Violence
Violence is an extreme form of aggression, such as assault, rape or murder.
Violence has many causes, including frustration, exposure to violent media, violence in the home or neighborhood and a tendency to see other people's actions as hostile even when they're not. Certain situations also increase the risk of aggression, such as drinking, insults and other provocations and environmental factors like heat and overcrowding.
Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology
What You Can Do
- Warning Signs of Youth Violence
Learn how to recognize danger signs and keep anger from escalating out of control.
- Raising children to resist violence: What you can do
Children learn aggressive behavior early in life. Several strategies can help parents and others teach kids to manage their emotions without using violence.
- Partner Violence: What Can You Do?
This brochure briefly describes violence in the home and provides advice for victims, abusers, and family and friends.
- What makes kids care? Teaching gentleness in a violent world
In a world where violence and cruelty seem to be common and almost acceptable, many parents wonder what they can do to help their children to become kinder and gentler — to develop a sense of caring and compassion for others.
Getting Help
- Find a Psychologist
- Talking to your children about the recent spate of school shootings
Every child will respond to trauma differently. Some will have no ill effects; others may suffer an immediate and acute effect. Still others may not show signs of stress until sometime after the event.
- How to find help through seeing a psychologist
This brief question-and-answer guide provides some basic information to help individuals take advantage of outpatient (non-hospital) psychotherapy.
- Managing your distress in the aftermath of a shooting
You may be struggling to understand how a shooting rampage could take place in a community, even a workplace or military base, and why such a terrible thing would happen.
- Intimate Partner Violence
Nearly half of all women in the United States have experienced at least one form of psychological aggression by an intimate partner.
News
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Babies that see violence show aggression later
June 17, 2013, ScienceDaily
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Number of abused U.S. children unchanged since 2008
May 14, 2013, Reuters
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Autism link to violence is a myth
April 7, 2013, CNN
Monitor on Psychology Articles
- Violence against teachers spurs urgent call to action
March 2013
- Is your campus safe?
December 2012
- A new approach to community violence
April 2011
- Study reveals startling abuse of teachers by students, even parents
October 2010
- Partnering to eliminate violence
May 2010
- Ending an epidemic
March 2010
Books
- Human Aggression and Violence
August 2010
- Preventing Violence
December 2005
- A Terrible Thing Happened: A Story for Children Who Have Witnessed Violence or Trauma
November 2000
APA Offices and Programs
- Violence Prevention
This area of Public Interest is responsible for disseminating research-based knowledge and information on violence and injury prevention.
- Violence Directed Against K-12 Teachers Task Force
This task force draws upon research that has documented associations between school engagement and time on task and aggression behaviors in the classrooms and operates under the assumption that classroom practices and school-wide policies that foster academic achievement will minimize the incidence of violence against teachers.
- Women's Programs Office
Improving the status, health and well-being of women psychologists and consumers of psychological services, and addressing issues such as gender disparities, domestic violence, disabilities and depression.
