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Tip
Sheet: Culture & Living Tip sheets highlight timely news and events at Washington University in St. Louis. For more information on any of the stories below or for assistance in arranging interviews, please see the contact information listed with each story. For comments on the Culture & Living news tips service, please contact the editor, Sue Killenberg McGinn at (314) 935-5254 or susan_killenberg_mcginn@aismail.wustl.edu. Teen revenge: Study examines how stereotyping plays role in adolescents' approval of violent behavior Media assistance: Jessica Roberts - (314) 935-5251 Source: Ronald O. Pitner's Web page - (314) 935-9636 [St. Louis, Mo., March 2003] - Teen violence, whether it is in the schoolyard or on the streets, is a concern worldwide. For those who study youth violence, a question that hasn't been explored extensively is how do adolescents justify the use of violent behavior? A recent study, to be published in the March/April 2003 issue of the journal Child Development, examines the effects of negative racial and cultural stereotypes on teens' reasoning or justification for peer violence.
"Current theories about teen violence do not place much emphasis on issues of prejudice and stereotyping between teen groups," Pitner adds. This study, co-authored with Ron Avi Astor, of the University of Southern California, and Rami Benbenishty, Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia, and Anat Zeira, of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, examined 2,604 Arab and Jewish students ages 13-17 drawn from central and northern Israel. "From what we found in this study, stereotyping played a major role in how adolescents' justified the use of violence by their peers," Pitner notes. Each student was asked to respond to the actions of adolescents in a potentially violent situation. Four different versions of the same hypothetical situation were randomly given to the students. The only difference in the four versions was the ethnicity of the teens depicted in the story. So in one version, an Arab adolescent would be hitting a Jewish teen; in another version, a Jewish teen would be hitting an Arab teen; and in the third and fourth versions, an Arab teen would hit an Arab teen, while a Jewish adolescent would hit a Jewish teen. The students were asked to make a judgment about the situation they were presented and to determine why they would or would not react violently if they were in a similar situation. The primary question the study examined was: Are racial and cultural stereotypes a factor when Arab and Jewish adolescents make judgments about violence that occurs between their peers? "The findings provide evidence that Arab and Jewish students have stereotypes about one another, and that bias affected their approval and reasoning about peer violence only in specific situations," notes Pitner. "For example, Jewish respondents were least approving of violence that occurred when an Arab person hit a Jewish person, and Arab respondents were most approving of violence in the same situation." The analysis of the students' responses, says Pitner, suggests that both Arab and Jewish students used moral, social, conventional and personal reasons for justifying violence and revenge. Pitner adds that this study, focusing on two specific groups, can be applied to the general knowledge on how stereotypes can affect teen violence. "Exploring adolescents' reasoning about acts of peer violence between members of the same ethnic group and members from different ethnic groups provides insights on how adolescents incorporate stereotypes into their reasoning process about violent events and revenge," says Pitner. "This additional knowledge could help in developing interventions for schools." The study was funded by the Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship. |
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