Clinical Psychology and Aggression Management

One need only pick up the daily newspaper to see how serious a problem violence is in today's society. Although the incidence of violent behavior in the US has fallen significantly in the past few years, there is still about an 80% chance that a person will be the victim of a violent crime during his or her lifetime. Even more troubling is the trend of increasing violence among the very young. After each school shooting, there is a media blitz of experts searching to explain how and why troubled teens sometimes turn to violence. Much of what they say is the result of research on the psychobiology of aggression, a field that has recently experienced many breakthroughs in identifying correlates of violent behavior. Some researchers claim that we are coming closer to predicting from a brain scan or a blood test whether a person is at risk for committing an act of violence. Ethical complications aside, a closer look at the neurobiology of aggression shows why we are unlikely to find a conclusive test for potential violent behavior. While there are many biological factors associated with aggression, their predictive value remains still quite low.