The theory of violentization, which has generated widespread mass media attention and even stimulated a fair amount of independent research, especially extending its explanation to genocide, is based on three main ideas: (1) violent encounters, (2) violent socialization, and (3) violent social organization and disorganization. Violent criminal acts are considered to arise from dominative encounters. For a violent dominative encounter to start, at least one of the participants in a social act must threaten to use physical force to determine who will perform the superordinate and subordinate roles during its construction. Thus, violent dominative encounters explain the interaction between a perpetrator and victim when physical force is threatened or actually used to settle the issue of dominance. There are three basic types of violent encounters:
violent engagements, violent skirmishes
, and
dominance tiffs
. Violent dominative encounters occur over a series of stages. The exact number of stages comprising each of them depends on how far the encounter between the conflicting parties proceeds. Violent dominative engagements represent completed dominative encounters and take place over five stages. During the first stage of
role claiming
, a would‐be superordinate must decide to take on that role and cast someone else in the subordinate role. The would‐be superordinate claims the dominant role by making vocal or bodily gestures signaling his superiority to his would‐be subordinate. During the
role rejection
, or second stage, would‐be subordinates must not only decide whether to reject the subordinate role imposed on them, but also whether they should resist a
ctively
or
passively
. Passive resistance requires making gestures that express neither dominance nor subservience but, instead, merely express their intention not to accede to performing the subordinate role in the social act. If they choose active resistance, they must gain the initiative by making their own dominance‐claiming gestures expressing their attitude of superiority and intention to perform the superordinate role in the social act. However, it is important to recognize that there are cases where the would‐be subordinate's mere presence in their would‐be superordinates’ domain of action challenges their effective performance of the superordinate role.
