Citation

Kazdin AE. Psychol. Violence 2011; 1(3): 166-187.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/a0022990

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Interpersonal violence (IV) has many forms including child maltreatment, domestic violence, sexual assault, gang activity, elder abuse, and others. These are well studied areas often conceptualized, discussed, and investigated separately, in large part to give the fine-grained attention each has shown to warrant as a social problem and area of research. This paper discusses IV more generally, draws on the notion of wicked problems, and applies characteristics of such problems to violence. The broader view as a complement to the more molecular focus on individual areas draws attention to slightly different challenges, including multiplicity of views in formulating the problem or even seeing violence as a "problem," the need to act in the absence of sufficient data, and fragmentation in research, services, and training in IV. Better integration across areas of IV is warranted in part because different forms of victimization often go together, challenges among the individual areas often overlap, and interventions at societal and cultural levels might have direct and indirect impact on multiple forms of violence. The shared goal is to reduce the incidence and prevalence of violence. Much is to be gained by unifying current efforts with a focus on commonalities that the different types of violence share. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)