The film Monster (USA, 2003) is based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, the Florida prostitute who was one of the few documented female serial killers in the United States. The scriptwriter and director of the film, Patty Jenkins, surprisingly centered the film on a love story, instead of assuming the role of judge or advocate towards the actions of Wuornos. After a flash back sequence that recreates the childhood of Lee (Charlize Theron), the film opens as Lee meets Selby (Christina Ricci), a young and immature lesbian in a bar. Lee responds very rudely and defensively to the clumsy flirtation of Selby, as she does not think of herself as gay and her life as a prostitute has made her very hostile towards society. However, Lee opens up to Selby, as she perceives her as her last chance to find Love. Patty Jenkins cinematically evokes Lee’s hopelessness and despair before meeting Selby in order to emphasize the importance of this same-sex relationship. For Lee, Selby is the innocent child that she has to protect and save, a symbol of the child she once was herself. Inspired, she goes out to work on the highway to earn money for their first date, and a client beats her unconscious, ties her up, rapes her with a tyre iron and pours petrol over her. Fearing for her life, Lee shoots him, and then takes his car and wallet. As her relationship with Selby develops, she enters into the role of provider and protector. After her brutal encounter, she is scared of the streets and makes an attempt to go straight. However, 3 in her attempt to look for a proper job she encounters social rejection and brutalization. Pressurized by her new girlfriend to provide money, Lee goes back to prostitution. However, her last traumatic experience with the rapist john makes her believe that all her clients might turn out to be abusive, which provokes in her a desire for revenge and killing. Unable to stop, she robs her victims to provide for her girlfriend and believes that she can identify which clients deserve to die. After the killing of an innocent man, she is turned over to the police by Selby. Monster is not about sensationalism, but rather portrays the intimate tragic story of a human being who became a serial killer, due to a combination of bad social and personal pathologies. The Meaning of the Form: The aim of this thesis is to explore the representation of women and aggression in Patty Jenkins’ film Monster. I will argue that, while the female characters in Monster do not escape the conventional portrayal of women within the dominant Hollywood cinema, their portrayal does nonetheless create a ‘non-normative’ representation. By exploiting the classical narrative and a particular model of representation of women, Jenkins creates a cinematic text which attacks the patriarchal principles grounding the model. Therefore, the main argument of this thesis will be that Jenkins uses the Hollywood system of narration and representation of women in order to subvert and criticize it. Ultimately she is using the film as means to critique the patriarchal violence within American society itself. In order to substantiate my argument, I will first look at the conventional representation of women in fiction-film genre1, and will then investigate how the performance of aggression is constructed within the film. The film represents aggression as a social phenomenon that develops into a pathological behavior. By establishing the history of the general phenomenon of female aggression, I will examine its specific representation in my film case study Monster. Although the film introduces different female characters that each have their particular expression of aggression and representation, the primary focus of analysis will be Lee, the main character of the film.

by Tam Miu Ping, Judy. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-48). / Abstract and questionnaire also in Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.iv / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.v / Chapter CHAPTER I - --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / The Social Information-processing model --- p.1 / "Processing styles of reactive aggressive children, proactive aggressive children, and depressed children" --- p.3 / Purpose of the present research --- p.11 / Chapter CHAPTER II - --- METHODS --- p.13 / Subjects --- p.13 / Measures --- p.13 / Procedures --- p.15 / Chapter CHAPTER III - --- RESULTS --- p.16 / Internal consistency of independent variables --- p.16 / Correlation between independent variables and dependent variables --- p.18 / Multiple regression --- p.22 / Structural equation model --- p.26 / Chapter CHAPTER IV - --- DISCUSSION --- p.36 / Prediction of internalizing disorder tendency by social information- processing factors --- p.36 / Prediction of reactive aggression by social information-processing factors --- p.37 / Prediction of proactive aggression by social information-processing factors --- p.38 / Cognitive distortion --- p.39 / "Differentiation of internalizing disorder, reactive aggression, and proactive aggression" --- p.39 / "Implication to treatment of children with internalizing disorder, reactive aggression, and proactive aggression" --- p.40 / Cross validation of the structural model --- p.42 / Construct validity of the measures of independent variables --- p.42 / Limitations of the present research and future directions --- p.42 / REFERENCES --- p.45 / APPENDICES --- p.49 / Questionnaire --- p.49 / Correlation among variables --- p.66

SammanfattningDenna studie har haft till uppgift att studera narcissism och aggression. Tidigareforskning har visat att låg självkänsla korrelerar med aggression. Senare forskning visarpå motsatsen att en hög instabil uppblåst självkänsla (narcissistisk) har ett samband medaggression. Detta eftersom personer med en narcissistisk personlighet är lätta attförolämpa och att de när de upplever att deras ego hotat, svarar med ett aggressivtbeteende. I studien undersöktes också om människor med höga narcissistiska värdenockså är orealistiskt optimistiska och har en orealistisk syn på sig själv och sin kontrollöver världen. Även skillnader mellan kön och narcissims undersöktes.Studien innehöll 26 kvinnor och 25 män. De fick fylla i formulär med påståenden sommätte narcissism och optimism. De fick skriva ett stycke om ett starkt ämne. Dessaessäer bedömdes senare av som de leddes att tro en person i ett annat rum. Här skeddemanipulationen av egot genom att undersökningsledaren fyllde i positiv kritik tillhälften av respondenterna och negativ till andra hälften. Efter att fått tillbaka det som deskrivit med antingen positiv eller negativ feedback fick de rätta ett glosprov som detrodde var gjort av den person som gett dem feedback. Detta glosprov innehöll felaktigaord, felstavade och helt rätta ord.Det som studien ville undersöka var om personer med höga narcissistiska värden skullerätta stängare och ge fel även åt ord som var felstavade. Denna studie är en replikationav ett experiment gjort av Baumeister och Bushman (1998). Deras experiment hadeinget glosprov utan innehöll en datorsekvens där respondenten kunde bestraffa denandre (som inte heller här existerade) med att bestämma hur länge den andre skulle höraett starkt ljud när denne svarat fel.Denna studie uppvisade inte ett likadant resultat som tidigare studier. Inget sambandåterfanns mellan ett hotat ego och aggression. Inga skillnader mellan kön ochnarcissism uppvisades. Studien visade inte heller på ett samband mellan optimism ochnarcissism.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) involves physical, psychological, and/or emotional violence within intimate (e.g., dating) relationships. In this thesis, I examined narcissism as a predictor of IPV. I used an offensive- and defensive-trait framework to come up with 10 potential mediator variables that often typify narcissism and underlie IPV. Correlation analyses confirmed the expected link between narcissism and IPV. Subsequent bootstrapping mediation analysis of IPV-frequency revealed significant indirect effects for 2 mediators - social dominance orientation and the hostile attribution bias-based tendency to retaliate in the face of ambiguous but potentially malevolent social interactions. Bootstrapping analysis of IPV-prevalence also revealed an additional significant indirect effect for hypercompetitiveness. In both bootstrapping analyses the mediator variables only provided partial mediation of the narcissismto- IPV link. In the discussion I focus on the implications for IPV perpetration and research, including avenues for future research and potential interventions for IPV centered on mitigating narcissism.

Impulsivity, venturesomeness, and pride variables were examined as potential moderators of the associations between childhood trauma and physical aggression, alcohol use and physical aggression, and drug use and physical aggression. Participants (n = 457) were college students recruited from a university in the Southeast. It was hypothesized that childhood trauma, alcohol use, and drug use would be associated with increased scores of physical aggression. In addition, it was hypothesized that impulsivity, venturesomeness, authentic pride, and hubristic pride would moderate these relationships. Linear, multivariate hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine these variables as potential moderators. Hypotheses concerning hubristic pride as a moderator of the relationship between alcohol use and physical aggression as well as the relationship between drug use and physical aggression were supported. In addition, the hypothesis concerning authentic pride as a moderator of the relationship between alcohol use and physical aggression was supported albeit in the opposite direction than predicted. Hypotheses concerning the moderating roles of impulsivity and venturesomeness were not supported. Findings support the idea that the deleterious psychological effects of substance use can be compounded by personality factors such as authentic and hubristic pride. The discussion encompasses why interventions should target attributions and cognitions and why simply encouraging someone to have a more “healthy pride” is likely to be ineffective at reducing physical aggression in the context of drug use and alcohol use.

This study investigated the effect of bibliotherapy as an intervention for aggressive elementary children at a residential treatment center in the western United States. Bibliotherapy was provided for six children, three boys and three girls, ages 9 to 11, Caucasian and Hispanic, who took part in one of two groups. The study involved a multi-baseline design, beginning with a baseline phase, followed by two separate intervention phases comprised of eight sessions of bibliotherapy. Data gathered from almost daily observations along with pre- and post-intervention ratings of aggressive behaviors indicated that four of the six students demonstrated notable decreases in observed aggressive behaviors as well as decreases in teachers' ratings of aggression and/or social problems. Social validity for bibliotherapy as a viable and enjoyable intervention for aggressive behaviors was supported through interviews of students, teachers, and therapists. This study supports the potential for bibliotherapy to be a viable intervention to implement in the public school setting to decrease the observed aggressive behaviors of elementary school students.

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), which is marked by severe social disabilities, also present with higher rates of anxiety. Understanding the qualitative symptoms that underlie anxiety in ASD may help to better characterize the overlap of ASD and anxiety symptomology and suggest targeted treatment strategies. Twenty mothers with male children diagnosed with high-functioning ASD were interviewed using a follow-up interview to the SCAS parent rating scale, in order to better understand how mothers perceive their child's anxious thoughts, behaviors and cognitions. All interviews were transcribed and thematic analysis was used to analyze the results. Eight themes emerged from the analysis: first, anxious symptoms in children with autism negatively impacts the whole family; second, anxiety interferes with the child's life; third, mothers can identify anxiety by their child's anxious behavior; fourth, children with ASD utilize coping strategies to reduce their anxiety; fifth, children with ASD experience physiological symptoms with their anxiety; sixth, anxiety and anxious thoughts go together; seventh, mothers can identify the etiology of children's anxiety; and eighth, children's anxious thoughts are perceived by their mothers as reasonable. Interventions for anxiety in ASD should consider the whole family system including education, symptom reduction, and possible respite care.

The purpose of this study was to examine prevalence rates of symptoms of several sleep disorders in young children, and the relationship between symptoms of pediatric sleep disorders and other childhood problems. Two-hundred-seventy-six children aged 2 to 5 years were studied through examination of a pre-existing database. Children rated as high risk for having a sleep disorder displayed significantly more aggressive behavior and attention problems, as compared to children whose sleep was rated in the normal range. However, no relationship was found between symptoms of sleep disorders and body mass index, asthma, or allergies. In addition, no relationship was found between symptoms of sleep disorders and social skills. Twenty-six percent of children in this sample were at high risk for having at least one type of sleep disorder. Results are discussed with regard to implications for prevention and early identification of students who are at-risk for developing sleep disorders, as well as direct interventions for those students who have a diagnosed sleep disorder.

Nurses working in an acute psychiatric setting within a veterans' administration hospital must maintain a therapeutic milieu by recognizing and managing aggressive behaviors before violence ensues to reduce injuries to staff nurses and patients. The purpose of this project was to develop an evidence-based and theoretically grounded educational program that will help staff nurses manage escalating aggression, violence, and acting out behaviors to provide a safe environment for patients and staff through high risk identifier recognition and intervention training. During the data and information gathering stage, 23 articles were reviewed, rated, and graded to provide the most significant information used to complete the project. The project is a workshop made up of a 6-module curriculum that will be used to train staff nurses. This workshop will be shared with the partnering organization including the recommendation that it is adopted and implemented at a later date. The educational training program will have the potential to become a practice standard for other acute psychiatric settings within the Veterans Integrated Service Network to provide a tool that will assist the nurses as they care for the patient and maintain safety. Social change will occur through the empowerment of nurses who interact with veterans to bring them better and safer care.

Men from a culture of honor often use physical aggression in response to threats as a way of restoring lost honor. Threats can range from being called an offensive name to someone flirting with their romantic partner. On the other hand, women from a culture of honor are expected to be submissive and avoid situations that can result in harm to their reputation. However, a recent meta-analytic review of the literature suggests that women do not always avoid situations that can harm their reputation. Rather, women in a culture of honor also use physical aggression in response to threats. In this study, I tested when and why men and women from a culture of honor use aggression in response to an honor threat. Participants (N = 1,043) responded to hypothetical scenarios that included threats to a person’s honor. Overall, men and women from a culture of honor used more aggression following a threat to their honor compared to people not from a culture of honor. People from a culture of honor also felt as though their reputation was hurt more by an honor threat than those, not from a culture of honor. The more participants felt their reputation was hurt, the more aggression they used against their attacker.