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Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force On Violence And The Family
Many people charge that images in the media, ineffective laws, or weak law enforcement is responsible for violence in our society, but they are unwilling to consider that their own behavior may foster aggression and violence.
It is important to go beyond blaming others for the proliferation of violence and to examine individual behavior and social norms to better understand how violent behavior is taught and reinforced. Learning to accept and use violence is a complex process in which each person could be teaching violent responses without realizing it. When parents demean and strike each other or their children, when children are encouraged to be bullies or fight back on the playground, when children have easy access to real or toy guns and other weapons, violence is being taught. When stereotypes and prejudice frame interactions with people who are different from ourselves, the scene is being set for violence. Glorifying war and relishing violence in competitive sports may reinforce violent behavior. Several decades of research has documented that violence in television, film, and other mass media is one way in which the culture teaches violence. When violence and sexual aggression are combined in the media, in popular song, in multimedia computer games, and in the vernacular, the message of violence, including sexual assault, is reinforced. It is often difficult for well-intentioned parents of older children and teenagers to overcome the violent messages that are being taught by their peers and by the larger society. In recent decades the ways in which men and women interact with each other and live their lives have changed extensively. The women's movement, combined with the reality of more women entering the workforce and becoming financially independent, has caused many women to change their expectations about how much they want to yield to or serve men. While some men have changed their expectations of their partners, others have not. The resulting differences in how couples perceive family roles may cause conflict, and persons who have learned to resolve conflict by physical violence may continue to do so, thus modeling for their children that violent behavior is appropriate when one feels justified that his or her opinion should prevail. Studies show that more negative than positive behaviors are acted out in dysfunctional families, and in abusive families these negative behaviors occur in clustered patterns, usually expressed by males to females. In homes where there is no violence, people treat each other in a kinder and more pleasant way. In a practical sense, this means that changing the communication patterns in families to convey more positive messages and affirm what each person does right is a step toward violence prevention.The process by which violence is taught is circular: It begins in the family, expanding through the culture of the larger society in which children grow and mature, and then again is reinforced or discouraged in the family. Our search for ways to stop violence calls for a close look at ourselves and our community and family traditions, as well as institutional practices and public policies that perpetuate violent attitudes, images, and behaviors.
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