The past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why violence occurs, and where intervention points might lie. In exploring the occurrence of violence, researchers have recognized the tendency for violent acts to cluster, to spread from place to place, and to mutate from one type to another. Furthermore, violent acts are often preceded or followed by other violent acts. In the field of public health, such a process has also been seen in the infectious disease model, in which an agent or vector initiates a specific biological pathway leading to symptoms of disease and infectivity. The agent transmits from individual to individual, and levels of the disease in the population above the baseline constitute an epidemic. Although violence does not have a readily observable biological agent as an initiator, it can follow similar epidemiological pathways. On April 30-May 1, 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Global Violence Prevention convened a workshop to explore the contagious nature of violence. Part of the Forum's mandate is to engage in multisectoral, multidirectional dialogue that explores crosscutting, evidence-based approaches to violence prevention, and the Forum has convened four workshops to this point exploring various elements of violence prevention. The workshops are designed to examine such approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop on the contagion of violence focused on exploring the epidemiology of the contagion, describing possible processes and mechanisms by which violence is transmitted, examining how contextual factors mitigate or exacerbate the issue. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary covers the major topics that arose during the 2-day workshop. It is organized by important elements of the infectious disease model so as to present the contagion of violence in a larger context and in a more compelling and comprehensive way.

This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of our understanding of the causes and consequences of violence. Represented in its chapters are noted scholars from a variety of fields including psychology, anthropology, law, and literature. The contributions reflect a broad scope of inquiry and diverse levels of analysis. With an underlying evolutionary theme each of the contributors invoke their separate areas of expertise, offering empirical and theoretical insights to this complex subject. The multi-faceted aspect of the book is meant to engender new perspectives that will synthesize current knowledge and lead to a more nuanced understanding of an ever timely issue in human behavior. Of additional interest, is a foreword written by world renowned psychologist, Steven Pinker, and an afterword by noted evolutionary scholar, Richard Dawkins.

Why do we think about and interact with other people in the particular ways that we do? Might these thoughts and actions be contemporary products of our long-ago evolutionary past? If so, how might this be, and what are the implications? Research generated by an evolutionary approach to social psychology issues profound insights into self-concept, impression formation, prejudice, group dynamics, helping, aggression, social influence, culture, and every other topic that is fundamental to social psychology. Evolution and Social Psychology is the first book to review and discuss this broad range of social psychological phenomena from an evolutionary perspective. It does so with a critical and constructive eye. Readers will emerge with a clear sense of the intellectual challenges, as well as the scientific benefits, of an evolutionarily-informed social psychology. The world-renowned contributors identify new questions, new theories, and new hypotheses—many of which are only now beginning to be tested. Thus, this book not only summarizes the current status of the field, it also sets an agenda for the next generation of research on evolution and social psychology. Evolution and Social Psychology is essential reading for evolutionary psychologists and social psychologists alike.

“A fascinating new analysis of human violence, filled with fresh ideas and gripping evidence from our primate cousins, historical forebears, and contemporary neighbors.” —Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature We Homo sapiens can be the nicest of species and also the nastiest. What occurred during human evolution to account for this paradox? What are the two kinds of aggression that primates are prone to, and why did each evolve separately? How does the intensity of violence among humans compare with the aggressive behavior of other primates? How did humans domesticate themselves? And how were the acquisition of language and the practice of capital punishment determining factors in the rise of culture and civilization? Authoritative, provocative, and engaging, The Goodness Paradox offers a startlingly original theory of how, in the last 250 million years, humankind became an increasingly peaceful species in daily interactions even as its capacity for coolly planned and devastating violence remains undiminished. In tracing the evolutionary histories of reactive and proactive aggression, biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham forcefully and persuasively argues for the necessity of social tolerance and the control of savage divisiveness still haunting us today.

Travis Rayne Pickering argues that the advent of ambush hunting approximately two million years ago marked a milestone in human evolution, one that established the social dynamic that allowed our ancestors to expand their range and diet. He challenges the traditional link between aggression and human predation, however, claiming that while aggressive attack is a perfectly efficient way for our chimpanzee cousins to kill prey, it was a hopeless tactic for early human hunters, who—in comparison to their large, potentially dangerous prey—were small, weak, and slow-footed. Technology that evolved from wooden spears to stone-tipped spears and ultimately to the bow and arrow increased the distance between predator and prey and facilitated an emotional detachment that allowed hunters to stalk and kill large game. Based on studies of humans and of other primates, as well as on fossil and archaeological evidence, Rough and Tumble offers a new perspective on human evolution by decoupling ideas of aggression and predation to build a more realistic understanding of what it is to be human.

This volume synthesizes the theoretical and empirical work of leading scholars in the evolutionary sciences to produce an extensive and authoritative review of this literature.

Aggression, Time, and Understanding is the first book of Staemmler’s writings to be published in English. In the early sections of this book, Staemmler (supported by his Buddhist wife, Barbara) comprehensively explores and questions the traditional Gestalt therapy theory of aggression and proposes a new approach to working with anger and hostility. Further sections include in-depth examinations of the topics of time (the "Here and Now" and "Regressive Processes") and understanding ("Dialogue and Interpretation" and "Cultivated Uncertainty"). From Staemmler’s "critical gaze," Dan Bloom observes, "concepts emerge as refreshed, re-formed, and revitalized constructs so we can continue to develop the theory and practice of contemporary Gestalt therapy."

This book presents extensive field research and analysis to evaluate sexual coercion in a range of species—including all of the great apes and humans—and to clarify its role in shaping social relationships among males, among females, and between the sexes.