Reading Blog 4/5 10pm

Chapter 14 focuses on attachment patterns and whether those patterns can help lead someone to violence. In looking at attachment patterns, the author (Dutton) focuses mostly on anxious attachment. He reviews several studies that conclude that people with secure attachments are less likely to be violent with their partners. He also looks at studies that explore neural development in early infancy. He finds that non-secure attachments result in both reduced or delayed neural development and more violent behavior, even at a very young age. Dutton then discusses how attachment capacity is fairly mature by the end of a child’s 1st year of life. He suggests that early family dysfunction results in a child not being able to regulate or control “bad” emotions; namely panic and rage. One of the studies that support this shows that children who had a disorganized (anxious) attachment were more likely to express hostility. They also were more likely to have parents who had the same attachment patterns. Dutton then segues into an argument that people with insecure attachments had problems controlling their anger and also in moderating their anger. Studies done with both partners in an abusive intimate partner situation show that the abusive partner scores high on jealously, fear (that the other partner will leave), and insecure attachments. It was surprising to me that men who abused their partners scored high on fear. I had always assumed that they were just control freaks that didn’t want to lose control of their possession. From the chapter, I got the impression that most abusive men just want to have a secure attachment to their partner, and the abuse is how they feel they can achieve that. They’re wrong, but maybe this could be an area for psychologists to study further. Perhaps, if shown a better way to form and keep a secure attachment, they will become less violent. It was interesting to me that Dutton included studies that found the same patterns in abusive women as abusive men. Most people don’t study violent women and the problem of abusive women in relationships is not discussed commonly. I’m glad that it’s starting to get more recognition. Another surprising thing to me was that abusive men and women show a significant amount of characteristics found in people with borderline personality disorder. Admittedly, I haven’t studied borderline personality disorder very much; I just assumed that violent men and women would be closer to antisocial personality disorder. I’m intrigued by the information that borderline may fit better. Dutton does turn from intimate partner violence and studies attachment patterns in other types of violence; suicide, military, and “holy wars”. While there isn’t a lot regarding attachment and suicide, Dutton does mention that most men who commit suicide do so after their partner has left, suggesting that they feel they don’t have secure attachments anymore. When examining military violence, Dutton says little about attachment but does discuss what extreme stress and combat situations can do to people; he hypothesizes that people with insecure attachments will engage in more violent behavior than their securely attached counterparts in those situations. Finally, in regards to “holy wars”, Dutton sees religion as a symbolic kind of attachment. He argues that religious leaders use the idea of salvation as a way for people to feel securely attached to God and then can persuade them that killing others is what God wants. In the last section, Dutton argues that secure attachments can ease death anxiety. While no specific study has measured this, a few studies have shown that people with secure attachments are more likely to have a desire for intimate relationships, invest more in their children’s upbringing, and to do things that will hopefully live on after them. In conclusion, Dutton says, insecure attachments can be a risk factor for violence.
While this chapter didn’t specifically discuss school violence, I think it can be connected. It could be argued that children who engage in school violence have insecure attachments. We could also probably examine their lives to see if there are signs of borderline personality disorder, since that seems to be a problem that is co-morbid with insecure attachments. Also, I think it can relate to my topic of sadistic rapists. I’m sure that most of them have insecure attachments, which is a risk factor for them to be violent to others. However, I’m not sure that they are being violent to try to get someone to stay and be a secure attachment for them. I could probably use parts of this chapter, but that part in particular I have serious doubts about.

For this blog, I have chosen chapter 15, which deals with respecting, being respected, respect in parent-child relationships, and respect in schools. I was actually excited to read this chapter because I feel that respect is extremely important in our society, yet I think that it is actually not valued as much as it should be. The chapter also deals with self-respect and how essential self-respect is when you are expected to respect others.

Respect has been studied mainly in adult relationships and not as much in the literature in developmental psych. I feel as though studying respect and understanding it is important when examining why someone is disrespecting others or themselves. The chapter discusses two kinds of respect which are unconditional and contingent. Unconditional respect is based on a moral contention that every human has basic rights to freedom, dignity, and autonomy. Researches may rely on philosophers such as Kant who believe that people deserve unconditional respect. Researchers may also rely on psychologists such as Piaget who believes that people have to understand other people’s point of view to be respected. I believe these go hand in hand because I expect to be respected, but I understand that others have different beliefs and views as well.

I found the sections of being respected and disrespected and it’s relation to aggression to be really interesting. Being respected by others is likely to reduce aggression because when an individual is unconditionally respected, he or she feels valued which in turn makes them act out in a less aggressive manner, or it gives them a reason to not be aggressive at all. Also, being and feeling respected by others implies an expectation on the part of others that one will act morally. In turn, such expectations will be fulfilled. Overall, feeling and being respected by others provides a person with a greater social influence, so there is less of a need to resort to aggression to achieve desired ends.

Obviously, feeling disrespected and aggression is related because being disrespected is seen as extremely negative. It can resort to feelings of humiliation, and can make you feel devalued, demeaned or insulted. People who are disrespected may react aggressively because they are trying to restore self-esteem, save face, or educate the offender. I found it interesting how public disrespect in front of an audience is more threatening than being in private. Others may not feel the same way but I think that if it happens in a private setting then you are more likely to be offended because it is most likely coming from someone you are close to, which could result in aggressive behavior and lead to long-term consequences such as grudges, fights, or the overall loss of relationship.

I found it really interesting how the chapter touched upon how our culture respects its elders. Being that my minor is gerontology, I have always been interested in the cultural differences of how people treat and care for their elders. I mentioned earlier that the western culture doesn’t treat their elders as how they ought to be treated. This is because I feel that we don’t respect our elders as much as we should, and that even though we are taught to “respect our elders”, we actually don’t really know how to. This leads to my expert topic of elder abuse because I feel that in order for an elder to be respected then they have to respect their children and others have to know the values of respecting an older adult. For example, if an elder is being abused then this could be from abusing their children when they were young. The abuse could have been originated from the lack of respect that the child gave their parent, which resulted in abuse such as spanking or more serious types of abuse towards the child. Children are known to be defiant towards parents, which in turn causes frustration for the parent, which may lead to abuse towards the child. It seems to be confusing, but it is all cycle that could exemplify why abuse is happening. Also, parents are expected to honor their child and their point of view. So, from an emotional standpoint, if a child feels as though they are being disrespected that way then they may in turn react aggressively towards their parents later on in life, especially when the elder is in weak physical and emotional state.

I chose to read chapter 14 for this blog because it pertained more to my expert topic. The title was also catchy so it looked interesting to me! This chapter reviews literature on attachment and violence and how attachment patterns can disrupt the behavior of an individual. The author discusses a researcher named Bowlby and how attachment is a product of interpersonal anger that occurs due to attachment frustrations. The deduction is mad ethat those with insecure attachments tend to be highly emotionally aroused and violent.

The first attachment issue discussed is the primitive attachment threat and how it causes an individual to react to stressful situations or emotions. This section discusses how the primitive or early period in infancy is a critical point in creating secure attachments. This is when the parts of the brain are developing and optimal attachment is critical for the normal development of the brain. Rage develops when the child does not separate from the mother to create their own identity. The authors suggest this leads to future violence against others, specifically a spouse or partner.

I thought the section discussing disorganized/disoriented attachment was interesting and fits in well with my expert topic. Disorganized/disoriented attachment has "been associated with marked impairments in the emotional, social, and cognitive domains, and predisposes a person to a clinical condition known as dissociation in which the capacity to function in an organized, coherent manner is impaired." This type of attachment is demonstrated bt Ainsworth's strange situation experiement with infants. The experiment is used to determine if a child becomes fearful and disorganized in a strange situation. In these situations, some parents generate a "fright without solution" pattern in their children. They do not provide solutions to a child when they are frightened. In a sense they encourage the fright. Children who have this instilled in their attachment style are more prone to future hostility and violence.

Bowlby argues that intimate abuse is "an anger born of fear." I think this is a very interesting statement and concept. He identifies an abusive personality and contends this arises from a fearful-angry attachemnt style. I thought it was interesting he identifies an abusive personality, and also that it is a result of attachment style. This would suggest that child rearing plays a large role in personality development.

The authors also found correlates between insecure attachment and attachment anxiety with borderline personality. They found that impulsivity is a common characteristic of borderline personality and is also found in those with fearful attachment.

This chapter was extremely interesting and aligned well with my expert topic. I will defintely use it as a resource for my expert topic project, and it will be helpful in identifying an abusive personality and finding factors that play a role in the development of such a personality.

Chapter 14 is the inclusion of attachment and violence and how it is perpetrated as an adult. There were many instances throughout the chapter which was in reference to anger and how many different causes there could be for it. The chapter described many different scenarios of attachment, with the biological emphasis taking priority in this chapter. It was actually quite similar in content to last week’s assignment over chapter 13.

I thought it was interesting when relating the concept of fear and anger, especially with parents and their children. There was actually a biological process in which one’s body would exhibit certain hormonal hyperactivity and release body opioids quite similar to low-dose morphine. This topic was discussing how primitive and automatic the process of fear is. Then the paragraph goes onto explain that this process develops rapidly in early infancy, which when paired with unstable attachment figures, can thoroughly impede the mind of the child. This is actually where irrational anger and violence can become ingrained in one’s mind subconsciously. Rage exhibited (by the mother typically) at such an early age is common in insecure relationships according to the book, but I was surprised at how early an infant could be affected by such a negative emotion. It seems to almost overtake any other area that might affect a child in normal development, and make one aggressive to other adults when they are grown and in intimate relationships. Although, this entire section was very thought-provoking and interesting, I still have some skepticism over whether one’s brain is affected early in infancy completely or just doled out over time, due to the insecure attachment of the mother. It is quite likely an infant would be affected young, but I would think he/she would also need to be continuously subjected to a primary unhealthy relationship throughout childhood to become completely irrational with their anger (which I am guessing would already happen).

This chapter can relate to school violence in many ways. When seeing children at school, it is sometimes quite obvious which children have difficult family lives (such as no attention from parents or excessive attention) in how they interact with other children. Some children (and adolescents too) engage in textbook characteristics of certain attachments; for example, one child might engage in aggression toward either another child or even an authority figure due to avoidant attachment figures at home, which leads to people not being able to accurately access and show one’s emotions. Or a child with anxious attachments might not be able to handle being away from their friends or “caregiver” (such as teacher or daycare provider) for small amounts of time. Children who enter school with insecure attachments might be able to adequately enter into a school setting and fit in normally, but I think this has more to do with resilience and finding a “replacement parent” to reflect a normal attachment.

One idea in the chapter that I found related well to school (and gang) related violence was worldview-threatening outgroup. There was a study done in which child soldiers were being made by manipulating the children’s attachments. Children in Rwanda would be forced to kill a member of their own village to break attachment from their own family while simultaneously creating new attachments to the killer group. I think this relates to school in the fact that gangs and cliques at school often try to have a secure person sever ties to those they originally had attachment to (although in a less severe manner). This could probably be demonstrated through disrespect or implied/actual aggression to the parent.

This relates to my expert topic in the fact that attachment growing up can have an enormous impact on an individual as an adult, and there are many studies showing that insecure attachments often lead to violence against their intimate partners. It is quite interesting in trying to understand what makes those with insecure attachments engage in violence primarily towards a significant other.

For this assignment, I chose to read chapter 15 regarding respect and how it can reduce aggression in parent-child relationships as well as the school environment. The chapter starts off by defining respect and then separating respect into two different categories. The book lists unconditional and contingent respect as the two different categories.
Unconditional respect, as mentioned in the book, is defined as being a humanistic tendency to value each person as a worthy human being. This means, listening to what they have to say and respecting the authority that they hold. One example of unconditional respect would be the respect that we have for our family and friends. We, presumably, care about them so much and value what they have to say. Ideally, anyone who would earn a person's respect would get this kind of respect from another human being.
Contingient respect, however, is defined in our handbook as having an attitude towards an individual who possesses or embodies certain qualities or attributes or who has attained a certain admirable status. The best example of contingent respect is probably the teacher-student relationship. The student may not want to school and may not know their teacher, however they have to respect their teacher for the authority that they hold. The person may not have earned the respect, but in regards to this situation, respect is demanded.
The chapter then goes on to talk about the role being respected plays in aggression along with self-respect and aggression. The chapter finally concludes with looking at respect in the home and school envrionments along with what a person can do to foster respect.
The most interesting thing that I found in this chapter was the section on how it is possible to foster respect. Fostering respect, especially in children, is incredibly difficult. This is made more difficult when they have to try and foster respect for peers that they may not get along with. The handbook talks about how respect can be fostered in children by modeling respect in the home as well as disciplining for any acts of disrespect. This is, of course, the most simple way we can foster respect in youth. However, it is still easier said than done.
For example, take my family. My little brother is in school and we have been constantly trying to foster respect in him. Because of this, he has turned out to be a very respectful and sensitive young man. His teacher, however, does not foster respect in her students. She yells and screams at kids, forcing them to give up their recess if they do badly on an exam making them sit with their heads on their desk instead of helping them work on the material that they missed in a calm manner. Because of this, my little brother does not like going to school and doesn't have respect for his teacher. His lack of respect for his teacher makes him not want to report acts of bullying and aggression that his fellow classmates. He knows that his teacher does not respect him or the other students so she will not do anything about it. This was really depressing to discover.
It is no secret by now, I hope, that this chapter relates very well to my expert topic. Respect is a key factor in bullying behavior in schools. Everything from stealing a kid's pencil everyday to shoving them in front of their locker and punching them all boils down to what the student was taught about respect. If a child is not taught respect at an early age or if they are not disciplined when they do not show respect for others, they are not going to treat their fellow classmates well when they are in school.
Conversely, if a student who has learned about respect does not feel that their teacher is worthy of their respect, they will end up not wanting to tell their teacher about things that should be reported. Or, if kids do not respect or get respect from their parents, they will not be likely to communicate with them about what they experience in school. This only makes it easier for the bully to get away with the violence they choose to force other students to submit to.

Chapter 15 discusses how respect relates to aggression. They begin by discussing what respect is. Respect is an attitude rather than an emotion. Respect is how you behave toward someone, how you think about them, and how you view them as a human being. There are two different kinds of respect, unconditional and contingent. Unconditional respect is when you value someone because they are a human being. You value their autonomy, privacy, and dignity. They discuss two types of relationships where unconditional respect is shown. In parent-child relationships, the respect a child receives from the parent is unconditional respect. Parents are supposed to value their children and respect them because they exist and are human beings. This type of respect is also based on a person’s morals. You respect someone because you morally think this way. They also say that this respect is shown in teacher-student relationships. It is very similar to parent-child relationships where the teacher shows the student unconditional respect simply because they are there. The other halves of these relationships are based on what the authors call “Contingent” respect. This is when you value someone based on their role in society or their merits and achievements. In the parent-child relationships, this is the respect that the parents receive. They are respected, or should be respected, because of their role as the parent. This is the same principle for the teacher-student relationships. Teachers should get respect from the students because of their role as teachers.

They discuss how respect is an important aspect of relationships. Studies show that the more respect that exists between people, the less aggression there is. To me it makes sense that unconditional respect would result in the least aggression, and while contingent respect may also inhibit aggression, it is more likely to contain aggression than unconditional respect. When you respect someone, you value them. If you value them all the time because they are a human, you will value their viewpoints and what they have to say. You are less likely to get angry at their views and be aggressive. If you value them because of their role, you may get in condition where you lose respect for them, whether they leave that role or disrespect you. If you feel like they don’t deserve the respect anymore, or you don’t actually value their viewpoints, it may result in more aggression, especially in intense situations such as arguments.

Not only is giving respect important in order to reduce aggression, but receiving respect is vital. When someone receives respect, it makes them feel valued. They feel better about themselves and feel like they are important and what they feel and say matters. In studies that were conducted of teacher-student interactions, when students received respect from the teachers, it actually reduces aggression between peers. This could be explained because the respect the student gets raises their feelings of self-worth and self-respect, therefore they are going to respect others more and not be aggressive with them. Students also felt more positive toward their teachers that the teachers cared more about them.

The self-respect that evolves when you are respected and respect others has a huge impact on aggression. When you respect yourself, you are less likely to tolerate others disrespecting you. You feel you are of value. You feel you are an important person and deserve to be respected and thus feel that others deserve to be respected. Often, showing self-respect makes others have respect for you as well. In order to have self-respect, one must live in accord with their moral standards and expectations. This is also related to rationality and self-control. They discuss that the two places people learn self-respect and respect of others is from parent-child relationships and schools.

So if all of these things help reduce aggression, what fosters aggression? The book says that disrespect is an extremely negative experience. You feel devalued, demeaned, and insulted. When you feel these things and you feel your rights have been violated, you may feel hurt and frustrated and therefore act aggressively. Often times this disrespect results in aggression because you try to restore self-esteem, save face, or educate the person who disrespected you. This can be very much related to our discussion about school violence. Kids in school often fight for respect. If one kid does something that ruins the respect of the other and destroys their reputations, they will need to fix this by often acting aggressively, trying to “top” everyone else. This is similar to gang violence, except it doesn’t often end up in murder. Bullies may also act aggressively because they want to fix their own self-esteem problems. They feel bad about something in their life or feel like their respect at home or other places is not achieved, so they pick on people that they know they can so they can feel they are respected. One way this type of bullying can be reduced is if the teachers and adults at the schools can help form positive attachments with the kids and show them respect. This way, the kids’ self-respect may be raised and therefore they will respect others more highly. There are many programs that are being implemented that have respect in the title. It is interesting though, because the book says that many of these programs don’t even address respect. Having the title respect in it can help in itself. If we can implement respect, especially in our schools at young ages, we can help generations become less aggressive.

I chose chapter 15 for this assignment. This chapter focuses on the relationship between respect and agression in parent-child relations and school settings. The author begins by distinguishing between contingnt and unconditional respect. Contingent respect is the kind of respect we give someone because of who they are or what they are, such as respecting a pokice officer because of their profession or respecting an elder because of their seniority in life. unconditional respect is the kind of respect we give people simply because we feel all living creatures have the right to be respected. unconditional respect is the broad humanistic kind of respect and contingent is the learned hierarchy based sort of respect. the text goes into depth on the ways respect interacts with agression on the level of self respect, feeling disrespected, parent-child respect, and respect in schools. The chapter concludes wiht a bit on why respect is so important and how respect can be fostered.
I liked this chapter a lot. I have school age children and have grown a nice sized opinion about the dissapearance of respect in children in the past few decades. I can see a relationship between the way my generation parents their children and the lack of respect we are finding in young people and find it reassuring that I'm not crazy, theres research that finds these relations too. It seems that back in the 60's there was a shift in how we chose to parent our children. we wanted to foster some sort of autonomy in our children and let them have a hand in raising themselves. This worked nicely for a bit, fostering free thinkers who challenged societal views and changing our world in various ways. We learned to question authority instead of blindly following... but this also began to slowly crush contingent respect. If those people who have positions of power are capable of being corrupt they are no longer able to be blindly given respect. They now must earn it, and we live in a time where many do not. One glance towards our nations capital and we can find a fistful of hipocrites telling us the ills of the thing they themselves do behind closed doors. I remember the day my 3rd grade teacher got arrested for dealing drugs... how was I to respect him after that? How was I to respect any teacher after that!? So now we have a group of people who have been systematically stripped of their sense of contingent respect who have nothing but unconditional respect left... or do we? How do we hold on to the idea that everyone inherently deserves respect? let's come back to that and take a look at self respect. Someone decided it would be a good idea to create a greater sense of self esteem in our school systems. we no longer can play sports that end with a winner, because we are all winners. everyone gets a prize and a ribbon! we can't call others losers and we can't boast about our acomplishments because others cold feel bad. everyone is great, and we all have this enormous sense of self respect. We now have a problem. It's my opinion that we are not only letting our kids lose their sense of contingent respect, but thier own self respect has become so big that they have no room for unconditional respect. these children are now such confident little individuals because of their constant ego boost to the self esteem and are very aware that the world is full of prominent people full of faults (it makes the news nearly every night)I feel like this has led to a new generation of children who are losing their sense of humanity based respect. It's almost like we are breeding narcissist. So, to link my rant back to the chapter, there is a link between parent-child relationships and agression in schools. If we as parents can foster a greater sense of respect of both kinds in our children we find there is lowered incidences of violence in our childrens schools. If we fail at this and our children do not have high levels of respect of either kind we will see higher levels of violence in our schools. we need to make sure we give respect where respect is due on a contingent level and give respect across the board to support unconditional respect. I feel as if these two kinds of respect are seperate from eachother but cannot survive without each other. Children need ot be respected as little humans at home, grow respect for authority figures (which starts in the home), and when they are fo school age they will be ready to respect thier teachers and fellow students, thus reducing the violence in schools related to a lack of respect. I think along with respect, we need to foster a sense of humility. It may seem odd, but I have tried to let my kids know not only thier strengths but thier weaknesses. Charlie knows he is wonderfully gifted musically. He also knows he's a sucky football player, but so am I so we just watch. He has a respect for the talent it takes to do the things he isn't great at and for the people who have those talents. I respect his awesomeness, and he respects mine too :)

Chapter 15 discusses respect in both parent-child relationships and in the school setting. In the chapter, Mayseless and Scharf differentiate two types of respect, unconditional and contingent.
Unconditional respect is where you respect a person because you value each person as a worthy human being. With this kind of respect, you belief that every person has basic rights to freedom, dignity, and autonomy.
Contingent respect is based on the idea that you are expected to respect a person based on their position or role. Contingent respect can also include respecting a person based solely off of attributes or qualities that they have and that you admire.
Respect helps to reduce violence and aggression in various ways. It provides an attitude in which a person becomes more tolerant and understanding of others. Additionally, feeling respected helps to fulfill a person's psychological need for autonomy, honor, and dignity.
Maysless and Scharf suggest that respect should be taught more directly and verbally. This is very much related to my expert topic because the PBIS program emphasizes that universal behavioral expectations, such as respect, safety, team work, etc should be taught in a manner and language that is understood by all. The way PBIS works is that it the individual schools come up with the universal behavioral expectations that fit within the culture and needs of their school. With the behaviors being universal or broad, they are able to encompass every specific area of the school (i.e. cafeteria, library, classroom, etc). In each specific area, the universal behavioral expectations are then broken down into specific behaviors that relate to the expectations (i.e. Be Respectful= listen to your teacher, keep your hands in your lap, etc). These behaviors then become the rules for the area. What's really nice about this, is that the rules are formed by the students themselves. The teachers spend the first day of class discussing the expectations to the students about the area and then they ask the students what they mean to them. Then together, they come up with the behavior rules.
By doing this, PBIS helps to establish a more caring and positive school climate. In a sense, more respectful (even though that may not be the specifically stated expectation). And as the chapter stated, schools that have these types of environments reduce levels of aggression and violence.