Understanding the Situational Context for Interpersonal Violence: A Review of Individual-Level Attitudes, Attributions, and Triggers

Research conducted with violent offenders demonstrates an overwhelming tendency for individuals in this population to frame their violent acts as tuned responses to perceived slights ranging from verbal insults to ostensibly nonviolent physical actions. To date, no review has characterized and categorized specific situational cues that are associated with interpersonal violence/ideation. Here, literature addressing attitudes, attributions, and triggers around reactive forms of violence and perspectives on violence deservedness was thematically and narratively reviewed using a theoretical framework focused on shame and threatened social bonds. Of the 29 articles that met the inclusion criteria, 11 statistically assessed relationships between attributions, attitudes, or triggers and subsequent violence/ideation, with 10 (90.1%) demonstrating, in subgroup analysis, statistically greater attitudes endorsing violence when shame or a threat to a social bond manifested. Overall, three primary axes of attribution, attitudes, or triggers toward interpersonal violence emerged from the review: (1) generalized intrapersonal justifications, (2) environmental and social group triggers, and (3) jealousy and triggers in the context of romantic relationships. These dynamics, both inside and outside of the United States, are reviewed, and a conceptual intervention model is presented. Findings illustrate that behavioral interventions specifically targeting individual- and community-level pathways to shame manifestation and emotion regulation represent an underutilized yet auspicious approach to curbing violence ideation and perpetration.