By: Joe Hitchcock,
on 10/1/2015
Perhaps one of the most politically unpopular truths about violence is that it is young people who are most vulnerable to it, not the elderly or children, but youth. Global estimates from the World Health Organization are that, each year, 200,000 young people are murdered.
The post Youth violence appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Hannah Paget,
on 5/14/2015
A red open car blasts past you, exhaust and radio blaring, going at least 10 miles faster than the speed limit. Want to take a bet on the driver? Well, you won’t get odds. Everyone knows the answer. All that exhibitionism shouts out the commonplace, if not always welcome, features of young males. Just rampant testosterone, you might say. And that’s right. It is testosterone. The young man may be driving the car but testosterone is what’s driving him.
The post Sex, cars, and the power of testosterone appeared first on OUPblog.
By: AlanaP,
on 1/25/2013
“My child could be the next mass murderer. Alex has bipolar disorder. Last year, he pulled a phone off of the wall in the classroom and threw it at the teacher. They evacuated the whole class and my son was suspended for one day. He was suspended five times in nursery school for hitting children. Alex screams at home, swears, throws his toys against the wall, has hit his sister more times that I can tell, and can’t pay attention for the life of him now. He does not like the word ‘no.’ Alex is eight and in second grade. I’m afraid and something has to be done. I’m glad we are dealing with this now. I have to face this.”
I saw the parents of Alex Monday morning.
Like many of you, I was in shock and horrified about the slaughtering of 20 little children and 6 adults. I wondered: why did Adam Lanza not receive help for his condition or, if he did, was he misdiagnosed? Did his parents not follow through with providers? Did providers fail to address his problems? Were the parents in denial? Were teachers in denial?
“I’m scared. I see things at night like shadows and I hear soldiers that are coming to get me at night. I ran into daddy and mommy’s room. I saw something black when I was running to my mommy’s room. Someone is whispering to me too. I hear whispers and voices. I don’t understand what they are saying.”
Alex was eager to tell me about the voices and sounds he heard. He also told me that his parents were oftentimes angry at home and he was always scared of what could happen next.
His parents told me about several warning signs that increased in severity, intensity, and frequency as Alex aged. They were:
Do these parents need counseling? Does Alex need help as well? Will the parents accept my feedback after I assessed their child, interviewed Alex’s teachers and them, and conducted the testing?
Monday had a happy ending. These parents were not in denial nor did they deny Alex had a problem. They realized early intervention was crucial to helping their child. Alex’s parents were aware that their son’s marked troubles with managing his anger, low frustration tolerance, problems with focusing, and his ability to “go from 0 to 100” in a split second of rage were not normal. They deeply wanted a typical eight-year-old boy before it was too late.
It is not too late for lots of children. All of us, including teachers, physicians, and other care-taking and healthcare professionals need to listen to and observe children when something is not quite right. Taking the time to talk with children and educate parents about the warning signs of mental illness is critical.
Assessment and early intervention are the keys to unlocking the cause of a child’s pain and other problems such as a reading disorder. We can help children if we intervene at an early age and recognize the signs of mental illness such as mood instability, sadness, irritability, and anxiety. Many children need help and aren’t getting it. Recognizing a child’s struggles as early as possible is key to optimizing their success in life and overall mental health. The tragedy can be when it is not addressed in time to help either the victim or aggressor.
The bottom line is: we need to review the big picture of what is happening with our children and help parents advocate for their child when something is a little off. It was not too late for Alex and it shouldn’t be for your child either.
Karen Schiltz is the co-author of Beyond The Label: A Guide to Unlocking a Child’s Educational Potential and Associate Clinical Professor (volunteer) at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has over 26 years of experience assessing children and young adults with developmental, medical, and emotional disorders including the autistic spectrum and maintains a private practice specializing in neuropsychology in Calabasas, California. Dr. Schiltz blogs for Psychology Today at Beyond the Label.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
The post Could my child be responsible for the next tragedy? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Erica Olsen,
on 11/1/2011
Introvert, extrovert, or false dichotomy?
I’ve been baring my soul and cockeyed schemes on the internet since 1997. I tell total strangers here on this site about my life, my thoughts on work, and the things that bring me joy. I’ve had two jobs where I acted professionally. I love making strangers smile. On Sundays, I invite everyone I’ve ever met to my home for BYOBrunch, and bask in the glow of a full room of happy people. I have sung badly in public, danced at any opportunity, and told jokes in front of large crowds. Very little embarrasses me.
Extrovert.
But I spend most of my life absorbing data. I work behind the scenes on applications that are the digital equivalent of sand mandalas. At my best, my effort becomes invisible, unnoticed. I love silence. My favorite vacation activity is walking through strange cities alone, or snorkling, both ways of existing in the divine silence of another world. I curl up like a cat under a blanket to recharge. When I had my daughter, I didn’t leave the house for four months. I order takeout by internet rather than phone. I rarely use my phone as a phone. I avoid answering emails, even from good friends.
Introvert.
I think the introvert/extrovert dichotomy attempts to explain seemingly incongruous tendencies that can arise in social animals. Our social dynamic and learned responses reflect a variety of alpha- or herd instincts. I would be surprised if most people completely embody one or the other.
In related news, I’m sitting in the Noe Valley Library courtyard, and a group of middle-school kids are in front of me, giggling and making prank calls. Extroversion? Anonymous herd aggression as bonding mechanism?
Time to get up and go to the coffeeshop? Yes.
Related posts:
By: Rebecca,
on 6/30/2008
Gordon W. Russell is a Profess Emeritus at the University of Lethbring in Alberta where he taught social psychology and conducted research on sports aggression for over 32 years. His book Aggression in the Sports World: A Social Psychological Perspective is an international and interdisciplinary presentation of the best and most recent findings in the study of sports aggression, and provides a series of proposals intended to prevent or minimize the severity of riots and panics. In the excerpt below Russel looks at the role of competition and aggression.
Competition is by far the most central and hallowed concept in the sports world. Most children are introduced to the notion of winning during their formative years. Thereafter, it pervades both individual and group interactions at all levels of play. Moreover, competition has taken root as the preferred means of conducting activities in the business world, education, and, possibly to a lesser extent, in scientific circles. One might assume that competition brings out the best in people, more so than say, cooperation.
Parenthetically, the common assumption that competition is superior to cooperation as a means for 
conducting human interactions is based more on a shared cultural truism (McGuire, 1964), certainly not on the empirical evidence. A cultural truism is a widespread, unquestioned belief that is rarely, if ever challenged. For example, when was the last time you heard someone take issue with the age-old advice to “brush your teeth after every meal?” In North America at least, competition is every bit as much a cultural truism as the importance of brushing after meals.
A review of 121 published studies comparing the effectiveness of competitive versus cooperatively structured tasks on performance and achievement was undertaken (Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, & Skon, 1981). Cooperation was found to be clearly superior across a variety of tasks, including motor tasks. In one analysis involving 109 findings, 8 favored competition and 65 favored cooperation, whereas 36 favored neither type of setting. We see further that in conjunction with an enjoyment of hard work and a preference for difficult and challenging tasks, low competitiveness is associated with higher salaries among businessmen and higher academic grades among male and female undergraduates (Helmreich & Spence, 1978; see also, Russell 1993, pp. 89–91).
Competition often fails us in other ways. That is, competitive situations are frequently found to breed hostility among participants. Part of the reason lies with the attitudes of competitors. If participants enter the competition with rivalrous attitudes, then hostilities are apt to develop. The association between rivalry and competition is learned in childhood. Rivalrous attitudes “appear in the form of personal intentions that go beyond merely doing well in competition and involve the goal of hurting the other person, perhaps going out of one’s way to do so” (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959, p. 228). Competition itself can be defined as “two or more units, either individuals or groups, engaged in pursuing the same rewards, with these rewards so defined that if they are attained by any one unit, there are fewer rewards for the other units in the situation” (Berkowitz, 1962, p. 178).
The tendency for competition to produce aggression has been well documented (e.g., Berkowitz, 1962, 1973; Deutsch, 1949; Diab, 1970; Sherif & Sherif, 1969). A classic field investigation by Sherif and Sherif (1969) will illustrate the differences between competition and cooperation in fostering hostility. The setting was a summer camp for young boys (11–12 years) in Oklahoma in what is called the Robber’s Cave experiment. The boys were carefully matched on skill level and physical stature. The boys were normal, well-adjusted youngsters who did not previously know one another. Upon their arrival at the camp in separate buses, they were assigned to either of two cabins, later named by the boys as the “Rattlers” and the “Eagles.” Strong bonds of friendship and group loyalty quickly developed within each group. Their cabins were located a considerable distance from each other, and no contact was made until the second stage of the experiment. During the week following their arrival, the youngsters engaged in a number of highly appealing activities, for example, camping out in the woods, improving a swimming hole as well as organized informal games. By week’s end, the two groups had developed stable group structures.
Shortly after, the groups were made aware of each other’s existence, strong “we” versus “they” perceptions of one another emerged. Brought together for a variety of competitions, for example, tug of war, touch football, baseball, and treasure hunt, the early expressions of good sportsmanship and mutual respect began to evaporate. In its stead verbal and physical hostilities began and escalate to the point of a full blown donnybrook in the mess hall. Name calling and throwing of food and then dinnerware brought the experiment to an abrupt halt. Several days of concerted effort by camp personnel were required to restore some semblance of peace between the Rattlers and the Eagles.
The investigators next arranged a series of tasks for the boys that required the cooperation of both cabins to succeed. They were superordinate goals or “goals that have a compelling appeal for members of each group, but that neither group an achieve without participation of the other” (Sherif & Sherif, 1969, p. 256). Several “emergencies” having potentially dire consequences for both cabins were created by the researchers. The camp truck that went for food mysteriously developed engine failure. It could only be started with both groups pulling together on their former tug of war rope. At another point the waterline broke down stopping the flow of water to the camp. The Rattlers and Eagles agreed to join forces to search for the break in the line. In both examples, it was clearly in their best interests to cooperate with one another, as in fact they did. The result was that intergroup hostility gradually diminished and a number of friendships even began to blossom between the cabins.
A similar field study was undertaken in Lebanon (Diab, 1970) and illustrates the ease with which competition can lead to ill will, if not outright aggression. Following similar procedures, the youngsters were “matched” and assigned to two groups in the camp. Interestingly, each group contained roughly equal numbers of Moslems and Christians. Friendships and camaraderie within each group developed during the early days of the camp. However, when competition was introduced, hostilities again erupted between the cabins. So intense was the animosity—a knife was brandished—that Diab was required to prematurely end the study. The battle lines were drawn between two temporary and artificially created groups. Surprisingly, the centuries-old divisions between Moslems and Christians played no part in the hostilities.
One might be forgiven for concluding from the Oklahoma boys camp study that the answer to increasing liking between two competing groups lies with having them cooperate in pursuit of a common goal. The answer is not quite that simple. Worchel, Andreoli, and Folger (1977) reasoned that two variables, the outcome of the cooperative endeavor and the nature of the groups’ past interaction, would determine the level of intergroup liking. In a nutshell, previously competing groups who failed in their combined effort experienced less attraction for one another. However, success resulted in increased liking. For previously cooperating groups, success and failure on the superordinate task resulted in increased liking between the groups.
Early writers have long contended that aggression is an inherent element in most competitions. Konrad Lorenz (1966) makes the point in noting that “sport indubitably contains aggressive motivation, demonstrably absent in most animal play” (p. 242). This conclusion is echoed by Caplow (1964) who observed that “In virtually all competitive situations some degree of hostility develops between the competitors” (p. 318). Certainly, the summer camp studies support such a conclusion. In addition, it was noted earlier that the trait of competitiveness is strongly related to the subscales and total scores on the Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992). However, laboratory investigations testing the merits of a competition–aggression hypothesis have yielded mixed results. For example, members of a competitive group were less helpful and friendly and more verbally aggressive toward each other than were members of a cooperative group (Deutsch, 1949). A more direct test of the hypothesis was conducted using a two-person reaction time experiment in which electric shock for slow responses served as the measure of interpersonal aggression (Gaebelein & Taylor, 1971). Three levels of motivation were provided subjects: high competition, no shock for fastest response plus 5 cents; moderate competition, no shock; and no competition, shock predetermined. Support for a causal association between competition and aggression was not forthcoming. In the words of the researchers “competition had little influence on the expression of physical aggression” (p. 66).
A video game (Super Mario Brothers) provided the means for a further investigation of competition and its effects on aggression (Anderson & Morrow, 1995; see also, Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, 2005). Specifically, pairs of male and female, university-aged participants were led through experimental instructions to adopt either a competitive or a cooperative frame of mind. A cooperative mind set was established for a pair by the experimenter stressing that their performances were to be combined and assessed together. For pairs in the competitive condition, they were told their performances would be compared at the end of the session. The goal for both groups then, was to avoid losing the life of the main character, that is, to advance as far as possible in each scenario.
The main characters are Mario and Luigi both of whom are controlled by the participants. Their task is to help the character avoid “cute but deadly creatures” as they navigate scenes. Participants can have their character deal with the creatures they encounter in either of two ways, killing or avoiding them. Jumping on top of a creature kills it as does hitting it with a fireball. Creatures can instead be avoided by the main character taking a different path or jumping over the creature.
The prediction that pairs assigned to the competitive condition would dispatch a greater number of creatures than those playing in the cooperative condition was confirmed. Competitive subjects had a 66% kill ratio in contrast to cooperative subjects who killed only 41%. Sex differences were not in evidence, that is, men and women had virtually the same kill ratios.
