Universal bursty behaviour in human violent conflicts.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Picoli S
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3998014 | biostudies-other | 2014
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:A study of violent behaviour among psychiatric inpatients in a large general hospital is presented. Over the study period of one year a total of 36 incidents of violence involving 26 patients were recorded. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis among assailants. Fellow patients were the main victims. Incidence of serious violence was low. Most incidents occurred in the night hours, from inmates of acute wards and mostly without any provocation.
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Project description:Perspective-taking is essential for improving intergroup relations. However, it is difficult to implement, especially in violent conflicts. Given that immersive virtual reality (VR) can simulate various points of view (POV), we examined whether it can lead to beneficial outcomes by promoting outgroup perspective-taking, even in armed conflicts. In two studies, Jewish-Israelis watched a 360° VR scene depicting an Israeli-Palestinian confrontation from different POVs-outgroup's, ingroup's while imagining outgroup perspective or ingroup's without imagined perspective-taking. Participants immersed in the outgroup's POV, but not those who imagined the outgroup's perspective, perceived the Palestinians more positively than those immersed in the ingroup's POV. Moreover, participants in the outgroup's POV perceived the Palestinian population in general more favorably and judged a real-life ingroup transgression more strictly than those in the ingroup's POV, even five months after VR intervention. Results suggest that VR can promote conflict resolution by enabling effective perspective-taking.
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Project description:Inhomogeneous temporal processes, like those appearing in human communications, neuron spike trains, and seismic signals, consist of high-activity bursty intervals alternating with long low-activity periods. In recent studies such bursty behavior has been characterized by a fat-tailed inter-event time distribution, while temporal correlations were measured by the autocorrelation function. However, these characteristic functions are not capable to fully characterize temporally correlated heterogenous behavior. Here we show that the distribution of the number of events in a bursty period serves as a good indicator of the dependencies, leading to the universal observation of power-law distribution for a broad class of phenomena. We find that the correlations in these quite different systems can be commonly interpreted by memory effects and described by a simple phenomenological model, which displays temporal behavior qualitatively similar to that in real systems.
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Project description:AimsTo assess the rates of violence in nursery rhymes compared to pre-watershed television viewing.MethodsData regarding television viewing habits, and the amount of violence on British television, were obtained from Ofcom. A compilation of nursery rhymes was examined for episodes of violence by three of the researchers. Each nursery rhyme was analysed by number and type of episode. They were then recited to the fourth researcher whose reactions were scrutinised.ResultsThere were 1045 violent scenes on pre-watershed television over two weeks, of which 61% showed the act and the result; 51% of programmes contained violence. The 25 nursery rhymes had 20 episodes of violence, with 41% of rhymes being violent in some way; 30% mentioned the act and the result, with 50% only the act. Episodes of law breaking and animal abuse were also identified. Television has 4.8 violent scenes per hour and nursery rhymes have 52.2 violent scenes per hour. Analysis of the reactions of the fourth researcher were inconclusive.ConclusionsAlthough we do not advocate exposure for anyone to violent scenes or stimuli, childhood violence is not a new phenomenon. Whether visual violence and imagined violence have the same effect is likely to depend on the age of the child and the effectiveness of the storyteller. Re-interpretation of the ancient problem of childhood and youth violence through modern eyes is difficult, and laying the blame solely on television viewing is simplistic and may divert attention from vastly more complex societal problems.
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Project description:ObjectivesTo establish the link between frontal lobe dysfunction and violent and criminal behaviour, based on a review of relevant literature.MethodsArticles relating evidence of frontal lobe dysfunction with violence or crime were collected through a MEDLINE search using the keyword "frontal lobe" combined with the terms "aggression," "violence," "crime," "antisocial personality disorder," "psychopathy," "impulse control disorders", and "episodic dyscontrol." Reference lists were then searched for additional articles.ResultsHigh rates of neuropsychiatric abnormalities reported in persons with violent and criminal behaviour suggest an association between aggressive dyscontrol and brain injury, especially involving the frontal lobes. The studies reviewed support an association between frontal lobe dysfunction and increased aggressive and antisocial behaviour. Focal orbitofrontal injury is specifically associated with increased aggression. Deficits in frontal executive function may increase the likelihood of future aggression, but no study has reliably demonstrated a characteristic pattern of frontal network dysfunction predictive of violent crime.ConclusionsClinically significant focal frontal lobe dysfunction is associated with aggressive dyscontrol, but the increased risk of violence seems less than is widely presumed. Evidence is strongest for an association between focal prefrontal damage and an impulsive subtype of aggressive behaviour.
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Project description:Although violent behaviour and psychopathology often co-occur, there has been little research on psychiatric disorders among men in treatment for intimate partner violence (IPV). This study aimed to examine the prevalence of a broad spectrum of psychiatric disorders among men voluntarily attending treatment for IPV.5 clinics for IPV treatment, located in the east, south and west of Norway, participated in the study. In a cross-sectional design, men attending therapy for violence against a partner went through a face-to-face structured diagnostic interview, the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview.222 men contacted the clinic during the inclusion period; 12 men did not attend and 13 men were referred to outpatient clinics. Of the 197 men who were offered therapy, 13 did not provide consent to participate in the study, 2 were excluded and 3 men missed the interview.A total of 179 men participated in the study. The majority were ethnic Norwegians (88%). A total of 70.9% of the men fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for at least one ongoing psychiatric disorder. Three categories of disorders stood out with approximately equal prevalences: depressive disorders (40.6%), anxiety disorders (38.5%) including post-traumatic stress disorder (18.4%) and alcohol/substance abuse (40.2%). Antisocial personality disorder was present in approximately 2/10 participants. Comorbidity was high, with nearly half of the men (48.0%) assigned two or more diagnoses.Men voluntarily admitted to treatment for IPV harbour a wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders. Our findings suggest a need for screening procedures for psychiatric disorders as well as adoption of treatment interventions according to different types of psychopathologies and therapeutic needs. Limitations include caution in terms of generalisation to other populations not voluntarily admitted to treatment for IPV, and risk of ignoring symptoms not covered by a clinical structured interview.
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