This book bridges the gap between basic science, which deals with general concepts of aggression and its neurobiological foundations, and law enforcement as one of the applied fields of aggression research. It addresses the current state of research and practice and compares and integrates the concept of aggression with violent crime. Chapters examine the types of criminal careers that cross the boundary between the two and summarize the biological, psychological, and social factors that underlie particular types of criminal careers. Subsequent chapters discuss overlaps between biological and psychological factors and detail how and to what extent aggression may serve as explanatory mechanisms for violence. The book also discusses the relationship between social problems and neuropsychological deficits, addressing how the neuropsychological deficits lead to the intergenerational recycling of social problems. Finally, the volume explores violence and aggression from a neurobiological perspective. Topics featured in this book include: The heritability of aggressiveness and violence-proneness. Glucocorticoids in humans. Aggression circuitry in animals. Distorted circuitry in violent animals. Biological factors of psychological change. Neurobiopsychosocial Perspectives on Aggression and Violence is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and other professionals, and graduate students in forensic psychology, criminology/criminal justice, public health, developmental psychology, psychotherapy/counseling, psychiatry, social work, educational policy and politics, health psychology, nursing, and behavioral therapy/rehabilitation.

This book provides a concise-yet-comprehensive overview of the broad-ranging topics in the field of violence and aggression. It uses a functional approach that acknowledges the evolutionary, cultural, and operant nature of violence and aggression. The book defines the nature of different forms of violence and aggression; examines epidemiology and risk factors; describes biological, cultural and individual causes; and discusses individual and societal prevention and treatment. Key areas of coverage include: Epidemiology of violence and aggression. Biological and social causes of violence and aggression. Cultural interventions, psychotherapies, and individual biological interventions. The effects of violence and aggression in special populations. Violence and Aggression: Integrating Theory, Research, and Practice is a must-have resource for researchers, academics, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in forensic psychology, public health, criminology/criminal justice, developmental psychology, psychotherapy/counseling, psychiatry, social work, educational policy and politics, health psychology, nursing, and behavioral therapy/rehabilitation.

Social stress has emerged as a research front in the neurosciences, and this volume highlights recent insights in brain mechanisms and methodological advances. The topics range from the evolutionary origins of coping with social challenges to neural mechanism-driven focus on novel treatment targets. The parallel presentation of work with animal models and human subjects is bound to be useful to a broad research community.

Positive psychology exploded into public consciousness 10 years ago and has continued to capture attention around the world ever since. The movement promised to study positive human nature, using only the most rigorous scientific tools and theories. How well has this promise been fulfilled? This book evaluates the first decade of this fledgling field of study from the perspective of nearly every leading researcher in the field. Scholars in the areas of social, personality, clinical, biological, emotional, and applied psychology take stock of their fields, while bearing in mind the original manifesto and goals of the postive psychology movement. They provide honest, critical evaluations of the flaws and untapped potential of their fields of study. The contributors design the optimal future of positive psychology by addressing gaps, biases, and methodological limitations, and exploring exciting new questions.

This book provides a broad and contemporary overview of aggression and violence by some of the most internationally renowned researchers in the field. It begins with an integrative theoretical understanding of aggression and shows how animal models shed light on human aggression and violence. Individual risk factors for aggression and violence from different research perspectives are then examined. First, there is a cognitive neuroscientific, neuropsychological, and psychophysiological study of the brain. It then explores the developmental psychological factors in aggressive behavior, incorporating work on gender and the family. Other perspectives include the role of testosterone, individual differences, and whether humans are innately wired for violence. The following sections moves from the individual to the contextual risk factors for aggression, including work on the effects of adverse events and ostracism, guns and other aggressive cues including violent media, and drugs and alcohol. Targets of aggression and violence are covered in the next section, including violence against women and loved ones; aggression between social groups; and the two very contemporary issues of cyberbullying and terrorism. The book concludes with work showing how we may make the world a more peaceful place by preventing and reducing aggression and violence. The volume is essential reading for upper-level students and researchers of psychology and related disciplines interested in a rigorous and multi-perspective overview of work on aggression and violence.

The despair and incomprehension that often seem to be the only possible response to acts of aggression and violence have led to attempts by academics and writers from a wide variety of backgrounds to understand and explain such behaviour. The concern and anxiety that is felt by many people about this subject is such that some of their accounts – notably by Konrad Lorenz, Desmond Morris, Robert Ardrey, and Anthony Storr – have become popular and even best-selling books. Originally published in 1985, Accounting for Aggression provides a comprehensive synthesis and assessment of these writings and other contemporary theory and research on aggression and violence at the time. The author presents a variety of accounts of aggression, drawing on original work in the areas of biology, sociobiology, ethology, psychology and sociology. Each account is evaluated according both to the criteria of scientific methodology and to the extent to which it illuminates our understanding and appears to have a lasting explanatory value. In the last chapter the author presents an integrative approach to the subject area which synthesizes those findings for which there appears to be substantial empirical support, within a framework of the meaning that aggressive and violent behaviour offers to those who carry it out. Accounting for Aggression will be of great value to students and practitioners in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work and education. Furthermore, it will be welcomed by interested members of the general public who are concerned with issues such as whether or not violence is inherent in human nature, the extent to which interpersonal violence is related to group violence, and the extent to which violence in the media affects violent behaviour.

In this important work twelve eminent scholars review the latest theoretical work on human aggressive behavior. Emerging theories of aggression; peers, sex-roles, and aggression; environmental investigation and mitigation of aggression; development of adult aggression; and group aggression in adolescents and adults are all discussed in detail to provide clinicians, researchers, and students with a cutting-edge overview of the field.

Conceived at a time when biological research on aggression and violence was drawn into controversy because of sociopolitical questions about its study, this volume provides an up-to-date account of recent biological studies performed -- mostly on humans. A group of scientists recognized the importance of freedom of inquiry and deemed it vital to address the most promising biological research in the field. The focus on biological mechanisms is not meant to imply that biological variables are paramount as a determinant of violence. Rather, biological variables operate in conjunction with other variables contributing to aggression or violence, and a complete understanding of this phenomenon requires consideration of all influences bearing on it. This book will familiarize readers with the rapidly growing and increasingly significant body of knowledge on the biological bases of human antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviors. The editors concentrated on biological influences that support the basic physiological and biochemical processes of the brain and did not cover those biological influences that impact on the health of the individual such as head injury, pregnancy and birth complications, diet, and exposure to lead and other toxins. They focused on biological influences to illuminate their role in the complex behavioral phenomenon of violence. Three different approaches to the biological study of human antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviors are represented -- genetic, neurobiological, and biosocial. Representing each of these three approaches, individual chapters from investigators in psychobiology, biological psychiatry, and basic-clinical neurosciences address the most recent experimental findings, methods, theory, and common misconceptions in the biological study of aggression and violence. The areas of primary focus are behavior and molecular genetics, neurochemistry and hormones, neuroimaging, psychophysiology and developmental psychobiology. Generally speaking, investigators following these different approaches have experience in different scientific backgrounds, select different methods, generate different analyses, employ different conceptual definitions for some of the same terms, and assume a different philosophical stance in attempting to explain violence. Nevertheless, all are united in their efforts to understand the biological underpinnings of violence. This book then assumes a comprehensive approach wherein different levels of analysis and different approaches inform each other. It is clear from the studies reported that aggression and violence are multidetermined phenomena and understanding them requires an interdisciplinary approach spanning economic, sociopolitical, psychological, sociological, and criminological as well as biomedical considerations. Nature (biology) and nurture (experience, context) are fundamentally inseparable in explaining aggression and violence; biology may affect experience or context, but experience or context also influences biology. Both need to be studied in a search for explanations of this phenomena.

Perspectives on Aggression is a compendium of papers that discusses experimental research on human and group aggression. This compendium deals with the psychology of aggression including interracial aggression, environmental factors that contribute to aggression, and the role of mass media in "perpetuating" violence. A couple of papers review aggression in terms of variable aggression research and of the Darwinian Theory. One author notes that results of psychological studies of animals can suggest further hypotheses for human research. Another paper examines moral judgment in aggressive behavior such as shown in society's different attitudes toward an aggressive act. Another paper studies the effects of personality variables on aggressive behaviors, which indicate that some aggressive responses can be dependent on the control exerted toward such personality variables. Another paper reviews the works of Buss and Berkowitz, particularly the nature of arousal in aggression both from a physiological and a cognitive point of view. This book can be appreciated by psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, and officials related to issues of peace and security.