Date of Conferral

4-16-2024

Date of Award

April 2024

Degree

Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.)

School

Psychology

Advisor

Cameron John

Abstract

Assault crimes committed by men in the United States need to be studied empirically if a significant reduction in their occurrence is to take place. The purpose of this nonexperimental quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the reported experience of abuse, growing up in a high-crime neighborhood (HCN), and maternal abandonment with regards to individuals incarcerated for crimes that were operationally classified in this study as aggressive assaultive behavior (AAB). The framework that grounded this study was Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development and Beck’s perspective on framing, which guided the focus on how an individual frames an experience that results in a thought or behavioral response (i.e., AAB). Data were mined from a classification center within the northeastern region of the United States. Using a binary logistic regression, coupled with a step-wise regression, the null hypothesis was rejected; there was a significant difference when combining the experience of abuse with living in an HCN (p = .009). The results reflected an agreement with the grounded theory, but not with a representation of the original hypothesis. The recommendation was to investigate AAB as a phenological study to better understand those affected as individuals rather than as statistics. This study may be used to facilitate positive social change through a new therapeutic model aimed at conceptualizing AAB in an effort to reduce recidivism rates among men convicted of violent crimes.

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