Interpersonal Disputes: The Role of Social Norms, Coercive Power, and Honor Attitudes

Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Krajewski, Andrew Thomas
- Graduate Program:
- Criminology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 14, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Richard Felson, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Eric Silver, Major Field Member
Thomas Loughran, Major Field Member
Diana Fishbein, Outside Unit & Field Member
Thomas Anthony Loughran, IV, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- aggression
social norms
alcohol
coercive power
anger
honor
interpersonal dispute - Abstract:
- This dissertation used data from male prison inmates and male community members to investigate when interpersonal disputes occur and when they escalate to physical aggression. In Chapter 1, I examined whether the effects of the normative protection of women, a well-established social norm that discourages aggression against women, are weaker among people who are intoxicated. Using the Alcohol Myopia Model (AMM), I reasoned that alcohol intoxication leads individuals to attend more to foreground stimuli at the expense of background stimuli, such as social norms. Consistent with this, I found that sober respondents were less likely to use violent threats and physical attacks when their adversary was a woman rather than a man, but that as respondents became more heavily intoxicated, the differences in the tendencies diminished. In Chapter 2, I examined whether people who perceive themselves as more powerful than their adversary (e.g., physically bigger, more competent fighters) are more likely to use physically aggression against them. I also examine whether anger leads people to consider the relative distribution of coercive power differently. In general, I found some evidence that respondents who thought themselves to be more powerful were more likely to both use and initiate physical aggression. I also found some evidence for a statistical interaction between relative coercive power and anger, although the relationship was limited to respondents’ beliefs about their relative fighting ability and not relative physical size. In Chapter 3, I examined whether valuing toughness and believing retaliation is an appropriate response to affronts (i.e., endorsing honor-related values and attitudes) is associated similarly with aggressive behavior against both women and men. I analyzed respondents’ verbal and physical aggression in the previous year against their intimate partners, other non-strangers, and strangers, as well as whether their two most recent interpersonal disputes were with a man or woman. I found that, while endorsement of honor-related attitudes was associated with aggression against women, it was more strongly associated with aggression against men.