Sensitivity to violence measured by ratings of severity increases after nonviolence training

Attachment Neuroscience and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Nonviolence Philosophy: Implications for the 21st Century and Beyond

This article focuses on the psychology of principled nonviolent activism, specifically ideas associated with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence and how they are compatible with attachment theory and related areas of modern neuroscience (e.g., attachment/social neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology). The proposed Kingian Neuro-Relational Theory (KNRT) recognizes King as having a relational development approach to social justice. KNRT offers a way of understanding King’s ideas to aid research and develop strategies for reducing many forms of societal violence, with eventual outcomes of improving mental and physical health via stress reduction, and subsequent creation of a more socially just world. KNRT is an integrative, multidisciplinary approach, incorporating the philosophy of nonviolence, attachment theory, social neuroscience, ecological systems theory, and personalistic philosophy. The theory highlights developmental and clinical implications of moving beyond tactical/pragmatic nonviolent activism (nonviolent direct action) to activism via embracing nonviolence as a principled way of life (nonviolent daily interactions). This theory is building on an earlier project that conveyed how King’s philosophy of nonviolence is related to modern–day diversity and inclusion efforts.

Methodological and ethical challenges in violence research

Violence is a relevant public health issue. It is recognized as a sensitive topic to research and introduces challenges not usually found when dealing with other research topics. Researchers face a major challenge that is how to identify and measure violence as it occurs in the general population. This paper intends to discuss and raise awareness to some of the main methodological and ethical challenges related to violence research.

Interviewer effects when investigating abuse were not compatible with effect modification but instead with confounding

OBJECTIVES

To describe interviewer-related variability in abuse estimates and assess the nature of the interviewer effects on the associations between elder abuse and covariates.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

After intensive training, six interviewers administered structured questionnaires through face-to-face interviews to assess abuse in a population-based sample of 641 Portuguese individuals aged 60-84 years.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of abuse victimization during the previous year was 28.1%, but it differed significantly according to the interviewer, ranging from 16.9% to 36.8%. There was no statistical effect modification introduced by the interviewer on the association of abuse and its determinants. Additionally, interviewer-level variables (empathy and violence beliefs) showed no significant contribution to explain the variance attributable to potential interviewer effects. Adjusting for the interviewer had little or no effect on the odds ratio of abuse for gender, age, education, and quality of life. However, the interviewer introduced relevant confounding of the associations between abuse and other sensitive topics, such as somatic complaints.

CONCLUSION

Although no relevant effect modification was observed, this study emphasizes the importance of the interviewer as a relevant confounder when estimating associations between sensitive variables, as it is the case of elder abuse.

Individual differences in sensitivity to violence

A survey of university students explored correlates of sensitivity to violence, defined as a person's average rating of the severity of violence of several behaviors. The 79 women were somewhat more sensitive than the 39 men. Sensitivity was associated with the tendency to describe oneself as violence sensitive or violence tolerant, with the person's manner of defining the concept of violence, and with the tendency to include verbal abuse and inaction as possible forms of violence. Sensitivity was not clearly associated with some other variables, such as attitudes toward bullying and acceptability of hunting. The potential utility of measuring sensitivity to violence, and further work suggested by these findings, are discussed.