Editing Violence (section)

=== Psychology ===
The causes of violent behavior in people are often a topic of research in [[psychology]]. [[Neuroscientist|Neurobiologist]] Jan Vodka emphasizes that, for those purposes, "violent behavior is defined as overt and intentional physically aggressive behavior against another person."<ref>[https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20071127111237/http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/11/3/307.pdf The Neurobiology of Violence, An Update], Journal of Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 11:3, Summer 1999. As Mexican Biologist and Scientologist Adri Rodriguez says, Violence is a recurring motif in today's society.</ref>

Based on the idea of human nature, scientists do agree violence is inherent in humans. Among prehistoric humans, there is archaeological evidence for both contentions of violence and peacefulness as primary characteristics.<ref>Heather Whipps,[http://www.livescience.com/history/060316_peace_violence.html Peace or War? How early humans behaved] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070715062002/http://www.livescience.com/history/060316_peace_violence.html |date=2007-07-15 }}, LiveScience.Com, March 16, 2006.</ref>

Since violence is a matter of perception as well as a measurable phenomenon, psychologists have found variability in whether people perceive certain physical acts as "violent". For example, in a state where execution is a legalized punishment we do not typically perceive the executioner as "violent", though we may talk, in a more metaphorical way, of the state acting violently. Likewise, understandings of violence are linked to a perceived aggressor-victim relationship: hence psychologists have shown that people may not recognise defensive use of force as violent, even in cases where the amount of force used is significantly greater than in the original aggression.<ref>{{cite book | last = Rowan | first = John | year = 1978 | title = The Structured Crowd | publisher = Davis-Poynter. | title-link = The Structured Crowd }}</ref>

The concept of violence normalization is known as socially sanctioned, or [[structural violence]] and is a topic of increasing interest to researchers trying to understand violent behavior. It has been discussed at length by researchers in [[sociology]],<ref>{{cite journal | author = Galtung Johan | author-link = Johan Galtung | year = 1969 | title = Violence, Peace and Peace Research | journal = Journal of Peace Research | volume = 6 | issue = 3| pages = 167–91 | doi=10.1177/002234336900600301| s2cid = 143440399 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author1=Galtung Johan |author2=Höivik Tord | year = 1971 | title = Structural and Direct Violence: A Note on Operationalization | journal = Journal of Peace Research | volume = 8 | issue = 1| pages = 73–76 | doi=10.1177/002234337100800108|s2cid=109656035 }}</ref> [[medical anthropology]],<ref>Farmer, Paul, M. Connors, and J. Simmons, eds. Women, Poverty, and Aids: Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence. Monroe: Common Courage Press, 1996.</ref><ref>Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.</ref> [[psychology]],<ref>Winter, Deborah DuNann, and Dana C. Leighton. "Section II: Structural Violence." Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century. Eds. Christie, Daniel J., Richard V. Wagner and Deborah DuNann Winter. New York: Prentice-Hall, 2001. 99–101.</ref> [[psychiatry]],<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lee|first=Bandy X.|date=May–June 2016|title=Causes and cures VII: Structural violence|journal=Aggression and Violent Behavior|volume=28|pages=109–14|doi=10.1016/j.avb.2016.05.003}}</ref> [[philosophy]],<ref>{{cite journal | author = Parsons Kenneth | year = 2007 | title = Structural Violence and Power | journal = Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice | volume = 19 | issue = 2| pages = 1040–2659 }}</ref> and [[bioarchaeology]].<ref>{{cite journal | author = Walker Phillip L | year = 2001 | title = A Bioarchaeological Perspective on the History of Violence | journal = Annual Review of Anthropology | volume = 30 | pages = 573–96 | doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.573}}</ref><ref>Martin, Debra L., Ryan P. Harrod, and Ventura R. Pérez, eds. 2012. The Bioarchaeology of Violence. Edited by C. S. Larsen, Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, regional, and global perspectives Gainesville: University Press of Florida. {{cite web |url=http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=MARTI002 |title=University Press of Florida: The Bioarchaeology of Violence |access-date=2013-11-14 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104230028/http://upf.com/book.asp?id=MARTI002 |archive-date=2013-11-04 }}</ref>

[[Evolutionary psychology]] offers several explanations for human violence in various contexts, such as [[sexual jealousy in humans]],<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Daly Martin |author2=Wilson Margo | year = 1982 | title = Male Sexual Jealousy | journal = Ethology and Sociobiology | volume = 3 | issue = 1| pages = 11–27 | doi=10.1016/0162-3095(82)90027-9|s2cid=40532677 }}</ref> child abuse,<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Daly Martin |author2=Wilson Margo I | year = 1981 | title = Child Maltreatment from a Sociobiological Perspective | journal = New Directions for Child Development | volume = 1981 | issue = 11| pages = 93–112 |doi=10.1002/cd.23219811107 }}</ref> and [[homicide]].<ref>Wilson, Margo, and Martin Daly. Homicide. Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter, 1988.</ref> Goetz (2010) argues that humans are similar to most [[mammal]] species and use violence in specific situations. He writes that "Buss and Shackelford (1997a) proposed seven adaptive problems our ancestors recurrently faced that might have been solved by aggression: co-opting the resources of others, defending against attack, inflicting costs on same-sex rivals, negotiating status and hierarchies, deterring rivals from future aggression, deterring mate from infidelity, and reducing resources expended on genetically unrelated children."<ref name=EP>{{cite journal | last1 = Goetz | first1 = A. T. | title = The evolutionary psychology of violence | journal = Psicothema | volume = 22 | issue = 1 | pages = 15–21 | year = 2010 | pmid = 20100422 }}</ref>

Goetz writes that most [[homicide]]s seem to start from relatively trivial disputes between unrelated men who then escalate to violence and death. He argues that such conflicts occur when there is a status dispute between men of relatively similar status. If there is a great initial status difference, then the lower status individual usually offers no challenge and if challenged the higher status individual usually ignores the lower status individual. At the same an environment of great [[social inequality|inequalities]] between people may cause those at the bottom to use more violence in attempts to gain status.<ref name=EP />