“aggressive and dominating attitudes are progressively acquired through a number of social models, rather than the product of an innate drive” - are you sure you’re not overstating the conclusion of the paper you are citing?
I have only looked at the abstract but what it seems to show is that various social factors affect attitudes to violence, which still leaves room for an innate drive. It doesn’t have to be 100% one or the other.
You’re right, I shouldn’t have been so black and white. They repeatedly state that exposure to pro-violence attitudes is a strong factor in the later development of those attitudes but they indeed don’t say it precludes a prior « violence-proneness ». Many more studies though (and any quick look at prison demographics) do show that prior exposure to violence is the number one strongest predictor of offending. Will add a nuancing word though thanks for pointing it out!
As for the strongest predictor thing, the one I remembered was this study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096633/ which singles out prior exposure to violence and polyvictimisation as the strongest, but you're right it's only in men so gender is pre-selected for.
The NICE review you mention says "In both inpatient (Amore 2008, Chang 2004, Cheung 1996) (N = 634) and community (Hodgins 2011, UK700) (N = 1031) settings, the evidence was inconclusive as to whether male gender was associated with the risk of violence."
Amore (2008) finds no effect of gender because it controls for past history of physical aggression. Chang (2004) analyses men + women completely separately and so gives no effect size for gender. Cheung (1996) finds an OR of 2.17 (CI 0.80-5.94) for gender and aggression. That's not statistically significant because only 16% of their sample are female, but the CI is entirely compatible with a gender-violence link.* And Hodgkins (2011) finds a significant link, OR = 1.67, p<0.01.
“aggressive and dominating attitudes are progressively acquired through a number of social models, rather than the product of an innate drive” - are you sure you’re not overstating the conclusion of the paper you are citing?
I have only looked at the abstract but what it seems to show is that various social factors affect attitudes to violence, which still leaves room for an innate drive. It doesn’t have to be 100% one or the other.
You’re right, I shouldn’t have been so black and white. They repeatedly state that exposure to pro-violence attitudes is a strong factor in the later development of those attitudes but they indeed don’t say it precludes a prior « violence-proneness ». Many more studies though (and any quick look at prison demographics) do show that prior exposure to violence is the number one strongest predictor of offending. Will add a nuancing word though thanks for pointing it out!
I’d be keen to see those studies – do you have a link? I would’ve thought gender would be a stronger predictor than exposure to violence.
There’s interesting work on contagion of aggression in schools which I can dig out if you are interested - let me know.
There's this interesting UK stat about how the majority of women in prison are survivors of domestic violence -- this is not a very recent summary but some info here: https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/majority-of-women-in-prison-have-been-victims-of-domestic-abuse/. I think in France the relationship is even stronger (which is quite depressing).
As for the strongest predictor thing, the one I remembered was this study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34096633/ which singles out prior exposure to violence and polyvictimisation as the strongest, but you're right it's only in men so gender is pre-selected for.
Gender seems indeed to be the highest predictor, both intuitively and in most research (mentioned here for example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/) but weirdly in other studies like this 2015 UK one (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK356346/) they find it inconclusive? Seems weird. I've just skimmed the first part so will do more digging.
The NICE review you mention says "In both inpatient (Amore 2008, Chang 2004, Cheung 1996) (N = 634) and community (Hodgins 2011, UK700) (N = 1031) settings, the evidence was inconclusive as to whether male gender was associated with the risk of violence."
Amore (2008) finds no effect of gender because it controls for past history of physical aggression. Chang (2004) analyses men + women completely separately and so gives no effect size for gender. Cheung (1996) finds an OR of 2.17 (CI 0.80-5.94) for gender and aggression. That's not statistically significant because only 16% of their sample are female, but the CI is entirely compatible with a gender-violence link.* And Hodgkins (2011) finds a significant link, OR = 1.67, p<0.01.
* I think they are falling prey to the significance fallacy; see https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4377068/
I think it's just not a very good review. Which is worrying, given that it's commissioned by NICE...
That is pretty bad research indeed. Strange to be that assertive in the review when the evidence is that flimsy. Thank you for doing the digging!
Confusion about statistical significance is distressingly common among social scientists.
Mélina, this is such an important and thought provoking piece. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you, Kiya!! 😌