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Cognitive/Information Processing Theories of Aggression and Crime

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Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice
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Over the past several decades, it has become clear that an understanding of how human cognitive processes operate is necessary for an understanding of human social behavior in general and aggressive and criminal behavior in particular. Extensive empirical research on cognitive/information processing coupled with theoretical elaborations from cognitive science constructs has led to the emergence of a unified model of cognitive/information processing in aggressive behavior. The model identifies three processes in social problem solving during which emotional arousal, activated schemas, and situational cues interact to make aggressive and criminal behavior less or more likely : (1) cue attention and interpretation, (2) script retrieval, and (3) script evaluation and selection. In addition, two processes have been identified that change stored cognitive schemas, scripts, and beliefs to increase or decrease the long-term likelihood of aggressive and criminal behavior: (1)...

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Correspondence to L. Rowell Huesmann .

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Huesmann, L.R. (2014). Cognitive/Information Processing Theories of Aggression and Crime. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_510

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_510

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5689-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5690-2

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