Violent behavior in context: Tucson and beyond

Jared Lee Loughner, caught at the scene of the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six other people, has been repeatedly described as crazy, a nutbag, disturbed, and mentally ill—labels that put the blame for the violence on him as another “sole gunman” who has committed a heinous act.

Gabrielle Giffords shooting scene
Tucson shooting scene. (Photo by Steve Karp, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. From Wikimedia Commons

But heinous acts take place within contexts, and Loughner grew up within contexts where the spreading of hate and calls for violence against various groups have become rampant.

To understand fully the factors that contributed to the violence in Tucson and similar incidents, one must do an ecological analysis.

As described in our post on August 23, 2010, an ecological analysis assumes that the character and behavior of adult humans are shaped by forces at different levels:

  • The individual level (e.g., genetic predispositions, brain functioning)
  • The microsystem level (primarily the family)
  • The exosystem (e.g., the neighborhood)
  • The macrosystem (broad cultural values and mores)

Also important is the chronosystem, which focuses on changes in the individual’s environments over time that may affect his or her development.

In today’s post and the following ones, we examine how factors at each level could have contributed to Jared Lee Loughner’s attack on Congresswoman Giffords and others.

At the individual level, there is considerable evidence that Loughner may suffer from some sort of mental illness. There are also many reports that he abused drugs. Far too many people suffer from severe psychological symptoms, and far too many abuse drugs, but the vast majority of these people do not try to kill other human beings.

What other factors may have contributed to Loughner’s deadly behavior? We will return to this question in our next two posts.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Ecological approach to studying peace and war

It is unlikely that the human capacity for inhumanity can ever be adequately explained by any one theory. We believe that all behavior is multi-determined—that is, many forces at a variety of levels contribute to any one type of behavior, including aggression.

We subscribe to what has been called an ecological approach to understanding complex behaviors. This approach involves constructs reflecting different contexts that influence individuals and are in turn influenced by those individuals. That set of constructs includes: the macrosystem, the exosystem, the microsystem, and the individual.

For example, an individual’s concerns about “national security” are influenced by:

  • The values and mass media positions of the society at large (the macrosystem)
  • The views expressed in places of worship, neighborhood, and more local media (the exosystem)
  • Lessons promulgated within the home and family (the microsystem)

Moreover, individuals bring to all of their interactions their own genetic heritage and the results of their personal experiences, beginning in the womb. Sometimes that heritage and those experiences can lead individuals to behave in ways that change the microsystem, or the exosystem, or the macrosystem. Think of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.

Consider also your own views on national security, on torture, on terrorism. How many influences on those views, at what levels of experience, can you identify?

In our next post, we start considering psychological theories that focus on thoughts and emotions that individuals bring to their interactions, as well as the thoughts and emotions they carry away from those interactions.

Individuals’ tendencies to incorporate ideas from the different environments in which they grow and to which they adapt can lead to a great deal of ingroup and outgroup thinking that can provide a basis for enduring conflict.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology