The Attitudes Toward Violence Scale

Abstract

The importance of early intervention for preventing the development of violent behavior is well recognized. There is particular interest in addressing mediating factors through which risk may be transformed into behavior—for example, attitudes. The Attitudes Toward Violence Scale: Child Version (ATVC) was designed to measure the impact of interventions targeting change in attitudes towards violence in elementary school children. The ATVC demonstrates good internal reliability and has a meaningful two-factor solution: Reactive Violence (violence in response to a perceived or actual threat) and Culture of Violence (a pervasive view that violence is an acceptable and valued behavioral choice). A negative correlation between the ATVC and a child empathy measure provides support for the validity of the ATVC. Being male, self-identification as a victim, and African American ethnicity each predicted endorsement of proviolence attitudes. The ATVC may be useful in targeting interventions based on preexisting attitudinal dispositions and in measuring intervention outcome.

Gamers’ Attitudes towards Victims of Crime

“…More specifically, the violent game players reported less positive attitudes towards the victims in 24 the vignettes, and attributed more blame to the victims, than the nonviolent video game players. Previous research has explored empathy towards victims (Funk et al 2003;2004;Bartholow, Sestir & Davis, 2005) but no previous research has explored attitudes towards victims of crime.…”

“…Similar research on attitudes in children can be seen in the work on attitudes towards bullying, although there is some research that has explored empathy as a measure of children's attitudes and feeling towards 4 other types of peer victims (Funk et al, 2003(Funk et al, , 2004Porter & Starcevic, 2007). The research indicates that in general, children do express positive, prosocial and supportive thoughts towards victims of bullying (Menesini et al, 1997;Pervin & Turner, 1998;, while indicating that children are generally upset by (and dislike) bullying and fighting (Mooney, Creeser, & Blatchford, 1991;Rigby & Slee 1991Whitney & Smith, 1993).…”

“…Vignettes have also been used to explore the effects of violent video games in children (Funk et al, 2003), with findings indicating lower levels of empathy with children who played violent video games but did not find a significant effect of violent game playing on attitudes 11 towards crime. The present research aims to address some of the limitations noted in this research by using video game content specific vignettes.…”

“…Desensitisation has been measured in video game research by conducting research on gamer's levels of empathy, attitudes towards violence, and by measuring cardiovascular responding to aversive stimuli (Engelhart, Bartholow, Kerr & Bushman, 2011;Carnegey, Anderson & Bushman, 2006;2007). Funk et al (2003;2004) conducted research with children between ages of seven and ten years and found that violent video game play was associated with lower empathy scores and more acceptance of violence. Sakamoto (1994) also identified a negative relationship between frequency of violent video game use and empathy with children, while Barnett et al (1997) found that adolescents (15-to 19-years of age) who played violent video games had lower empathy scores.…”

Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children

“…Empathy. This measure is a 16-item modified version of the Children's Empathy Questionnaire (Funk et al 2003). Children responded on a 3-point scale about the degree to which they would respond empathically to hypothetical and actual anticipated events (e.g., whether other people's problems bother them or if they would feel happy when a friend gets a good grade).…”