The Impact of Empathy and Violent Thinking on Violence in Youngsters - Essay Example

?Exploration of the impact of empathy and violent thinking on violence in young adults. The problem of violence is a serious issue and its existence is a major cause of disrupting the natural forces of life. Every living being on this planet is connected to one another by laws of nature and any dysfunction in any part of the system of existence causes concern in the rest parts of the world. The Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) has addressed this predicament in the “World report on violence and health (WRVH)” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012). Exposure to violence in one’s adolescence can have long term impact on the life of the person in terms of his health, behavior as well as responsibility towards his or family and the greater society. Violent thinking in most cases is associated with aggression and leads to anger, hostility, paranoia, impulsivity and empathy. Several researches have been made earlier on this subject. In this paper I shall present the review of the literature that pertains to the study of violent thinking in young adults and also provide a view on the relation that can be identified between violent behavior amongst youth and feeling of empathy. Violence and Violent Thinking The problem of violence is defined in the “World report on violence and Health (WRVH)” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012) as the deliberate use of power by one person or group upon another person or group that yields serious harm to the victim. The definition goes as follows: “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development, or deprivation" (Definition and topology of violence, 2012). This definition intends to include significant abuse of power in a dependent relationship and leads to physical or psychological harm (Definition of Violence, n.d.). To have a consistent definition of violence is very important. It helps researchers to measure the risk factors acting behind perpetration and victimization. By following a preset definition of violence the “magnitude of youth violence” (CDC, 2011) can be determined and compared across different jurisdictions. The occurrence of youth violence can be monitored and its trends over time can be examined. Violent thinking by an individual results from her exposure to violent acts at some point of her life. As a person experiences constant and increasing interaction with a violent scenario, that involves her directly or indirectly affects her by involving the others around her, the thinking process of the individual, particularly her moral reasoning power is subsumed within the ideology of violence (O’Hara, 2011). This leads to the development of fervor towards violence in the mind of the individual, to give vent to the suppression, lack of identity and confidence, anger or feelings of hostility towards her perpetrators. It can be asserted that “violence is a learned behavior” (Holt, 2008 p. 219). Thus, with endeavors by the individuals involved and more importantly the greater society, “violent thinking can be unlearned” (Holt, 2008, p. 219). Literature Review The WRVH presents “a topology of violence” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012) that explains the different circumstances in which violence might occur. It is useful in understanding the ways of interaction between different types of violence. According to this topology violence can be inflicted in four ways; physical, sexual, psychological attack and deprivation. The relationship between the victim and the perpetrator can be of more than type. Based on the ways of victimization three sub-divisions can be recognized, namely, self-directed violence, interpersonal violence and collective violence. The roots of violent thinking can be traced back to the imageries occurring in the minds of the individual. It has to be noted whether the imageries are viewed passively or these imageries are acting as a support to some pre-existing fantasy. If the imageries are supporting a fantasy of the individual that was pre-existing in the mind of the individual, it might lead her to a doing from the thinking (Ireland, Ireland & Birch, 2012, p. 239). Intrusive thoughts make a person upset. Youngsters plagued by repulsive imageries mostly feel induced to commit acts of iolence. Violent thinking is a major cause for violence among young adults. Violence does not only imply that the person who is victimized would be tortured by some other person. In instances of self-directed violence it has been found that “the perpetrator and the victim are the same individual” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012). This can either be self abuse or suicide. There are several reasons that can be held responsible for such a behavior of an individual that we hall discuss later in this paper. Another common form of violence is interpersonal violence which refers to act of aggression between two individuals. In this category we can identify “family and intimate partner violence and community violence” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012). Child maltreatment, aggressive behavior with one’s spouse or abusive behavior with elders, all refer to “family and intimate partner violence” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012). Community violence on the other hand can be categorized into “acquaintance and stranger violence” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012) and relates to youth violence, assault by strangers, violence related to property crimes and violence in workplaces and other institutions” (Definition and topology of violence, 2012). Collective violence relates to violence that are committed by bigger groups if individuals. This type of violence can take the form of social, political and economic aggression. The impact of unsafe environment further increases the possibility of violent thinking among youths and becomes a cause of violent behavior amongst them. Youth violence does not only harm the victims but also extends its effects on their families and the greater community. The youth homicide rates vary widely across the countries and according to data available, the top rates are accounted for in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Russian Federation and some of the south-eastern countries of Europe (Krug, 2002, p.25). exposure to violence in early childhood moulds the thinking process of the individual, making them more prone to violent thoughts. Previous studies indicate that incidences of dating violence among young adults are triggered by exposure to violence in childhood or during adolescence (Grant & Potenza, 2010, p. 165). Maudsley Violence Questionnaire The Maudsley Violence Questionnaire (MVQ) was devised by Julian S. Walker with the objective of evaluating the relationship between two factors of the Maudsley Violence Questionnaire; ‘machismo’ and ‘acceptance’ in relation to “personality, self-esteem and self-reported offending” (Walker & Gudjonsson, 2006). A British study was conducted that investigated the relationship of violent acts with the psychotic symptoms of the doers. This study supported the fact that there is a positive relationship between the two factors. The MVQ was developed as a special questionnaire to study the “prevalence of acting on delutions” (Volavka, 2002, p. 233). The MVQ is a self report questionnaire containing 56 items which have to be answered in two alternatives; either true or false. It is “based on normal thinking processes to explore whether a more extreme thinking pattern could be found related to increased violence” (Corey, 2008, p. 23). An American study made on 54 delusional patients it was found that 17.5% of the participants reported the commitment of at least one extremely violent act which had been stimulated by concurrent delusion (Volavka, 2002, p. 233). A study was conducted upon 785 students (male and female) of the age bracket 16 years to 19 years. Among the male students, “‘machismo’ was the strongest predictor of self-reported violence” (Walker & Gudjonsson, 2006) and ‘acceptance of violence’ was found responsible for the same violence among the female students. The range of internal consistency reliability as reported by walker is “from 0.728 to 0.914” (Corey, 2008, p. 23). The highest point is attributed to the machismo factor among men. The strong predictive authority of the MVQ recommends that this measure can be utilized “to evaluate the thinking processes and treatments for violence” (Walker & Gudjonsson, 2006). Empathy Empathy is defined as the ability to adopt “the perspective and emotional understanding of another person” (Brooks, 2007, p. 10). This ability makes a person experience the feeling and understanding of the other person and responding in a way as if she was that other person. This is referred to as “interior imitation of the action of others” (Moya-Albiol, Herrero & Bernal, 2010, p. 89). This imitation of others’ actions includes unconscious replication of the postures and facial expressions of other people observing or imagining “another person in a particular emotional state” (Moya-Albiol, Herrero & Bernal, 2010, p. 89). The paper “Neural bases of empathy” presents an explanation of empathy; its origin, social cognition, cerebral correlations and presentation of stimuli. In this paper, empathy has been divided into two parts, cognitive and emotional. Empathy would assume a primal position in the disposition of the people in the society at large and their “ability to optimally function in a social context” (Moya-Albiol, Herrero & Bernal, 2010, p. 89). Social perception is analogous to perception of emotions and requires the person to understand social signals so as to be able to deduce the situations that have lead to the generation of such signals. The cognitive component of empathy relates to the capacity to understand the mental proceedings of other people, and as she reacts to the others’ emotional state, this reaction would relate to the emotional element of empathy. Empathy is hence crucial for social interaction. Empathy has been illustrated by neuro-scientific models which propose that a certain state of an individual, perceptive or emotional, activates the neuronal processes in the other individual who is observing this state, suggesting that her own nervous system can represent the actions taken by others in her own motor system. Individuals with greater empathy are found to have greater activation of their motor system. Studies have been made to analyze the “neuronal bases of empathy” (Moya-Albiol, Herrero & Bernal, 2010, p. 89) through the strategy of presentation of stimuli. The types of stimulus used are different. Emotional stimuli are used to induce empathetic behavior in people by presenting images with some emotional content. In such studies it has been found that people react according to what they visualize in the images. Somatosensory stimuli (like that of touching a person) are used to examine whether watching a video that shows various kinds of touch ignites the somatosensory cortex of the observer in the same way as they are activated when they are actually touched. Expression of disgust, which is a basic negative emotion present in human minds, or observation of any positive state of mind in others like enjoying a drink, also extend their implications on the processing of the observers own sensation of disgust or good feeling thereby representing these feelings in the observer’s own neural mechanism. This helps a person to comprehend her social surroundings and facilitates her survival. The perception of a painful stimulation is a result of the implication of the affective element of the pain matrix on the complex construct of empathy. Empathy Assessment Index (EAI) Empathy Assessment Index (EAI) is a measure rooted in the “social cognitive neuroscience conceptualization of empathy” (Lietz et al., 2011). Recent developments have shown that “empathy is an induction process that can be described” (Lietz et al., 2011) and measured. Earlier measures of empathy, for example, Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), failed to assess the level of personal distress. Hogan Empathy Scale suffered from lack of internal consistency, low reliability of the test-retest model and poor reproduction of the factor structure. The Empathy Assessment Index has been developed so as to overcome the limitations of the earlier measures. Five new components have been incorporated into this measure; “affective response, self–other awareness, perspective taking, emotion regulation, and empathic attitudes” (Lietz et al., 2011). The EAI finds many applications in real use such as social and other educational settings due to these modifications. With the use of EAI, students as well as professionals develop better understandings of the emotional and cognitive mechanisms. Contrast of EAI with the Neural Bases of Empathy The paper “Neural bases of empathy” has provided the neurological scientific aspects of the feeling of empathy by individuals. However it does not explicitly provide any explanations for the specific thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that lead to the feeling of empathy. The Empathy Assessment Index takes into consideration of the perspective of self awareness as well as empathic attitudes that provide better understanding of the issue. Conclusion The rising incidence of violence among youths propels us to think of violence as an event. The issue of violence does not intend to address why violence occurs but rather why some of the actors of violence “continue to perpetrate violent behaviors” (Paludi, 2011, p. 94). In this regard it emerges that violent thinking among the young population instigates them to commit violent acts. The causes of such thinking are the environment to which they belong and the situation to which they are subjected. Zero tolerance policies in schools for minor misconducts fuels more violent activities amongst the youths. Besides, the young adults living in economically underdeveloped areas suffer from tensions of poverty and live in highly challenging environment. The ways of livelihood and daily struggles instigates thoughts of violence among them. Violence can only be combated by bringing down the chances of violent thinking among the youths. References 1) Definition and topology of violence (2012), WHO, retrieved on 24 December, 2012 from http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/definition/en/index.html 2) Definition of Violence (n.d.), Justice.govt, retrieved on 31 December, 2012 from http://www.justice.govt.nz/publications/global-publications/s/safer-communities-action-plan-to-reduce-community-violence-sexual-violence/definition-of-violence 3) CDC (2011), Youth Violence: Definitions, CDC, retrieved on 24 December, 2012 from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/definitions.html 4) O’Hara, H. (2011), Violent Thinking: The Psychological Development of the Terrorist, ISPP, on 24 December, 2012 from http://www.ispp.org/meetings/abstract/violent-thinking-the-psychological-development-of-the-terrorist 5) Corey, J. (2008). A Concurrent Validation of the Violence Sensitivity Scale. Proquest. 6) Krug, E. G. (2002). World Report on Violence and Health, Volume 1. World Health Organization. 7) Grant, J. E. & Potenza, M. N. (2010). Young Adult Mental Health. Oxford University Press. 8) Walker, J. S. & Gudjonsson, G. H. (2006). The Maudsley Violence Questionnaire: Relationship to personality and self-reported offending. Personality and Individual Differences, 40(4), 795-806. 9) Holt, V. B. (2008). We Suffered in Silence: How a Pastor’s Family Live in Shame, While Hiding Dark Spots on the Clerical Collar. Xulon Press 10) Moya-Albiol, L. Herrero, N. & Bernal, M. C. (2010). Neural Bases of Empathy. Rev Neurol2010, 50(2), 89-100 11) Brooks, C. W. (2007). Forgiveness and Empathy in Victims of Sexual Aggression and Their Relationship with Mental and Physical Health. Proquest. 12) Ireland, J. Ireland, C. A. & Birch, P. (2012). Violent and Sexual Offenders: Assessment, Treatment and Management. Routledge. 13) Volavka, J. (2002). Neurobiology of Violence, Second Edition. American Psychiatric Pub. 14) Paludi, M. A. (2011). The Psychology of Teen Violence and Victimization, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. 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