Examining the Roots of Violence

March 04, 2021

Examining the Roots of Violence

Aggression on the Rise

The US began 2021 with an unprecedented act of violence in Washington DC as rioters attacked the Capitol building. In this month’s eBook, we look at the biology and psychology behind violent behavior, including what groups are prone to acts of violence, the rise of extremism and the role of mental illness. For further reading on the intersection of science and society, check out these other titles.

Criminal Psychology and the Roots of Violence

In 2020, mass shootings and hate crimes reached record highs. In this eBook, we examine the factors that contribute to aggressive and brutal behavior, including its biological and genetic underpinnings, how intimacy and bias can lead to violence, how people become radicalized to commit acts of aggression, as well as certain psychological disorders and their role in violent behavior, which is often not as great as people think.

Racism: Confronting Injustice, Bias and Inequality

The outcry and eruption of protests following the killing of George Floyd led to a long-overdue reckoning across industries, in politics and in society to confront white supremacy and racial injustice. For Scientific American, part of this reckoning is to make a commitment to improved and wider reporting of racism and to elevate Black and Brown voices. In this eBook, we’ve gathered some of our most important coverage to date, including how systemic racism is linked to COVID-19 and other public health crises, injustice in law enforcement practices and bias in academia and the scientific community.

Women

Women have too long been an afterthought: denied equal opportunity at home and in society and ignored by science. Recent decades brought progress toward some measure of parity, but yawning gaps remain, and some are growing, threatening to undermine everyone’s well-being. In this eBook, we explore research on the scientific and economic implications of gender disparity in the realms of economics, politics, education and health care.