Elsevier

Aggression and Violent Behavior

Volume 12, Issue 2, March–April 2007, Pages 131-140
Aggression and Violent Behavior

Not always sugar and spice: Expanding theoretical and functional explanations for why females aggress

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2004.08.002Get rights and content

Abstract

The current review discusses the recent surge in violence rates among female adolescents across the United States, and reviews multiple risk and protective factors across both individual and family domains that have been linked to youth violence. Further, theoretical and functional explanations are postulated in an attempt to explain why certain risk and protective factors appear to be stronger predictors of female violence than male violence. Implications for both research and practice are offered, including the need for developing gender-specific programs.

Section snippets

Changes in the prevalence of violence among females

It is well-established that violence rates are elevated in the United States compared to other industrialized countries (Rosenberg, 1991). Although males repeatedly are reported to be more violent than females (Kashani, Jones, Bumby, & Thomas, 1999), that trend is changing, with rates of violence among females quickly approaching the rates of violence among males. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice (2000) reported that of 2,468,800 juvenile arrests in 1999, 666,576 of them were

Expanding theoretical and functional explanations for female violence

Although the majority of research has been conducted with predominately male populations, research has identified certain risk and protective factors that are proposed to be stronger for females compared to males. Because of the overwhelming dominance of research on risk factors (rather than protective factors), relatively little is known about what protects females from becoming violent. Thus, the quantity of the research is stronger and more consistent when examining risk factors although

Risk factors

Risk factors are defined as those characteristics that have been identified as precursors to negative outcomes such as violence. Risk factors can be cumulative and interact with each other in differing ways. Thus, it is presumed that the more risk factors present in an individual's life, the greater the likelihood of engaging in violent behavior. It is important to keep in mind that although the risk factors might be similar between males and females, the magnitude of any particular factor, or

Individual-level risk factors

Violence rates disproportionately involve minorities, with African American adolescents reported to engage in more violent behaviors compared to European American or Hispanic adolescents (Blum et al., 2003, Earls, 1994, Kashani et al., 1999). Of the estimated 1400 murder arrests in 1999, 49% were African American adolescents (U.S. Department of Justice, 2000). In fact, ethnicity was reported to be one of the individual characteristics with the strongest effect size in terms of predicting

Family-level risk factors

Low socioeconomic status (SES) of the family has been associated with increased risk for violence among both males and females (Beyers et al., 2001, Earls, 1994). Because the link between violence and SES has been found across numerous operationalizations of SES (e.g., income only as well as the combination of income, occupation, and education of parents), the influence of SES on violence is well-established. In fact, low SES is one of the family characteristics that has a particularly strong

Protective factors

In the majority of studies, protective factors are operationalized as the opposite of risk factors, with the absence of a particular risk factor being viewed as protection from the possibility of developing violent behaviors. However, Rutter (1990) conceptualized protective factors as influences that modify, ameliorate, or alter a person's response to some environmental hazard (i.e., risk) that predisposes that person to a maladaptive outcome (Rutter, 1990). That is, protective factors occur

Individual-level protective factors

Despite the sparse research base, there is some evidence that adaptability, problem-solving ability, and resourcefulness are individual attributes that can protect against violent behaviors (Commission for the Prevention of Youth Violence., 2000, Werner and Smith, 1982). Further, social competence also has been identified as protective with higher levels of social comfort and outgoingness associated with lower levels of violence. That relationship is posited to have its protective effect via

Family-level protective factors

Family involvement and authoritative parenting practices also have been identified as protective factors (Chandy et al., 1996, Graves et al., 2005, Graves & Shelton, in press, Hetherington et al., 1992). According to Baumrind (1991), authoritative parents are both demanding (efforts that parents make to ensure that their children behave appropriately through supervision, discipline, and maturity demands) and responsive (efforts parents make to foster the development of autonomy, individuality,

Implications for theory, research, and practice

It has been well-documented (Frabutt and White, 2002, MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 2002) that a “one size fits all” approach is not as effective at reducing problem behaviors as are programs and interventions that are gender-specific. Because females and males develop differently both physically and emotionally, it follows that different developmental trajectories toward violence are likely as well as different functions that violence serves for females versus males. That likelihood has spurred

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