IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

This chapter describes aggression and violence at various levels of analysis— within individuals and in small and large social systems. Because individuals live in social settings that influence their attitudes and behavior, effective con­flict resolution addresses systemic as well as individual change.

Diagnosis

Accurate diagnosis of violent conflicts considers issues, parties’ motivations, and cultures. Interventions should be based on fact-finding and research rather than assumptions and anecdotes (World Health Organization, 2002). For example, research indicates that a juvenile justice system can harm girls when it focuses on the girls’ crimes but not abusive conditions they have endured or how their abuse might be related to crimes for which they are charged. This leads to mis­diagnoses and inadequate treatment that can begin a vicious cycle of violence and incarceration that drives these girls further into criminal behavior and the criminal justice system (Simkin and Katz, 2002).

Preliminary diagnostic work can identify presenting and underlying issues in aggression and violence, including parties’ basic needs, fears, and interests. It can identify those affected by direct and structural violence, including secondary vic­tims, such as children and elderly aged people, who depend on primary victims for their well-being. Diagnosis also needs to transcend prevailing norms that may render some kinds of people invisible and some kinds of violence acceptable, inevitable, or innocuous (compare Farmer, 1998). Myths such as “Violence is a natural part of life” or “I saw lots of violence as a kid and I turned out okay” deny the way that violence, enacted in relationships, in the culture, and in the media, actively shapes expectancies, perceptions, moral norms, and behavior.

Design Strategies

Because aggression and violence often have multiple causes, they can be effec­tively addressed by ecological models and coordinated multiparty efforts (World Health Organization, 2002). Intervention strategies for domestic violence, for example, can seek to create healthy family environments and provide professional help for distressed families; monitor public venues in which violence can occur; deal with situations with the potential for violence; address practices and atti­tudes that support gender inequality; and address cultural, social, and economic factors that maintain disparate access to goods, services, and opportunities.

Effective community antiviolence programs are tailored to the issues and resources of the community they serve (Greene, 1998). They listen to community members, including youth, and appreciate their knowledge and coping skills. They teach participants to recognize warning signs of escalating conflict and to learn nonviolent means to resolve conflict. They utilize psychoeducational approaches including mentoring programs, family cohesion efforts, and counsel­ing. They encourage youth-operated programs that teach young people the dire consequences of violent behavior. Unless youth are involved in conflict resolu­tion interventions as partners, hopes for a future culture of constructive conflict resolution and nonviolence are dim.

Conflict resolution programs that work in conjunction with mental health and community agencies approach aggression and violence with a broad array of resources. Deterring domestic violence, for example, is more effective when representatives from advocacy groups, health and social service agencies, and the justice system cooperate. Conflict resolution efforts at the community, city, state, and national levels can benefit from collaborations that include medical societies, police leadership, elected officials, the media, and school systems (compare Currie, 1998; Hawkins, and others, 1999).

Implementing Solutions

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” is especially true for interventions involv­ing violence. Solutions begun without careful diagnosis and design can cause addi­tional harm. Because there are many kinds of violence, many kinds of aggressors, and many contexts in which violence can occur, no one intervention is suitable in every situation. In general, individuals need to recognize how pervasive violence is, how small arguments can precipitate violence, and how available weaponry contributes to violence. Three principles suggested by Morton Deutsch (1993) can guide development of context-specific conflict resolution training:

1. Control your own violence.

2. Do not provoke others.

3. Manage others’ aggressive behavior when it occurs.

Control Your Own Violence. Effective conflict resolution intervention helps individuals reflect on their own conflict resolution style, distinguish between healthy and unhealthy ways of expressing anger, and become aware of the long­term consequences of their violent behavior. Individuals who understand their own conflict resolution style are aware of situations likely to provoke their emo­tional arousal; they learn to critically examine their justifications for anger, aggression, and violence; and they can realistically assess the gains and losses that result from violence. Individuals are more likely to use healthy ways of expressing anger if they can differentiate between assertive and aggressive responses, and if they can communicate assertive responses effectively.

Recognize What Provokes Others. Effective conflict resolution programs help individuals learn perspective taking to understand and avoid behaviors that provoke others. Individuals who can take others’ perspectives are likely to think more flexibly, acknowledge rather than deny problems, and approach conflict con­structively, with flexibility and creativity that can make full use of available resources. Perspective taking is difficult in the arousal of intense conflict and it can be threatening when it reveals unpleasant truths about oneself or one’s position.

Two antiviolence projects that teach participants what provokes others are Fight for Your Rights: Take a Stand Against Violence, cosponsored by the American Psychological Association and MTV, and the Alternatives to Violence Project, founded by Quakers and prison inmates in 1975. Fight for Your Rights: Take a Stand Against Violence helps youth recognize warning signs for suicide or mur­derous rage among peers. Youths exposed to incipient violence often lack train­ing to evaluate its seriousness. This program teaches youth to seek out skilled assistance in order to deter violence among peers. The Alternatives to Violence Project encourages peaceful individuals and communities by teaching personal and interpersonal skills to facilitate perspective taking. These include commu­nication, cooperation, trust, self-esteem building, creative approaches to con- flictual situations, handling fear and anger without violence, awareness of stereotyping and prejudice, examination of power structures in society, and building the capacity for forgiveness.

Manage Aggression When It Occurs. Because aggression and violence can escalate rapidly, effective conflict resolution programs help individuals detect aggression in its early stages and learn to deescalate conflict. Early detection of incipient violence can nip it in the bud before conflict gains momentum and escalates out of control. At the interpersonal and international levels, human history has illustrated that violence has no limits. Therefore the earlier one faces up to dangerous situations the better.

Ron Fisher and Loraleigh Keashly (1990) propose that intervenors facing vio­lent situations can deescalate conflict stage by stage. At the destructive stage parties try to destroy or subjugate each other. Intervenors act as peacekeepers who forcefully set norms, define unacceptable violence, and isolate parties if necessary to prevent violence from escalating further. At the segregated stage hostility and threats predominate.

Evaluation

Evaluation is a crucial but underused element of intervention and training. Because few violence intervention programs are rigorously evaluated for their efficacy, the World Health Organization (2002) urges that evaluation has a higher priority in all conflict resolution efforts. (Also see Flaxman, 2001, con­cerning school antiviolence programs.) Evaluation should not be an after­thought; it should be built into implementation strategies before programs actually begin. There are a number of compelling reasons to utilize formative evaluations (during program implementation) as well as summative evaluations (when a program is completed).

Reality Checks. Social contexts change, and aggression and violence can accel­erate this rate of change. Evaluation builds in the opportunity to revisit program implementation plans with new insights and knowledge as they emerge. Diag­nosis and design strategies, no matter how careful, can miss key elements and have unintended consequences. Evaluations check that the diagnosis—not only as it was but also as it continues to evolve—is accurate and well matched with design and implementation strategies.

Unintended Outcomes.

Conflict Residues. Even when an intervention transforms a conflictual rela­tionship into a more cooperative one, conflict residues can remain. These can serve as a kernel that later reproduces destructive conflict. A journalist describ­ing intergroup violence in Indonesia reported, “This round of cruelties has roots deep in the past. And it is but one example of what Indonesia fears most: an explosion of religious and ethnic violence that roars out of control, fed by old hatreds and fresh grievances, defying the peacemaking efforts of local leaders and the restraining presence of armed soldiers” (Mydans, 1999, p. 50). Because conflicts transformed from active to quiescent can simmer underground and erupt later, periodic evaluation of key social indicators can monitor quiescent conflict to detect troubling shifts in social indicators.

Expanding Knowledge. Evaluations give practitioners and scholars a valuable opportunity to learn from interventions. This learning can identify effective processes and outcomes and pitfalls to avoid. This learning is specific to each con­text; what works in one context may not be effective or suitable for others. Evalua­tion, therefore, is a chance for the field to grow by accumulating knowledge about positive and negative effects of various kinds of interventions in different contexts.

Ethical Considerations

Interventions in violent systems pose special ethical difficulties. An intervenor in a violent relationship is a witness to past, current, and potential harm. Therefore, intervention has moral as well as practical urgency. Naming a relationship “violent” invokes particular norms, responsibilities, and obligations; remaining silent also has moral implications. Intervenors more comfortable with avoidance than forth­rightly addressing violence may be unable to motivate parties to view their rela­tionship realistically and seek help or find safe resolutions to conflicts they face.

Practitioners intervening in violent systems must be skilled at recognizing violence, coercion, and oppression in relationships. Identifying violence can be difficult. Domestic violence is underreported by psychologists conducting mari­tal therapy, teachers and counselors in schools, and emergency room doctors. Research in hospital emergency rooms indicates that sensitivity, courage, and good training are needed to recognize and document domestic violence (Braziel, 1998). When directly asked, victims and batterers admit to violence. When the answer is yes, practitioners who ask the difficult questions need the skill or the mental health and public safety backup that can help parties sort out their options.