Please read Chapter 10 OR Ch 9 in the handbook. This is your choice based on your interests.
Summarize the chapter and in your writeup incorporate answers to the following questions:
What most interested you in the chapter? What was most surprising to you? How does the chapter you read relate to murder (be specific). Are there elements of the chapter that relate to your area of expertise? If so, what are they and how do they further develop your understanding of your topic?
Does prevention/intervention make sense when it comes to murder? Discuss your viewpoint.
I read chapter 10 for this reading blog. I found it very informative to assess the relationship between culture, person and situation. I believe that when analyzing murder and other various forms of violence it is essential to take a holistic approach. In my opinion, it is not very feasable to assess such complex issues from one aspect. I believe that societies and individuals that attempt to analyze using only one approach are not gaining a full understanding of what it is they are trying to analyze. The text begins by identifying some of the difficulties when analyzing violence using only one approach. I found this to be very interesting and could be very applicable in practice. By identifying these difficulties the text is able to identify the significant need to utilize the CuPS perspective. Throughout the chapter the text repeats the notion that "individuals are always in a culture, though they are not always of it." This concept also encourages the reader to take the more holistic approach to understanding violence. The text continues by defining and addressing the interaction between honor, dignity and face cultures. The studies presented within the text support the notion that individuals must/should assess all aspects to gain more holistic understanding of human behavior in general.
I believe these concepts can be very helpful in our understanding of violence, specifically murder. The text provides us with insight regarding the context of violence. Although I believe the majority of lay persons want to blame an individual when murder has occurred, it is more beneficial and productive to assess the cultural implications relating to murder as well. In my opinion, by assessing both the culture aspects as well as the individual you can then develop more effective prevention and/or intervention programs. I feel that if you fail to analyze both factors then you can not possible identify what needs to be implemented in the prevention and intervention programs.
I would utilize the holistic concepts described throughout this chapter to gain a better understanding of the individuals who may be at greater risk for violent behavior, including murder. By understanding and evaluating their perspective on cultural norms, you can then gain a better understanding of the individual and the potential for violent behavior. I also believe that by utilizing this approach you could develop more appropriate intervention programs. I would focus these programs on more appropriate ways to intervene and provide services to individuals who have engaged in violent behaviors such as murder. By utilizing the CuPS perspective you could be better assured that you are addressing the individual/groups risk potential.
I chose to read chapter 10. Chapter 10 discusses the relationship between culture, person, and situation and how doing so offers a much more valuable approach to the study of violence and other topics. I agree with the authors in that a combination of ideas brought together to form one approach is better at studying violent acts, such as murder, rather than focusing in one single aspect. The authors call their approach the CuPS approach (culture x person x situation) and stress the idea that culture has the potential to give meaning to behaviors and situations; therefore, meanings of those behaviors and situations can vary from one culture to the next. Throughout the chapter, the authors repeatedly write the comment that “individuals are always in a culture, though they are not always of it,” which only furthers to importance of significance of using the combined CuPS approach to understand violence.
The textbook continues on to talk about how cultures are defined by how they solve certain problems: order and value. This all depends on the type of society we’re talking about. The text describes three different “cultural syndromes”, or central cultural themes: honor, dignity, and face. Dignity is a term that signifies that a human being has an inborn right to respect and ethical treatment. Dignity also cannot be taken away. A person with a sense of dignity has strong beliefs focused around a well-developed moral core. The authors believe that the strong moral core keep people behaving correctly rather than the potential threat of being shamed or looked down upon by others. In a culture focused on honor, individuals’ belief that the value of an individual is based on both the individual’s perception of themselves but also how other people perceive them. In this type of culture, it is seems as important to have a reputation of honor, being mutually dependent on others, and seek revenge in the event of something negative occurring. In a culture of face, people work together to maintain everyone’s face. The author’s state three H’s that describe a face culture: harmony, hierarchy, and humility.
The next section discusses two experiments the authors conducted to demonstrate to the CuPS approach works along with honor, dignity, and face. I thought both of these experiments were really interesting in what they were looking at as well as how they were set up. It would definitely be interested to watch to see whether or not people would return the computer disk to the disk confederate. I would never had thought of The textbook also discusses the topics of cultural rejectionism and rejecting the logic of a culture and how they are two distinctly different processes.
Overall, I think the concepts discussed in this chapter can be very helpful in trying to understand acts of violence, including murder. As I said before, it’s very important to look at a situation through a combined approach, such as the CuPS approach. For example, in an honor culture, seeking vengeance on someone who did you wrong, such as murdering the other person for hurting someone close to you, is endorsed and is deemed okay to do. Understanding the thought processes and belief systems behind this way of thinking can help implement better prevention and intervention programs in those types of cultures. This same principle can be applied to dignity cultures and face cultures as well in the event violent acts, such as murder, occur. Specifically in a face culture, punishment is not given out by the victim; instead, someone higher up on the hierarchy scale does the punishing. This is clearly different compared to a honor culture.
This chapter relates to my expert topic, girl gangs, in many ways. The majority of gang members, both male and female, are by nature vengeful people. When rival gang members ignore the other gang’s unwritten territorial rules (e.g, painting graffiti; killings rival members; selling drugs on a rival’s turf), there will undoubtedly be repercussions to follow.
For this assignment, I chose to read chapter 9. To me, this was a very interesting chapter. It dealt mainly with how people receive and interpret information and how that relates to violence. For example, a person could easily think they were provoked in a social situation and see that as a just cause for violence. Chapter nine talks about the different ways people can process information in aggressive behaviors and the different components involved in evaluating a situation. The chapter concludes by looking at different types of violence and how they relate to the topic at hand, as well as taking a look at the role genetics plays in social information processing.
The most interesting thing in this chapter, in my opinion, was when they talked about peer social rejection. This really hit home with me because, sadly, I was one of those who was rejected by the majority of her peers when I was growing up. It wasn't until middle school that things started to change. Chapter nine talks about how peer social rejection can stick with you even in your mid-twenties. That is to say that, even when you reach early adulthood, you will still be rejected by your peers. This has the potential to have a huge impact on the way you choose to show aggression and violence. For example, I think of the Columbine tragedy. The shooters were social outcasts from all available accounts. They were not seemingly accepted by their peers. This, as many have hypothesized, had a huge role in their motivation to do what they did and shoot their classmates.
This chapter really reminded me of my expert topic as well. Bullies and the bullied both have their own sides to the story. Best example from personal experience would be when I was growing up. I was teased by a guy who I had originally thought was a friend. He and I got along, but then he started to taunt me and I did not appreciate it. When he was confronted, he said he didn't mean anything by it and was just being sarcastic and that he didn't know it hurt so much.
Some kids that are, by definition, bullies, may not understand the impact of what they are doing. To them, especially if there is no physical harm being done and only taunting, they may just be having fun or going along with what all of their friends are doing. Of course, this does not, by ANY stretch of the imagination, excuse their behavior. It just shows that they have their on interpretation of events that have unfolded.
In the event of physical violence being a part of the bullying, then genetics and an abusive household can explain why the bully is so violent. If we take a look at both sides of the story, we could learn that the bully grew up in an environment where they learned that it was okay to hit other people, even if they didn't do anything wrong. This is sad, but shockingly true in some situations.
I think this chapter relates to murder in a variety of ways. For example, the fact that social information processing is different for everyone. That is to say that everyone has their own way of interpreting a situation. In the context of murder, the person may have done it due to some provocation that no one knows about. Perhaps the victim had been in a relationship with a sibling, or tortured the murderer in school. I am not trying to justify murder by any means, but these are two examples of things that a particular person may see as being just cause to end another human being's life. The lesson being that every single story has more than one side, and some even have several or more.
Personally, I think intervention and prevention both have a place when it comes to murder. Especially murders in which the victim had no relationship to the killer at all and just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.
Prevention is probably where we can see the most benefit. By teaching people how to be safe and to learn warning signs of dangerous people, they can have a greater chance of survival if they are (heaven forbid) in a situation in which they may be murdered. Even some seemingly minor self-defense moves and tips(like always walking with someone you know at night, or carrying your key between your middle and index finger so it is ready to gouge someone in the eye if you need to) can help in preventing people from getting hurt or murdered.
Intervention would be a little trickier. It makes most sense in helping families overcome the grief of losing a loved one or learning that a loved one took another person's life. Therapy can help them cope through the hard times. However, it would be more difficult to invervene when it comes to the murderer themselves. Again, they may have some warped reasoning for why chose to do what they did. If they think they were in the right and don't chose to admit they were wrong, it will be hard to get them to see the error of their ways and come around. It makes more sense to do what we are already doing: putting them behind bars.
In summation, the one thing that I really obtained from reading chapter nine was that getting both sides of the story should be step one, especially when it comes to considering prevention and intervention programs that may be put into place. If we do not understand where the person who commits the acts of violence are coming from, we are missing a key piece of the puzzle that could actually help us to get them the help and solutions they need to become better members of society, and get justics for the victims and their friends and family members that they have undoubtedly effected.
Chapter 10 discusses a viewpoint of combining an individual differences approach with a cultural differences approach. This chapter was very interesting in that it combined these two approaches to be able to better identify the relationship between violence and character. The authors feel it is imperative to combine these approaches because using only one can limit how we conceptualize the what leads to violence. They use the CuPS approach to demonstrate the importance of combining approaches. CuPS stands for culture x person x situation. This approach treats culture as a significant aspect to consider in violence. It considers that culture structues an individual and gives psychological meaning to behavior and situations.
The next section in the chapter discusses different cultures and values: honor, dignity, and face cultures. The authors feel these three values shape the culture's overall structure of living. I thought this section was very interesting. They provided great definitions for each honor, dignity, and face cultures and provided examples that made it easily understandable. I think these three cultural values can be used in conceptualizing violence and in particular, murder. Violence and murder are viewed differently among cultures. The authors state that dignity is an intrinsic value that others can not take away. A person who has dignity has a strong moral center and believes in the worth of indiviudal human beings. The author commentary suggests one with high dignity will be less likely to commit acts of violence, whereas those with less dignity can and will act violently. Another value present in cultures is honor. Cultures that operate on honor also assume reciprocity. When one does not honor this system, violence can occur. Within these two cultures, the punishment for violence could be dished out by the members of the community. In a face value culture, the punishment is given by a higher authority.
This approach could be used in the prevention and intervention of murder to a certain extent. It could be beneficial for experts to determine the cultural, personal, and situational factors that can intervene to promote violence. The approach is beneficial because it stresses the importance of combining all of these factors to foster understanding of behavior.
The experiements the researchers sited in this chapter were interesting. The first one looked at the interaction of culture, person, and situational factors to determine moral obligation. The overall findings were that people felt more obligation to help if the confederate had acted positively toward the subject.
I think this chapter does have to do with my expert topic. It demonstrates how indiviudal differences, ie. prsonality characteristics, are not the sole cause of any behavior. It shows the importance of using other factors to explain behavior.
I also chose to read chapter 10. This chapter is about the relationship between the situation, the culture, and the person. When relating this chapter to murder, it is important to remember that you should incorporate all three to understand murder, rather than using just one concept such as the person. I think that this is a good approach, for when you are studying violent acts such as murder, you should take into account all three things rather than just focusing on one person and their mental state. This approach is called the CuPS approach. I think that this chapter does relate to murder because it got me to imagine being a detective, or an investigator, hypothetically speaking. In a murder case, I can imagine that investigators do use all three rather than just focusing on one to determine who did it, and why they did it.
What interested me most about this chapter was the emphasis it had on culture. Even though murder is known as a being universally unacceptable, it can still be seen as different in certain cultures. The textbook also mentions that rejecting the logic of a culture and cultural rejectionism being two different things. This was interesting to me because I have been confused before with this, but they explained it in a much simpler way. The chapter also touches on how dignity plays a large role in certain cultures. It really depends on the culture though.
To me, I think that prevention and intervention don’t really make sense when it comes to murder. Since murder is such an unpredictable act of violence, then it would be hard to prevent it. If a murder is premeditated then it is unlikely that the person is going to tell other people about it. If they do, then the person told will most likely not try to intervene by giving them advice, or by simply telling them to stop. They will most likely go straight to the cops in order to prevent it. When trying to do intervention with a murderer, I personally feel as though it is important to remember the person, and the mental state that they are in, along with the mental illnesses that they most likely possess.
I think that this chapter relates to my expert topic, elder abuse, because older adults carry a sense of dignity about them. They are more mature and seasoned, therefore their dignity, especially in the United States, is extremely important. If an older adult is abused then their dignity can be hindered. Also, this chapter relates to my expert topics because it mentions that we shouldn’t just focus on one aspect of the person’s personality. So, if a murder was done we should take into account all three being the situation, the culture, and the person.
I read chapter 10, and it was quite interesting topic-wise. The discussion of culture is something that is completely ingrained into one’s being, and yet the subject of culture seems to be something not often thought of, behavior-wise. The chapter discussed an approach called the CuPS perspective, which is culture x person x situation. This includes the person as an individual, yet still associates the statistics of one’s culture and what effect those two will have on a certain situation. Also included within the chapter is the separation of types of culture, such as honor, dignity and face. This made quite a difference, especially in how people’s thought patterns are developed. For example, dignity cultures are often found in market economies (more based on the state and its laws) and is based on a sturdy moral core that cannot be taken by others.
What most interested me in the chapter were the two fascinating studies; one to examine positive reciprocity and the second to examine trustworthiness. The first test had one unknowing participant and two confederates of the study, and had one of the confederates leaving a disk behind on accident after they had finished watching movie over violence in the media. Then it was seen as to whether the participant would go out of their way to return the disk (which was ridiculously hard to do). Also, during the movie, candy was offered to the participant half the time by the “disk” confederate and the other half of the time by the other confederate. It was interesting to see how the people would react to this situation, and it appeared the majority would go out of their way to help. What was most intriguing, however, was the fact that some cultures were affected negatively when candy was given to them by the “disk” confederate. I would find it odd that one would be less likely to help one who had previously shown some sort of kindness to them, but then I guess I would be thinking in terms of my own culture.
The second experiment was with just the confederate instructor leaving out an answer sheet for words the participant was supposed to memorize for an undisclosed amount of money. Those included in the honor culture seemed to be the most likely ones not to partake in the cheating, even if their honor was negative (or those who have a honor in violence thought pattern) in value.
I was surprised there were no mention of confounds in the second experiment, such as the need for money to make a person cheat. Even if the money was considered inconsequential, it might not have been to the person and even one who believed in higher values concerning their culture.
The chapter could relate to murder in the fact of understanding how the actual act might take place, when previously it would seem ridiculous. An example I found in the book seemed to relate well to this topic: “How come he would risk his life to help me out of a jam, but if I insult his mother, he’d kill me (Shaver and Mikulincer, 2011)?” In a culture where family might be extremely important, this would be a terrible injustice. Such cross-cultural misunderstandings would then make more sense how a violent act could occur, possibly leading to an accidental/purposeful murder. Also, those who come from more honor-related cultures (those who believe in violent retribution for their honor more so), would appear to be more apt to condone violence; as well as those from face-cultures who, again, value the negative side in needing to appear a certain way.
There are a few elements in which this topic could relate to my expert topic. The first would be in dealing with how different cultures might have different expectations out of a marriage, and I could use the different subsets of culture to distinguish which cultures put the most value on marriages and their spouses.
Also in relation to how I could further dissect the importance of marriage between cultures, the issue of women as almost property is still in effect in some countries. This topic could be depicted further using the same methods and then I could compare murder rates with each subset.
As discussed in class, at one’s first thought it does not seem like one could prevent or intervene well with murder. However, there are certain areas which one could possibly try to lower violence, which could in turn help to lower murder rates. I think to lower murder rates, one must first do all that can be done to stop abuse and other violent cases, because abuse and murder can often be comorbid with each other. The best strategy is to teach people when they are young the difference between what is aggressive and what is not along with cues to help know when someone is not behaving how they are supposed to in a certain situation. This should be a continuous process, not just a one-time rally. Also, those with substance-abuse problems should be made to seek outside counseling, due to violence and substance abuse also being concurrent with each other.
Chapter 10 starts off with a very important observation: the importance of combining both individual-differences and cultural approaches to the study of violence. As the authors pointed out, studying violence strictly using an individual-differences approach does not account for the varying rates of violence in different societies and also does not explain why some theories /explanations of violence do not hold across contexts and situations. On the flip side, strictly using a cultural approach does not explain individual differences in violence. Their way of combining these two approaches is by using what they call the CuPS approach. The CuPS approach looks at the interactions between culture, person, and situation. The authors believe that individual differences are in part, dictated by their culture. Some individuals will follow along with the norms of their culture and others will reject them. This is not a random process, “People choose their behavior, but these choices are often influenced by ready-made cultural templates that structure certain sorts of behaviors as belonging together.” (p. 189). I would actually call these ‘cultural templates’ schemas but moving on… The authors go on to describe two of their research studies regarding what they called “cultural syndromes”. They define cultural syndromes as “a central organizing theme of a culture structured by a cultural logic (I understood that term as being a sort of “script”) that clusters behaviors, situations, scripts, and values in a coherent, meaningful way.” The cultural syndromes they focused on in their research were honor, dignity, and face, in their ideal forms. Although ideals do not exist in real life, the authors focused more so on the systematic way in which individuals depart from these ideals by manipulating the situation and seeing how a person from a certain culture would react. The chapter ends with the ideas of cultural rejectionism and rejecting the logic. Here the authors remind readers individuals who rejected their culture can do so on purpose and not necessarily because they are under-socialized or oblivious to the culture. Furthermore, not only can individuals reject a culture, but they also have the freedom to reject the cultural logic behind the group of behaviors, values, and scripts.
To be honest, I did not find anything interesting in this chapter. The description of their studies were extremely convoluted and certain aspects of their methodology and operationalization of concepts questionable. This chapter does however help explain murder to a certain extent. Obviously individuals have different motives for killing someone (e.g. self-defense, monetary gain, revenge, etc) and there are also varying levels of acceptance that come with each, depending on the culture. Although this chapter was not specifically about murder, some aspects did relate to my expert topic of genocide. For instance the idea of honor could be seen as a possible explanation for some of the conflicts that have occurred. For example, Nazi Germany felt that they had been wronged during WW1 and in a way, wanted to fight for, or re-establish their honor through retributive violence. Many Germans truly felt that they had been wronged and they wanted to be vindicated. Clearly torturing and killing millions of people was not the way to go, but this could be one interpretation of the genocide of that time.
I’m not entirely sure that prevention and intervention make sense when it comes to murder. You can’t bring someone back from the dead. Although there could be forms of ‘intervention’ so to speak for family members and other loved one’s of individuals who have been murdered. When it comes to prevention, you really only see such programs in urban settings where institutions create various programs to get kids or former-gang members off the streets and teaching them healthy and peaceful ways to solver interpersonal conflicts. Murder and violence are such complex issues that there really isn’t a right or wrong “solution” (for lack of a better word). There’s a lot of gray area, which then again, reinforces the importance of using multiple approaches/theories to fully understand the etiology of this form of violence and all of its nuances.
I read Chapter 9 and it basically showed how there’s evidence for aggression in both genetics and environment, than combined the two. Researchers were able to find evidence for aggression being hereditary by doing fMRIs on kids and parents, looking for the same genetic variation of some neurotransmitters, including serotonin. The researchers have also done some great studies following children from preschool age to 24, finding that children who responded more aggressively younger were likely to be more aggressive as they aged. They also were able to take this sample and use an experiment using aggression to show that environment can lead to aggressive behavior. Finally, in discussing the interaction of genes and environment, the author points out that future studies will have to offer better support, but goes on to say that by using a gene-environment model, we can target those kids at high risk for aggression and teach them better ways to handle aggression.
The thing that interested me (and surprised me) most in this chapter was the fact that not a lot of studies have been done trying to support the gene-environment hypothesis. In just about every psychology class I’ve ever had, we talk as if the gene-environment is fact. While it may be, the lack of studies to support this concerns me a little. However, I think it’s an area of research that is still ongoing, and that in the next several years we will see a lot more information on this hypothesis.
This chapter relates to murder because it has been shown that people who are more aggressive are more likely to murder. By studying aggression, we can try to find ways to stop it and hopefully lower murder rates. If people would think before they murder, there would a lot less murder happening. We need to teach people who are aggressive and react in very aggressive ways other ways to respond and other ways to restructure cognitive information. The research seemed to indicate that aggressive people see things as aggressive that may not necessarily be aggressive or intended to be aggressive. These people need to learn ways of distinguishing between aggressive and nonaggressive behavior.
Some of this information is relevant to my topic; sadistic rapists. Sadistic rapists generally are seen as aggressive people who perceive very nonaggressive things in an aggressive way, especially with women. If these rapists can be taught to respond nonaggressively or less aggressively, there is a better chance that this crime can be reduced.
Prevention and intervention for murder makes a lot of sense. A lot of murders are done in the heat of the moment, by people acting aggressively. If we can teach people to take a time out instead of acting out, it would prevent a lot of murder. If we intervene in the lives of kids who are at high risk for aggressive behavior, we have a chance of teaching them better things to do than fight and maybe kill people when they are angry.
For this blog, I chose to read chapter 10 on the "CuPS Perspective." This perspective includes the culture, person, and situation to explain why violence occurs. The authors take a look at individual-difference approach and cultural difference approach, which it is important to look at different approaches to seriously examine a topic like violence, more specifically, murder. The authors then go into detail about different themes of culture, including honor, face, and dignity. These themes are highly dependent on the structure of the society that person lives within and their value of the human being and how they feel about protecting their own and violence in general. They then talked about two experiments done and incorporated the cultural rejection theory of desire to fit in with the norms of the culture, including honor, dignity, and face.
The thing I found most interesting was not something I read, but applied to the text theory. When I was thinking about the different cultural themes of face, dignity, and honor, I was thinking about how the United States is particularly an interesting place if interest for this because there are many, many, many cultures within the United States. The United States is the most diverse place and has so many sub-cultures that different areas in the United States probably have different norms in regards to honor, dignity, and face. This is really interesting if you think about all the types of people in the U.S. for example, Chinese, African-American, Irish, German, and on and on.
I was surprised by the idea of cultural rejection and how that would effect the way you felt about cultural systems and themes. So if your culture has strong feelings about honor, often associated with the Chinese, however, you reject that cultural theme, you may be cast away from your culture. And it's likely that you do not respect that cultural theme because you were burned by it in the past. So it's kind of a revolving door of rejection, disrespecting, being rejected, and so on.
This chapter relates to murder because the person, the situation, and the culture all of important implications on murder. If you as a person believe that murder is acceptable, and you are put in a situation where you feel "flight or fight" and your culture respects the reason for the murder you commit than you are more likely to commit murder because all three elements of your life align with the acceptance of murder.
I think this model can explain all types of violence in one way or another, even date rape, like murder if all three aspects align on support of committing an act of rape, then a person is more likely to participate in rape. This can help to understand the motivation and acceptance that rapist feel when they rape another person.
As discussed in class today, prevention/intervention technics don't seem to make sense, until you actually see the statistics of programs on murder. So yes, they do make sense because studies show that they are important to the rate of homicide.
Chapter 10 was interesting because it took a different standpoint on violent behavior than others previously. This chapter argued that culture plays a large role in violent behavior. The most important thing to consider when including culture in this equation is how an individual either accepts or rejects certain ideas within his or her own culture. The textbook gave the examples of cultures that highly value honor and social worth over dignity and individual worth. It is important to understand that individual differences have also been controlled for. For example, one could examine the violent behaviors of two same-age men who both grew up in physically violent homes, but live in different cultures.
This chapter can be related to murder. One way to make this connection would be to examine homicide rates within different cultures and subcultures. For example, homicide may be higher in a subculture of a country that rejects the idea of honor that others in the same culture may accept. The textbook also discussed how different people can have different views on the cultural idea. One person may do more good things for others and be more aggressive in standing up for him or herself. Another person may do less good things for others and yet not stand up for him or herself. Relating this to murder, a socially accepted and valuable woman to society could murder her cheating husband, but be charitable and kind in all other areas of life. The main idea is to control for individual differences and examine how culture does play such a large role in violent behavior.
This chapter could relate to my topic of self harm in a couple of ways. First, there may be some underlying cultural logic behind self harm that would be beneficial to examine. Does self harm occur more in honor-oriented or dignity-oriented societies? Perhaps in these honor societies, self harm could be a way to avoid harming others and rather, harm the self. Perhaps in dignity societies people would be less likely to harm themselves, due to the negative impact that it would have on their personal self-worth.
In some cases of murder, the killing may have been done out of a passionate rage. A "crime of passion" is the term used to describe this. In these cases, prevention strategies make a great deal of sense. If people can be taught through life that they must find healthy and non-harmful ways to express their rage, it could avoid these types of murder. However, I do not understand how these same prevention strategies could prevent murder that is committed as an act of revenge, particularly in gang-related violence. Those is gangs will murder people for leaving the gang, telling outsiders about gang activities, speaking with law enforcement, or even simply taking money from another member. These murders are often committed by a group of people, rather than one individual. They are also "ritualistic" of the group itself. I think it would be important to develop prevention strategies for these types of murder as well.
While we do have a wonderful legal system that punishes the criminal act of murder, some countries do not. The legal consequences in our country are enough to stop a person from killing more people, but this is only effective if the person is caught by law enforcement. I think prevention is more important than intervention, especially in our own society. I think intervention techniques would help more in areas that do not legally punish murder in all cases. As pointed out by other classmates, these strategies of intervention and prevention for murder statistically show to be very effective. While numbers do not lie, it is important to also examine why and how these methods work.
Chapter 9 was an interesting, but confusing, chapter. This chapter discussed how people sense and perceive information and situations and how these differences affect their aggressiveness. The main point of the chapter was that researchers are able to predict an individual’s aggressiveness based on their current techniques of processing social information. They start off by talking about how the way situations are processed is very important, not only for the specific situation, but for future situations and aggressive behaviors. When an individual perceives a situation as hostile, they will react more aggressively than if they perceive it as not hostile. They mention that if the person thinks there will be a positive, desired outcome from being aggressive, they will be more aggressive. It sounds like common sense, but can get very technical and confusing. They go on to discuss, more thoroughly, how individuals create characteristic styles of processing social information for specific situations. They develop schemas and scripts for these same types of situations. This actually allows researchers to be able to predict individual differences in aggressive behavior for the particular situations. The first part that they discuss involving this is the affect that social information processing has on aggressive behavior. This part is closely related to chapter 19. They stress the importance of sensation and perception. There are many ways that a person can interpret a situation. It all depends on the area of focus for the person. A child may pay attention to the provocation of a fight and the hurt that comes from it, another may focus on how people around are reacting, and another may focus on how the adults are reacting. Chapter 19 discussed how viewing aggression and anger at a young age can cause children to pay closer attention to anger/hostility cues and misinterpret cues as hostile. This area involves the same discussion. If the child is more prone to recognizing hostile cues, they have a schema for reacting to those. So if they perceive something as hostile, whether it is or isn’t, they will automatically resort to how they have been known to behave in those situations. The book says, “A pattern of habitual selective attention to hostile cues (e.g., the provocateur’s angry voice, repeated negative behavior, lack of sensitivity to the child’s pain) has been associated with chronic aggressive behavior.” (Pp. 166-167) They discuss how the reaction to these cues is not necessarily a conscious process. It involves neural activity that is conditioned by experience. They typically involve the unconscious interpretation of the person’s intention. If perceived as a bad intention, it is more likely they will be aggressive. They point out that children who typically have an unconscious instrumental and self-defensive goal are more likely to be aggressive than children with a social goal. There is a big study called the CDP (Child Development Project) that is a longitudinal study of 585 boys and girls followed from age 4 through young adulthood. This study is very instrumental in discovering the connection between information processing and aggression. In sum, the study was able to accurately predict aggressive behavior patterns in children several years in advance. These were based on their information processing patterns. It is a type of circle because these processes can predict aggressive behavior, aggressive behavior can accurately predict information processing, and on and on. They were also able to predict adolescent conduct problems based on information processing patterns from kindergarten. Another important part of this study is that they were able to alter the aggressive behavior likelihood by altering social information processing patterns. Other researchers have been able to determine two separate psychophysiological processes that may be related to aggressive behavior. They determined that children with low resting heart rates had a higher likelihood of aggressive behavior. Those whose heart rates were high, quickly, in response to threatening cues also showed a higher likelihood of aggressive behavior. Neural processes have also been examined. They found certain areas of the brain that are activated during situations that are perceived as hostile and result in aggressive behavior. This is the part that is more confusing because they discuss different neurotransmitters that may play and role and areas of the brain. One important note is that subjects with lower levels of serotonin tend to act more aggressively when given unfair treatment by peers. Another interesting part of this chapter is when they discuss how peer social rejection can negatively affect you throughout young adulthood. It sounds crazy, but research has shown that peer rejection in kindergarten can predict the processing patterns at age 22 and thus the aggressive behavior. The correlations were quite staggering. Children who were not rejected by peers and did not have problematic processing about peers only had a probability of aggression of .43. Those who were not rejected but had problematic processing had a likelihood of .47. Those who were rejected but had no problematic processing had a likelihood of .51, and lastly, those who were rejected and had problematic processing had a likelihood of .70. It astounds me that they can predict behavior accurately 18 years or so in advance! They conclude by discussing that much more research is needed, especially in the relationship between genes and environment as a predictor of aggression.
This chapter has an important relationship to murder. The way people perceive things is such a huge factor in the commission of murder. I think that many times people feel that murderers had no reason to do what they do, they do not understand it or how it could happen. People perceive things differently in these situations. If a person is more likely to perceive a situation as hostile, even if it is not, they are more likely to get aggressive and could result in murder. That is why a good percentage of murders start with simple arguments that lead to aggression and the act of murder. I think it is important to realize this fact because it can help us create prevention methods. If we know that, we can create methods that alter their hypersensitivity to cues or the information processing patterns discussed above. Like the CDP, it could be effective in reducing the likelihood that someone will get violent and result in murder. I had never really thought about intervention/prevention for murder before. We discussed in class different ways of preventing murder and one thing that was interesting was how much hotlines can help. I think it makes sense to use methods of prevention if we can make sure that we get this information needed out to people that need it. I doubt many people know the numbers for help hotlines off the top of their heads. If they want it, they typically have to Google it. Who has the time to do that when a situation is heating up? I think this chapter also related to murder when they discussed the relationship between peer rejection and aggressive behavior. Many people take the stance that violence and murder, especially serial murder, is caused by problems during childhood. I personally think that there could be much truth in this. The fact that they could predict, accurately, aggression at the age of 22 based on the way they reacted and were treated by peer when they were 5, is a great example that it may be a huge factor. This is not to say that the murderer should be looked upon without culpability, but it is important for us to realize what may be a factor in their decision in order to help them. This is where intervention is important. If we can understand these processes and factors, we may be able to better devise plans and strategies to reduce the effects of aggression and stop murder in its tracks. It would also help us to help murderers learn how to be less aggressive so that they can be better members of society. I do not think that locking them up for life is always a good thing. For many murderers, yes, it is. However, there are also many murders that occur in situations that were not deliberate or planned or malicious in nature. I think these are the individuals that this type of research could help so that they can handle anger differently. Too many times people let emotion and anger get the best of them and end up paying for the rest of their life without the help that could make them a better individual.
Chapter 10. I was pleased to see chapter 10 focusing on the CuPS perspective because I think it is in best practice to look at multiple causes or perspectives when analyzing important issues. The cultural, personal and situational effects of an issue are all relevant and important when discussing the study of violence.
I found the discussion in the text about different cultural logic and behavior interesting. The concept that what is acceptable in one culture may be completely inappropriate in another is very telling about that culture. It seems that often when stake is put into particular cultural beliefs or behaviors, there is often a reason and therefore can allow one to gather specific information about the people of that culture.
Also, the section regarding honor, dignity, and face in culture was particularly interesting. This idea of having one’s role or “face” judged by others and then therefore acting in response to that judgment speaks to my expert topic. The research suggests that minority youth violence often stems from when one perceives that their manhood, respect, honor is threatened. The code of the street is to maintain these areas at all costs, and do whatever is necessary to prove to others that these areas are intact. In some cases, even murder is considered “acceptable” if someone disrespected them because the person threatened has a right to fight for his honor and prove himself to bystanders. The CuPS perspective also plays into this area, as these minority youth who become violent often have other issues that condone violent behavior within their culture, personal, and situation.
After our discussion in class today and information gathered from the worksheet, it appears that interventions put in place do cause a decrease in crime and murder. It is my opinion that having the access to resources or having supportive resources available to individuals in need usually proves to be beneficial to one degree. When we are speaking of violence, especially murder, it seems that even saving a minimal amount of lives would be worth the effort put into prevention strategies, for victims and offenders.
Chapter 10 discusses the theory of cultural logics plus individual differences plus the situational factors influencing violence. In this theory, a person's culture syndrome (such as honor, dignity, or face) produces a list of behaviors, scripts and values on how a person may react in a situation (where to embrace the cultural logic or to reject it). From there, it is up to the person to choose which script they wish to use based on their own beliefs. The author argues that even though a person may full out reject their culture's views, they still reject it in a systematic way.
The main point of the theory the chapter presents is that each culture differs in its cultural syndrome and the way people react in certain situations is based on the cultural logics which they internalize. As it pertains to murder, this makes a lot of sense. If a person accepts their cultural syndrome of honor, they make feel they need to retaliate with violence (or even homicide) if they feel their honor has been attacked.
In my homicide class, we've looked at various homicide rates per geographic locations. In the US, the southern region hold 36.1% of the population but is responsible for 43% of the murder and nonnegligent manslaughters. Compare this to the midwest which holds 22.4% of the population but only 19.3% of the murder and nonnegligent manslaughters. This coincides with the University of Illinois experiment in which they attempted to analyze those who embraced they ideal of honor and those who did not. In the experiment, they used southern Anglo Americans (along with participants from other cultures) and found that those who embraced the concept of honor not only endorsed honor-related violence but also were more likely to try to repay the act of kindness.
I chose this chapter to read because my expert topic deals with teaching culturally-accepted behaviors in certain social situations within schools. After reading this chapter, I've realized just how important it is to teach culturally-accepted behavioral expectations because a person's cultural syndrome may differ from what is considered the cultural norm of the area. Thus how they react may be different than others. By teaching them what behaviors are expect of them, they will be able to understand what is considered okay to do and what is considered not okay to do in social settings. It would also help to minimize some misunderstandings based on differing cultural behaviors. To further explain what I am saying, I will use the example of American vs. Asian countries as it pertains to an academic setting. In America, it is considered culturally okay to raise your hand in the middle of a teacher's lecture to ask a question. However, in Asian cultures, this is considered very rude and disrespectful. So even a small mundane behavior (in our standards) has the potential to cause a big social no-no for an unsuspecting person.
When you put it all in the viewpoint discussed above, I think the simple act of teaching what is behavioral expected out of a person can be considered a prevention for murder. After all, I don't believe any single person would intentionally teach a child how to commit murder (with maybe the exception of Dexter and his adoptive father, Harry). However, by teaching culturally-accepted behavioral expectations a child learns what his/her responsibilities are in each situation which helps to minimize or even potentially eliminate the cultural misunderstandings.
I chose to read chapter 10 for this assignment. This chapter looks at using what I guess could be referred to as a "whole picture" approach to understanding violence, or as the text calls it the CuPS (culture + person + situation) perspective. This sort of approach looks at various influences on a person which may cause them to behave in a violent or aggressive way. Things such as a persons charecter, personality, upbringing, are considered, and larger scale influences such as the society and culture values that a person is raised with. I like this approach for the fact that it really does take all influences under consideration, however this also leaves alot more variables to consider when trying to figure out why a certain person would behave violently. What happens to those people who are raised in two different cultures, such as those who immigrated to a different culture as a child and have one set of cultural values instilled in the home and another set instilled through social interactions such as school or relationships?
We can use this sort of approach when looking at murder to help explain why someone would have acted in a violent way to another. Different cultures hold different views towards how one should react in situations. The chapter goes into detail on the differences between Honor, Dignity, and Face value cultures and how people who hold these values may percieve violence differently and may react in different situations to aggression from others.
My expert topic for the semester is sibling violence. This approach to understanding violence can be used here to explain why some families may tolerate aggressive behaviors between siblings and others may not. If we want to say that "kids are kids" and fighting amongst siblings is natural we can look to the animal kingdom for support of this. Dogs and kittens in our own domesticated breeds can be found biting and play wrestling. This is normal for their development. Some families, cultures, and value systems would have no problem saying that siblings fight because it's a natural part of the developmental process and as children learn to problem solve they will become less reliant on violence to reach their end goals. There is always the opposite reaction that may say siblings learning that fighting is OK could reinforce the belief that it is OK to harm those that are near to you. This could lead to adults who solve problems with violence because that is how they were raised. We can look at a families belief structure, the values held by their community and culture, and the personality of the children involved, to see if their may be a subset of children who may behave more violently towards eachother. If we were to take this approach we may find there are certain communities in which sibling violence may be more prevelant, and then target specific children who fit a personality type that leaves them more prone to use violence, and attempt to create intervention strategies that tailor to this specific group to try and lower the incedence of sibling abuse amongst this group. However, sibling violence is fairly widespread (didn't we all at some point do something agressive towards our own diblings?) and we may find there are too many variables to consider when using the CuPS perspective to truly understand every type of relational dynamic that may end in violence between siblings.
As far as intervention/ pevention strategies when it comes to murder, we could attempt to use the same sort of strategies as I suggested with sibling violence. I suppose it may be harder to target specific persons who may be capable of murdering someone because the proportion of murderers is far less than the proportion of people who commit sibling abuse. there may be neigborhoods or communities that have higher rates of murder, and for those it could be beneficial to find a reason why, or what values permits these behaviors, and come up with strategies to reduce the violence and murder rates. I don't know if there is really any logical waay to assume we could lower murder rates through some form of prevention program. Picking out which individuals in a society are the murderous type or raised in murder accepting homes sounds rediculous. We all have heard the next door neighbor on the news saying what a nice sweet guy the newly convicted mass murderer was... who knew he was capable of such things? We can't go chase down every wierd kid or odd person because they may be just off enough to do something atrocious... the world is full of very non-violent odd people. many times murders occur because of these exceptional situations which cause a person to react in ways no one could have expected. Should everyone be required to attend a murder prevention program so we don't miss anyone, and what kind of program could be created to tailor fit each unique set of morals and values? I think using the CuPS approach works great for intervention and explination after the fact, but really may be less than useful for preventions.
Chapter 10 discusses the relationship between culture, person and situation. These complex aspects are key when discussing how violence impacts our society. It is important to look at all of these things as a combined factor, as the chapter points out. Each of these things interact with each other, making up a volume of various values, goals, and morals that influence everything in a person’s life. Violence being one of these things, we must understand everything that interacts with the morals and values in a person’s life.
I thought that the most interesting part of this chapter was the discussion on cultural rejectionism. This section discusses that it is not ignorance or misinformation that causes people to reject certain cultures, but rather they choose to reject them based on their own beliefs and opinions of those aspects of the culture that do not match their own. This may be honor, dignity, or any of the other aspects that are discussed as a component of culture and identity. I thought it was very interesting that those participants who were categorized as “rejectionists” were less likely to help someone after the confederate did something nice for them. This suggests that the pressure of reciprocity reflected badly on the participant, causing them to feel less of a responsibility to assist the confederate. I also think that the suggestions that are listed here (mastery, dejection, freedom, shame, and glee) are definitely aspects that could play a part in rejectionism. The results of this study bring up interesting new points in looking at culture, and because of these results we need to look further into the background of rejectionsim.
This also relates to violence and murder in many ways. The sense of responsibility is effected greatly when discussing both culture views and murder, so related the two together could provide a lot of valuable information. Freedom, in particular, plays a large part in the sense of responsibility that one has to obey the law and refrain from violent acts. However, culture is something that plays a large part in the sense of responsibility, so the two are connected through various other aspects. In addition to responsibility, shame and honor, as well as dignity, also play a role in self control against violent acts. Not only is it a matter of right and wrong, but it is also a matter of viewing the world differently. If different cultures view murder and violence as something that inevitable and in the norm, they are more likely to act upon those things than if it is something that is looked down upon in their culture.
I think that prevention and intervention techniques can definitely be used when it comes to murder. Learning a sense of right and wrong, as well as how to control emotions and temper in stressful situations are all things that can help to lower crime rates. In addition, if we apply the topics discussed in chapter 10 to those of different cultures and provide them with the knowledge that they need to survive in different cultures, there is defiantly room for rehabilitation. At the same time, I think it should be approached with caution. Morals and values can hold strong through a person; especially when they are engrained within a culture. I do think it is possible to have a positive effect on someone, but I think it would be very difficult to change someone’s entire point of view on the world. Knowing about what goes behind a culture (morals, dignity vs, honor, etc), can help to relate criminals to those of different ways of life; as well as assist society in understanding where violence stems from and the meaning behind it.
Chapter 10 presents a cultural view on violence. We choose our behavior based on cultural templates. If we value honor in our culture, it may not be seen as negative if someone uses violence to defend someone’s honor. They justify the act of violence in their minds because they are doing “right” by protecting someone else’s honor. However a culture that is not so focused on honor would see the violent act as terrible because it does not fit into their view of normality. Honor becomes something so strongly defended that it drives some to seek vengeance for acts that may seem small to others.
The concept of “face” focuses on preserving someone’s good name. Again this leads to potential violence justified as protection. Your level of “face” is established by being judged by others; those around you determine how well respected you are. Those who want to increase the amount of “face” they possess may participate in some violent act in order to prove themselves. Humility is important regarding “face” as well because you come across as conceited if you claim credit for too much. Instead, you should let your actions prove your “face” worth rather than more or less asking for it.
I can see how violence could be seen as acceptable in certain situations when something like honor is valued. Those committing the violence use honor or dignity as justification for their actions. Nevermind the fact that they are harming another individual purely out of retaliation, they instead see it as evening the odds. A huge factor is pride. Many of these violent acts occur because someone has damaged someone else’s pride. A Latino gang has a huge amount of pride for their members and will defend each other, literally, to the death. When a member of a rival gang attacks one of their members, they retaliate in order to regain respect and honor for their name. They want to keep the “face” of being a tough, respected group who will defend honor when it’s threatened.
This concept of valuing honor and dignity applies to my topic in that those who leave their home countries to attempt to make it into the US are valuing family by trying to: feed family members, build a home, further their children’s education. One of the main reasons they leave is to help improve life for their family back home. Also, like I mentioned above, the gang members they encounter along the way will be trying to keep up their honor and therefore commit violence against innocent people to appear hard and respected in their gang. Those that make it to the US have the choice of Americanizing themselves as much as possible or sticking true to their roots. Some create a balance of both by adjusting to life in the US while still hanging onto their cultural personality. They are the victim of violence directed at Latinos purely because of their race and culture, so they again have to defend themselves, sometimes violently.
Regarding intervention/prevention, I think it comes down to preventing smaller acts of violence moreso than preventing murder. Progressively violent acts can build up to murder rather than coming out of nowhere. Therefore, I feel like we need to catch things that are happening along the way and stop them in order to keep it from accelerating to murder. Hopefully someone close to a victim of violence would notice problems brewing between a couple and would be able to step in with an intervention to protect the victim and prevent any additional violence. There are moments that murder is very unpredictable and unexpected. Those moment are most likely unable to be prevented, but we should be aware to those around us who may need help from us to step in.