Neurobiology and the development of violence: common assumptions and controversies

This paper addresses four common assumptions and related controversies regarding neurobiological factors explaining violence: (i) scholars often assume stability of individual differences in neurobiological factors pertaining to violence, yet much change occurs in aggression/violence during the life course, (ii) individual differences in aggression/violence reflect one or more underlying mechanisms that are believed to have neurobiological origins, yet there is little agreement about which underlying mechanisms apply best, (iii) the development of aggression/violence to some degree can be explained by social, individual, economic and environmental factors, yet it is unclear to what extent neurobiological factors can explain the escalation to, and desistance from, violence over and above social, individual, economic and environmental factors, and (iv) violence waxes and wanes in society over time, yet the explanation of secular differences in violence by means of neurobiological and other factors is not clear. Longitudinal analyses from the Pittsburgh Youth Study are used to illustrate several of these issues.