...Kuo, Sullivan / AGGRESSION AND / July 2001 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR VIOLENCE AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE IN THE INNER CITY Effects of Environment via Mental Fatigue FRANCES E. KUO is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign. Her research examines effects of the environment on healthy human functioning in individuals, families, and communities. WILLIAM C. SULLIVAN is an associate professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the psychological and social benefits of urban nature and citizen participation in environmental decision making. ABSTRACT: S. Kaplan suggested that one outcome of mental fatigue may be an increased propensity for outbursts of anger and even violence. If so, contact with nature, which appears to mitigate mental fatigue, may reduce aggression and violence. This study investigated that possibility in a setting and population with relatively high rates of aggression: inner-city urban public housing residents. Levels of aggression were compared for 145 urban public housing residents randomly assigned to buildings with varying levels of nearby nature (trees and grass). Attentional functioning was assessed as an index of mental fatigue. Residents living in relatively barren buildings reported more aggression and violence than did their counterparts in greener buildings. Moreover, levels of mental fatigue were higher in barren buildings, and aggression accompanied mental fatigue. Tests for the...
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...in the city, this trend appears to be changing: an increasing number of women are migrating to cities on their own, often to escape domestic violence or discrimination in rural areas, or because they have been disinherited. In some sub-Saharan African countries, stigmatization due to HIV/AIDS has also forced women to move to cities. In Kenya, for instance, many rural women who are infected with HIV, or who have lost a husband to the disease, are sent away from the marital home along with their children. Many of these women end up in urban slums, while their children, who are presumed to be infected with the virus, are often denied a share of the father’s property. While poor women and men in urban centres both face insecurity of land tenure and shelter, women are especially disadvantaged because they are often excluded from secure tenure as a consequence of cultural norms and unequal legal rights in legislative and policy frameworks of political systems. Women who become single heads of households, particularly in Africa, are particularly vulnerable, as in many countries in the region, they can still only access land through husbands or fathers. Where women’s land ownership is relationship-based, they risk losing access to land after widowhood, divorce, desertion or male migration, which can lead to destitution. Women who experience violence in their relationships are often not able to secure a safe home for themselves and their children because they lack rights to land,...
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...Islanders and Inaguans, what is the demonym for those of us who live at New Providence? During the 20th century the population of Nassau climbed significantly through a combination of high birth rates among Bahamians and an influx of immigrants from Haiti who also tended to have high birth rates. The influx of Family Islanders also boosted the capital island’s numbers. Beginning around the middle of the last century, the mutual forces of majority rule and black economic empowerment ignited an urban expansion. With considerable rapidity, the majority of the island’s population shifted beyond Nassau. Urbanization has engendered many benefits as well as significant challenges for New Providence. These varied challenges include ongoing infrastructural needs in the areas of housing, ground transportation networks, public services and facilities, and reliable utilities, among others. There are also a complex of sociological challenges including increased crime and violence, social alienation by some and the changing nature of social networks such as neighbourhoods. The environmental and health challenges related to urbanization are also significant. What we are continuing to get our hands and collective imagination around are a broad variety of interrelated challenges cum master questions. The questions have been provoked by the transition from the City of Nassau to the City of New Providence, a geographical reality...
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...When Children See Too Much While violence is not new to the human race, it is an increasing problem in modern society. With greater access to firearms and explosives, the scope and efficiency of violent behavior has had serious consequences. We need only look at the recent school shootings and the escalating rate of youth homicides among urban adolescents to appreciate the extent of this ominous trend. While the causes of youth violence are multifaceted and include such variables as poverty, child abuse, family psychopathology, exposure to domestic and community violence, substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders, the research literature is quite compelling that a child's exposure to media violence plays an important role in the origin of violent behavior (Watson). While it is difficult to determine which children who have experienced televised violence are at greatest risk, there appears to be a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior within vulnerable "at risk" segments of youth. Children spend more time in front of the television every week than they do on any other activity except sleeping (Muscari 31). Exposing children to violence can desensitize them to violence and cause them to act more aggressively. To understand human attraction to violent entertainment, it is necessary to look not only at, but beyond, the mass media. Depictions of violence, bloodshed and death are not new, and they certainly are not a product of the electronic...
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...Introduction Living in a rural location is a quieter area to reside in with fewer options compared to a more congested urban area. When an individual is choosing a location to live in there are many factors to consider. Some of these factors include population, amenities, school, employment, and crime rates. Desirable locations vary based on an individual’s age, ethnicity, and career path. Choosing a place to live is something that should not be taken lightly. Buying a home will lock one into a mortgage and make it more difficult to get out, unlike a lease, when one rents a home there is more flexibility. Shopping Opportunities Typically in an urban location one will have more opportunities to shop and find needed items at any given moment at a more affordable price. In a rural setting, however, there is a smaller population and less of a demand for goods and a person would have a difficult time buying items that they need as well as paying a considerably higher price for the items. Supply and demand play a big role on the price and availability of goods and merchandise. In an urban area there are more stores that carry items so they have to be competitive and offer sales and lower prices so consumers will buy their products. Transportation An individual also needs to consider the travel expense associated with living in a rural area, as more...
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...Does Violence in Video Games Influence Negative Behavior? D`Mageo Dickerson University of Phoenix AADV155A84; ENG102 Becky Wilfahrt December 2, 2012 Terry Baker is 18 and addicted to video games, especially violent ones. He loves “ManHunt”, “Max Payne”, “Resident Evil 4”,”Grand Theft Auto”, “God of War”, ”50 Cent: Bulletproof”, “Crime Life: Gang Wars”, and “NARC”. He plays shooting games more than any other type of games. Terry plays at least four hours straight per day. He misses meals when he gets involved in a game he really likes. Terry’s life in the real world is not that pleasant. He hardly spends time with his friends and family. When he gets around to spending time with them, he only shares about an hour or only two of his time. On the other hand, there is Joey Lewis. Joey Lewis is 17, and does not have an addiction to video games. He plays more racing and sport games than violent games. He also plays the same games as Terry. Unlike Terry, Joey plays video games no more than two hours a day. He does not play them every day like Terry does. Joey’s real world life is enjoyable. He spends much of his time with family and friends. In today’s society, there are many children that play video games that contain so much violence, gun shooting, and aggressive behavior. Parents are not aware of the violence that most of the games that they buy their children have. Most children get really into their games and sometimes think that the game is a real life experience...
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...Thesis The problems of finding employment, dealing with Urban Crime and Race-Ethnics and how it has affected our cities, will be the focus of this paper. Handleman 2011, Kruger (2007), Urban Poverty, Mehta is the references have chosen to use to help explain the issue with Employment, Crime and Race in our Urban Communities. Urban crime is a major problem in Latin- America and the African Cities, but East Asia's major urban areas are generally safer than large Americans. Race also plays a role in regards to being poor. Contemporary Third World urbanization differs from the West's earlier urban explosion into important respects. Many of the poor who are unable to find work in the so-called formal sectors of the urban economy (the government and more modern, private-sector enterprise) turn to the informal economy for jobs (Handleman 2011). FACTS AND FIGURES ON POVERTY A quarter of the world's population, 1.3 billion people, lives in severe poverty... • Nearly 800 million people do not get enough food, and about 500 million people are chronically malnourished. More than a third of children are malnourished. • In industrial countries more than 100 million people live below the poverty line, more than 5 million people are homeless and 37 million are jobless. • Of the world's 23 million people living with HIV/AIDS more than 93% live in developing countries. • More than 840 million adults are illiterate - 538 million of them are women. • In developing countries 160 million...
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...The Nature and Nurture of Aggression OUTLINE: * Theories of Aggression * Psychological Influences on Aggression * Environmental Influences on Aggression * Reducing Aggression * A social Learning Approach * Cultural Change & World Violence Aggression – physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm * kicks and slaps, threats and insults, gossip or snide “digs” (online bullying) Instrumental Aggression – aims to injure too – but only as a means to some other end. * Terrorism – a strategic tool used during conflict; attaining hero or martyr status. * Wars – an instrumental act of liberation and of self defense against presumed weapons of mass destruction. * Bully – seeks to demonstrate their dominance and high status. Theories of Agression * Agression an Instinct Is Aggression an Instinct? Aggressive energy is instinctive; if not discharged, it supposedly builds up until it explodes or until an appropriate stimulus releases it. * Mouse releasing a mousetrap * Neural Influences Researchers have found neural systems (specific areas of the brain) when stimulated produce aggression. * Amygdala * Prefrontal cortex * Genetic Influences Heredity influences the neural system's sensitivity to aggressive cues. Aggressiveness also varies among individuals. * Blood Chemistry Influences neural sensitivity to aggressive stimulation. * ALCOHOL – enhances aggressiveness...
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...that’s what Allen Rostron tries to get across, to parents of teens, in his article Arming Teachers Will Not Reduce School Violence, published in 2012. In this article, Rostron uses many appeals, along with his reputation to provide the reader with statistics to back up his reasoning and to show his knowledge on the topic to persuade readers that arming teachers is a bad idea in the fight against school violence. Though Rostron uses many appeals throughout his writing to persuade us to his side of view, his reputation precedes him. He is a Professor of Law at the University of Missouri Kansas City and has published multiple articles on gun policy and whether or not guns should be used and how they should be used. To name a few, "Cease Fire: A 'Win-Win' Strategy on Gun Policy for the Obama Administration," Harvard Law & Policy Review, Oct. 28, 2009, "Dodging the Bullet: Tort Immunity for Gun Makers," Jurist, Nov. 3, 2005, and "The Supreme Court, the Gun Industry, and the Misguided Revival of Strict Territorial Limits on the Reach of State Law," Michigan State Law Review, Spring 2003. These are just a few of his articles but you can see how long he has been writing for and the topics he has written about, all about guns. He is also involved in many different programs to reduce gun violence. He was the Staff Attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and now he is the Senior Staff Attorney there. He is also affiliated with Yale’s Law School and the History...
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...annoyance and anger. Give yourself time to reach your destination. It’s easy to get stressed and lose your temper on the road. Take breaks on long trips. Spending hours in the car can get you frustrated. Keep your cool. If someone cuts you off without looking take a few deep breaths. Don’t engage and don’t ever pull off to the side of the road to settle things. Also consult a doctor. If you feel like you’re unable to control your rage while driving, consult a doctor. The most road rage occurs is on a Friday afternoon mostly. Road rage incidents occur most often during the summer months. Urban areas are most frequently reported location for road rage incidents. That happens most often in moderately congested traffic, because heavily congested traffic conditions lower driver’s expectations. Almost half of drivers have experienced road rage, with some being threatened with physical violence. Road rage can also affect your increase on your car insurance. Their are three types of road rages verbal road rage, quiet road rage, and epic road rage. Verbal road is yelling, cussing, gesturing, honking and insulting. Quiet road rage is when you complaining, rushing, and competing. The type of road rage is epic which is cutting the other driver off, chasing, fighting, blocking, and weapons. Since 1990, studies show that road rage is becoming more and more common among our society. Studies by AAA have shown that since 1990 road rage has increased over fifty percent. Forty five percent...
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...worked as an animal researcher. When Le failed to return home that evening, her roommates reported her missing to local police. Because security footage didn’t show Le leaving the building, authorities immediately closed it off, and Le’s body was found five days later, hidden inside a wall in a basement laboratory. She had been strangled. It was September 13 – the day on which Le, 24, was to be married. On September 17, police arrested Raymond Clark III, also 24, a lab technician who’d been working in the building on the day that Le disappeared. As of this writing, neither Clark nor the police have indicated any motive, but New Haven police chief James Lewis is on record as saying, “This is not about urban crime, university crime, [or] domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country.” How much concern? In 2007, the last year for which there is reliable data, there were more than 5,600 work-related deaths in the United States. Of these, 864, or 15 percent, were due to assaults or other violent acts; homicides accounted for 628 deaths, or 11 percent of the total, with murder passing “Contact with objects and equipment” to take over the number-two spot in cause of workplace deaths (“Transportation incidents” remains number one). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 7,000 workplace homicides nationwide between 1997 and 2007, but it’s important to remember that most of these resulted from robbery or...
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...television set and see violence things happening all over the world. With the way violence is publicized over the news, television, Internet, radio, movies and games it is no wonder that people feel that the world is more violent then any other time in history. But, in my option, if you look at our history, you will see that the world today is no more violent than has been in the past. It is rarely known why someone would commit a violent act upon another person. The spectrum of violence can range anywhere from a scuffle between two individuals to a full scale World War among many nations. Generally, violence is associated with aggression, brute force, and the intention of causing harm. Political, social, religious, economic, criminal and personal differences are some of the most passionate issues we face as human beings. They are often the most common reasons for violence as they are often how people define themselves. (Alder & Denmark, 2004) Violence on a political level may be used to protect citizens or defend from outside forces. Ethnic or racial groups may use violence to fight against oppression and discrimination. Religion can also be a driving force of violence, because of differences in religion or performing terrorist attacks in the name of God. When someone assaults, robs, or commits a homicide there is usually violence involved. Emotions are probably one of the biggest triggers of violence. Individuals can be easily perform violence due to any number of...
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...ability for social capital to be harnessed for both positive and negative purposes is especially apparent in the discussion of the “urban crisis.” The issue was brought to the forefront during the 1950s and 1960s during a period when black families began moving into historically white neighborhoods. Homeowners’ associations, community groups, and other neighborhood-based organizations, which seem to be benign groups promoting positive social capital, are criticized by some scholars such as Thomas Sugrue as insidious organizations designed to impose racial order. He argues that racism and aggression, using the negative social capital of white homeowners’ organizations, is the cause of the urban crisis because it forced black homeowners...
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...had the dubious distinction as one of the largest and poorest slums of any Metropolitan region in Brazil according to the World Bank . 60% of Recife’s total population of 1.4 million occupy squatter settlements (Appendix 1). After years of studying and assessing the poor living conditions of the Jacarezinho slum, the state government of Pernambuco, along with the municipal officials of both Recife and the neighbouring municipality of Olinda, partnered with the World Bank and signed the documents for an urban renewal project called Prometropole in 2003. The cost of the project was US $84 million with a loan of US $46 million from the World Bank . The project was finally launched in 2007 with a planned completion date of 2008 but due to setbacks the project was still not completed in 2010. The objective of the project was to resettle the population in new homes close to the existing slum, to remove the shacks along the waterway, to construct roads and to improve urban infrastructure by providing sewage and drainage so that the inhabitants could have a safer and cleaner place to live. This paper will provide an overview of the obstacles faced by the population as they stood by and waited to be resettled into cleaner, safer and more modern accommodations. I will attempt to show the problems encountered, successes and failures and finally why the project did not ultimately achieve its goal of eliminating the Jacarezinho slums. Background The slums in Recife are...
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...approximately 4.2 million pet dogs (Animal Health Alliance, 2013). However, dog aggression is the most common pet dogs’ behavior problem and it causes a major public health problem in Australia (Voelker, 1997; Schalamon, 2006). According to the Annual Urban Animal Management Conference (2013), average 14,000 Australians are injured due to dog attack each year and about 1,400 of those injuries required medical treatment or hospitalization. Over sixty percent of dog attacks occurred at home, which means an owner or household-members have a higher possibility to be victimized in a dog attack. Over the last three decades, numerous of researches have been indicated that owner attachment levels and dog characteristics are the major factors leading to aggressive responses in pet dogs (Borchelt, 1983; Landsberg, 1991; Hunthausen, 1997; Hsu and Sun, 2010). Although these findings provide evidence for the link between owner-dog interaction and the aggressive behavior problem in pet dogs, surprisingly little research has examined the link between pet dogs-directed aggression in human and the controlling behavior in a relationship. To redress this imbalance, it is important to explore the connection between pet dogs aggressive behavior and domestic violence. Aims and Objectives The aims of this present study are to explore the connection between human directed aggression by pet dogs and controlling behavior in a relationship, to critically examine the circumstances and effects on the victims, and...
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