was carried out on the victim cost of crime reveals that that the cost of an average chronic juvenile offender who commits crime between seven years and seventeen years amounted to $ 1.
25 million in 2000 in the United States of America. Violence in this case, refers to any behavior that uses force to commit crime. For instance, robbery, attacking with intent to injure or rape. Most adolescents and young adults form this violent behavior because of being exposed to violence. This may be either in school or in the society (Michael, 6-9). The violent behavior, which many young people have, contributes greatly to the high rise in crime. The paper will look at how exposure to violence leads to the development of violent behavior.
There are many factors that contribute to formation of behaviors in an individual. The main factors that contribute to the behavior of an individual include genetics and the environment. The environment in which a person grows is very crucial in determining the behavior formed. Environment includes the people one relates with or the situations that one is surrounded with. The exposure one gets determines to a large extent the behavior that an individual develops. Young people are mostly affected by the kind of exposure they have.
There are neurobiological factors that lead to formation of violent behaviors. Scholars relate the formation of violent behaviors to some underlying neurogical mechanisms inside an individual. Studies carried out have not yet revealed well the neurobiological factors involved in this. There is also an assumption that one develops the violent behavior in the course of life. According to psychologists, the development of the aggressive behaviors can be explained by social individual economic and environmental factors (Denzin 106-108).
Various models have been developed to explain how neurobiological, and social, individual, economic and environmental factors influence the formation and progression of violent behaviors among the adolescents and the young adults. The heuristic model represents interrelationship between the broad based factors that are believed to contribute to the development of violent and aggressive behaviors in individuals. The factors looked in this model includes genetics, social, economic and environmental factors. The other factor that is looked in this model is the neurobiological factor.
This is the structure and the functioning of the brain. The social, economic, and the environmental factors contribute to the change of the neurobiological structure and the function. According to researches carried, the impact of genetics, brain structure and functioning on behavior can be changed through human interactions (Griffin & Gross 483-498). Emotional and behavioral dysregulation are also known to cause violence behavior. When one is experiencing intra conflict this leads to angers and mood swings. This later develops into violent behaviors.
Studies have shown a relation between emotional dysregulation for example, irritability and anger to conduct problems and violence in adolescents. This is caused by the intra personal conflicts that one may be experiencing. Intra conflicts may arise because of stressor some other dysfunctions of the mind. The internal conflicts expose themselves outwardly in form of violence or aggressive behavior. This situation is common to adolescents and young adults as they are in the stage of life where they are trying to find their direction in life.
Another factor that contributes to development of violent behaviors among the adolescents and the young adults is genetics. Genetic studies have shown significant heritability of a wide range of psychological characteristics and behaviors. The characters and the behaviors include aggression and other anti social behavior. There is enough evidence that Intimate Partner Aggression (IPA) is inherited through generations. For example, a child who has been brought up in an aggressive family or who has been abused in the early age has high chances of being aggressive or violent when he or she grows up.
This intergeneration transmission of IPA is best explained by the social learning theory (Cutler 178-182). Certain behaviors that are exposed by many adolescents and young adults have their origin from theory family of origin. The behaviors have their origin from the kind of environment that their parents created for them. For example, if a child observes the violent behaviors of their parents being rewarded they will copy that behavior. and adapt it in their behaviors. In such families, adolescents do not learn prosocial means of solving problems.
They develop aggression or conflict as their only method of solving their problems (Hickey 365-367). They even face also of difficulties in making friends. Because of this, they remain isolated from their peers. This behavior develops even to the young adult stage. In this case the adolescent learn the violent behavior through observational learning. There are two different ways in which violent behavior is learnt at home. For example, if a parent punishes a child physically, this acts as direct exposure to violence.
They also learn that violence or aggression is a coping mechanism used when one is frustrated or angry and also learn that it is acceptable to use violence if one is wronged. As can be seen from this theory modeling acts as a way of intergenerational passing of behavior. An adolescent or a young adult exposed to violent behavior as a child develops violence behavior. Family resemblance also plays a great role in development of violent behavior. If the violence behavior has been influenced genetically, it means that the behavior run in the family.
In this case, the more the family members are, the more they show the violent behavior. If the family members do not resemble in the violence behavior then it cannot be inherited. Two factors that contribute to development of violent behavior includes genetic and the environment (Griffin & Gross 483-498). By stating, that violent behavior is genetically influenced means that under the prevailing environment conditions, certain people, because of their genotype are more likely to engage in violent behavior than other people who do not have the same genotype.
In this case, genetical influences are seen as a predisposition towards behaving aggressively not as inevitably (Hickey 365-367). Another factor that contributes to development of violence behavior is exposure to media. Violent media which show intentional attempt to inflict harm on others have a large audience especially the adolescents and the young adults. It is estimated that in the USA youths between the ages of eight and eighteen years spend about forty hours per week on the media (Etulving 335-359). Television is the most common media that many people are exposed to.
There has been an increase in the popularity of video games by even young children. Increase viewing of the aggressive violent movies has significant effect in increment of violent behavior among the young people. Continuous viewing of these violent or aggressive movies increases the chances of children growing to be violent in the future. Media violence is a significant risk factor in development of aggressive behavior among the young adults. Situational variables for example, exposure to violent behavior on the media impacts aggressive behavior in the current personal internal state.
Long term effects involve learning processes. Since one is young, a person learns how to perceive, interpret and make judgments of events that he or she comes across. The events that are experienced frequently are mostly adapted into the behavior of individuals. When young people watch the violent episodes in the media, the episodes contribute to the learning process to the individual. The episodes are rehearsed and finally become difficult to let them go. One adapts them into his or her behaviors. One becomes aggressive and violent out of the experience from the media.
The more the child becomes aggressive the quality of the social interactions also change. Finally the child acquires aggressive violent behavior. Therefore increased exposure to violent episodes in the videos has great association to the increased aggression and violence among many adolescents and young adults. Exposure to the aggressive videos contributes to development of prosocial behavior. The exposure also contributes to the development of the mechanisms of the long term effects of the development of aggressive personality (Etulving 335-359).
Research, which has been, carried out about the relation between media and violence show that viewing of violent movies leads to aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors among adolescents. The behaviors develop from childhood into adolescent up to the adulthood. According to the longitudinal data, boys have the highest probability of being aggressive due to exposure to violent media (Cutler 178-182). There are also studies, which show that girls also manifest short and long time aggressive behavior because of exposure to aggressive behavior.
The violence does not only entail physical and verbal aggression, but it also involves relational aggression. Relational aggression includes bullying and other acts which harm others through damaging of relationships. Frightening images that are viewed in the media usually haunts individuals even in their old age. Adolescents experience fear of the supernatural forces. They fear to be victimized for the violence that they see in the videos. (Uhlmann, 41-52). Research shows that young people who are used to watching violent movies get addicted. They feel that they need to watch more of the movies so that they can satisfy their feelings.
The adolescent end up engaging in the violent behaviors that they watch in the media. The effect of media violence on the youth is based on the character of the viewer, the media content and also the social environment. Despite the fact that children may watch the same violent media they are not affected in the same way. All the portrayal by the media does not have the same effect (Uhlmann, 41-52). There are also short time effects of exposure to violence. This happens as the observer imitates what he or she has seen in order to solve social problems.
The observer is aroused by the violence that he sees. This arousal increases the risk of the observer to engage in the violent behavior experienced. Neuroscientist and cognitive psychologists have made a discovery that the human mind acts as network where ideas are activated partially. The activation is usually associated with the stimuli in the environment. In this case, exposure to violence acts, activate related violent concepts and violent ideas in a person’s memory even with the person being unaware that this influence has taken place (DiCanio, 141-142).
Therefore, as observed from the literature review exposure to violence plays a big part in thee development of violent behavior. A person’s mind is able to learn and adapt to all situations. This makes it possible to adapt to violence if one is exposed to it. We have also seen that other factors such as genetic also contributes to development of violent behavior. This is where a child inherits some genes from the parents that have a relation to formation of the violent behavior. The most important thing to note here is that violent behavior can be formed by several factors combined.
For instance, some people may show more violent behavior than the others. This depends on the factors that contribute to this. For example, if one has inherent genes related to violence and then he or she is exposed to an environment that is aggressive, he or she will show high degree of aggressiveness. Work cited Cutler Brian. Encyclopedia of psychology and law, Vol 1, New York, SAGE Publications, 2008. Denzin Norman. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol 31, Bingley, Emerald Group Publishing, 2008. DiCanio Margaret . Encyclopedia Of Violence: Frequent, Commonplace, Unexpected, Lincoln, iUniverse, 2004.
Etulving E. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal-Behavior, vol. 28, 335-359, December 2002 doi: 10. 1177/014616702237649 Griffin R. S, & Gross A. M. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 12 4, pp. 483–498 2004. Hickey Eric. Encyclopedia of murder and violent crime, New York, SAGE, 2003 pg 365-367 Uhlmann, E. Swanson J. Journal of Adolescence 27 (2004) 41–52 Michael Bernstein. Latest research on possible causes of violent behavior explored in C&EN article, 2 June 2003 retrieved from www. eurekalert. org/pub_releases/2003 on 14 August 2010.
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