Youth violence: What we know and what we need to know.

Abstract

School shootings tear the fabric of society. In the wake of a school shooting, parents, pediatricians, policymakers, politicians, and the public search for "the" cause of the shooting. But there is no single cause. The causes of school shootings are extremely complex. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School rampage shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, we wrote a report for the National Science Foundation on what is known and not known about youth violence. This article summarizes and updates that report. After distinguishing violent behavior from aggressive behavior, we describe the prevalence of gun violence in the United States and age-related risks for violence. We delineate important differences between violence in the context of rare rampage school shootings, and much more common urban street violence. Acts of violence are influenced by multiple factors, often acting together. We summarize evidence on some major risk factors and protective factors for youth violence, highlighting individual and contextual factors, which often interact. We consider new quantitative "data mining" procedures that can be used to predict youth violence perpetrated by groups and individuals, recognizing critical issues of privacy and ethical concerns that arise in the prediction of violence. We also discuss implications of the current evidence for reducing youth violence, and we offer suggestions for future research. We conclude by arguing that the prevention of youth violence should be a national priority.

Testing the Moderating Role of Social Context on Media Violence Effect in the Case of Peer Aggression among Adolescents

“…The more time the children spent watching TV, playing video games or browsing the Internet the more they reported verbal, physical and electronic aggressive behaviors towards their peers. These results are in accor-dance with the previous research on peer violence (Bushman et al, 2016;Dittrick et al, 2013;Kuntsche, 2004;Zimmerman et al, 2005). Media violence effects were similar for both genders as well as for younger and older adolescents, which corresponds to some earlier studies (e.g., Huesmann et al, 2003;Valkenburg & Cantor, 2000).…”

“…Although experimental studies have found causal relationship between violence in media and aggressive behavior, the exposure to media is neither a necessary nor sufficient cause of youth's aggression (Bushman & Anderson, 2015). The media effects that have been found are larger for milder forms of aggression (d = 0.39) than for criminal behavior (d = 0.20) (Bushman et al, 2016). Concerning duration of effects, both immediate and long lasting effects of media violence have been found.…”

Brief use of a specific gun in a violent game does not affect attitudes towards that gun

“…[1] comment that youths exposed to smoking or drinking media characters are more likely to start smoking or drinking themselves. They suggest that ‘research should test whether youth are more interested in acquiring and using guns after exposure to movie characters that use guns’ [1, p. 32]. In line with that suggestion, this study examined whether exposure to violent video games might foster interest in the acquisition of guns.…”

Youth's Daily Activities and Situational Triggers of Gunshot Assault in Urban Environments

“…Such problems disproportionately affect males overall and African Americans males in particular, and are largely an urban phenomenon (3). Correlates of youth violence have been identified at the individual, family, peer/school, community and societal levels (4–7), including alcohol or drug use, neuropsychological deficits, chronic stress from exposure to violence, poor parent-child relationship, family conflict, and living in disadvantaged, disordered neighborhoods (8). Being relatively stable, these factors can help identify individuals predicted to face an elevated risk of being shot, and inform preventive interventions.…”