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Abstract:
For a number of reasons, including the complicated psychological makeup of reactive homicide, the heat of passion defense has remained subject to various points of confusion. One persistent issue of disagreement has been the justificatory versus excusatory nature of the defense. In this Article, I highlight and categorize a series of varied American homicide cases in which the applicability of heat of passion was supported although adequate provocation (or significant provocation by the victim) was absent. The cases are organized to illustrate how, per the common law framing of the defense, in instances in which there is no actual provocation, or the provocation is not sourced to the victim, heat of passion may nevertheless apply. The rationale is that the emotional disturbance that interferes with one’s rationality and self-control arises as an effect of the genuine belief that one has been seriously wronged, a perspective that can only be characterized as an excuse. In addition, I discuss how the rationale that the defense is a partial justification fails even in most situations in which the killer has really been seriously provoked by the victim. Finally, I clarify discrete psychological components of heat of passion homicide, and discuss how scholarly and judicial blurring of these forms of mental functioning may contribute to the longstanding confusion as to the nature of the defense. In sum, this Article contributes further evidence as to why it is correct to view heat of passion as a partial excuse.

Heat of Passion, Provocation, Manslaughter, Murder, Cognition, Emotion, Homicide

Abstract:
Debate about the distinction between justification and excuse in criminal law theory has been lively during the last thirty years. Questions as to the nature and structure of various affirmative defenses continue to be raised, and the doctrine of self-defense has been at the center of much discussion. Three main articulations have been advanced: a purely objective theory, a purely subjective theory, and an objective/subjective hybrid. In the present Article, I support a hybrid model and propose a three-requirement framework that delineates the criteria that must be met to satisfy self-defense as a legitimate justification. Because this three-requirement framework raises the floor of justification, it rejects numerous types of defense-related conduct that may qualify as justifiable by other theories. I believe that although these related forms of conduct are not necessarily justifiable, they may be excusable. As such, I outline and discuss a six-tier hierarchy by which self-defense and defense-related instances of reactive violence may be classified according to the degree (complete or partial) to which they are justifiable or excusable. In these ways, I address and attempt to resolve several critical questions about the nature of self-defense that have remained open in the literature.

Justification, Excuse, Affirmative Defense, Homicide, Self-Defense

Abstract:
In United States criminal law, a defendant charged with murder can invoke the heat of passion defense, an affirmative, partial-excuse defense so that he may be instead found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. This defense requires the defendant to demonstrate that he was significantly provoked and, as a direct result of the provocation, became extremely emotionally disturbed and committed the killing while in this uncontrolled emotional state. In this way, the law makes a partial allowance for emotional dysfunction - the wrongfulness of the homicide is mitigated when the emotionally charged reactivity restricts the actor's capacity for rational thought and reasoned behavior. However, the defense makes no such allowance for cognitive dysfunction, despite the widely replicated finding in psychology that violent reactivity is associated with distorted cognitive processing. In particular, reactive violence is often attributed, in part, to provocation interpretational bias - a set of cognitive difficulties by which certain ambiguous-provocation situations are interpreted as intentional, hostile, and wrongful by the reacting aggressor. The present paper discusses how affording a partial excuse for emotional - but not cognitive - dysfunction poses both a logical inconsistency and a moral dilemma for American provocation law. Recommendations for reframing the heat of passion doctrine and resolving these issues are made.

Social information processing, heat of passion, provocation, reactive violence, hostile attributional bias, cognitive dysfunction

Abstract:
Consistent with core principles of liberal theories of punishment (including humane treatment of offenders, respecting offender rights, parsimony, penal proportionality, and rehabilitation), progressive frameworks have sought to expand doctrines of mitigation and excuse such that culpability and punishment may be reduced. With respect to juvenile justice, scholars have proposed that doctrinal mitigation be broadened, and that adolescents, due to aspects of developmental immaturity (such as decision making capacity), be punished less severely than adults who commit the same crimes. One model of adolescent antisocial behavior that may be useful to a progressive theory of punishment in juvenile justice distinguishes between instrumental violence, by which the actor behaves thoughtfully and calmly to achieve personal gain, and reactive violence, which is characterized as impulsive, emotional retaliation toward a perceived threat or injustice. In particular, social cognitive differences between instrumental and reactive violence have implications for responsibility, length and structure of incarceration, rehabilitation, and other issues that are central to a progressive theory of juvenile culpability and punishment.

Criminal Culpability, Juvenile Justice, Violent Subtypes, Punishment, Developmental Immaturity, Social Cognition

Abstract:
Transactional theory articulates an ongoing reciprocal exchange between the self and one's experiences with his or her social world. Although the self in this theory has been typically operationalized as behavior, it clearly must include cognitive operations. Social-information processing (SIP) theory posits that behavior toward others in childhood and adolescence develops as a function of the outputs of complex sets of on-line social-cognitive operations. In transactional turn, behavior leads to social consequences that inform future SIP. In this way, SIP and interactions with others may influence each other across development. One set of SIP operations that appears to be particularly important to adolescent development is called response evaluation and decision (RED). RED processing is an advanced stage of SIP in which an individual evaluates alternative responses across multiple domains in order to decide how to respond to cues during social interaction. This chapter presents a conceptual model of the transactional development of SIP with special application to understanding antisocial behavior in youth. The role of RED in this developmental exchange during adolescence is highlighted, and we identify future directions for research on the development of social cognition and antisocial behavior reciprocations.

Social Information Processing, Social Cognition, Aggression, Violence, Child, Adolescent, Juvenile, Youth, Antisocial, Development

Abstract:
Behavioral scientists have distinguished an instrumental (or proactive) style of aggression from a style that is reactive (or hostile). Whereas instrumental aggression is cold-blooded, deliberate, and goal driven, reactive aggression is characterized by hot blood, impulsivity, and uncontrollable rage. Scholars have pointed to the distinction between murder (committed with malice aforethought) and manslaughter (enacted in the heat of passion in response to provocation) in criminal law as a reflection of the instrumental-reactive aggression dichotomy. Recently, B. J. Bushman and C. A. Anderson (2001) argued that the instrumental-reactive aggression distinction has outlived its usefulness in psychology and pointed to inconsistencies and confusion in criminal law applications as support for their position. But how similar is the legal distinction between murder and manslaughter to the instrumental-reactive aggression dichotomy in psychology? This article compares and contrasts the psychological and legal models and demonstrates that the purposes for distinguishing between instrumental and reactive aggression in psychology and law are undeniably different in meaningful ways. As such, a perceived shift in law away from differentiating murder and manslaughter has no bearing on the usefulness of the instrumental-reactive aggression distinction in psychological science.

instrumental, reactive, aggression, violence, murder, manslaughter

Abstract:
The last quarter century has witnessed considerable progress in the scientific study of social information processing (SIP) and aggressive behavior in children. SIP research has shown that social decision making in youth is particularly predictive of antisocial behavior, especially as children enter and progress through adolescence. In furtherance of this research, more sophisticated, elaborate models of on-line social decision making have been developed, by which various domains of evaluative judgment are hypothesized to account for both responsive decision making and behavior, as well as self-initiated, instrumental functioning. However, discussions of these models have neglected a number of key issues. In particular, the roles of nonconscious cognitive factors, learning and development, impulsivity and behavioral disinhibition, emotion, and other internal and external factors (e.g., pharmacological influences and audience effects) have been largely absent from scholarly writings. In response, this article introduces discussion of these factors and reviews their possible roles in on-line social decision making and antisocial behavior in youth.

Decision making, Aggression, Antisocial behavior, Violence, Social cognition, Childhood, Adolescence

Abstract:
Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the alternative contributions of dysfunctional reactive cognition (e.g., provocation interpretational bias) and emotion (e.g., provoked fury) in heat of passion killings. Two main theses have been advanced. First, there exists a meaningful parallel between the instrumental/reactive aggression dichotomy in psychology and murder/manslaughter distinction in law. Second, analysis of this parallel suggests that the heat of passion (or provocation) defense disproportionately favors emotional over cognitive dysfunction in mitigating murder to manslaughter. These theses, though, have yet to be fully developed, and raise additional, critical questions that have not yet been addressed. For example, Other than interpretational style, how may social cognitive science inform our understanding of the role of cognitive bias in reactive homicide?, and How is serious interpretational bias related to alternative forms of psychiatric disorder as recognized in law? This Article addresses these and related questions regarding the differential and interactive contributions of dysfunctional cognition and emotion in the execution of reactive homicide.

Instrumental, Reactive, Aggression, Violence, Murder, Manslaughter, Provocation, Heat Of Passion, Cognition, Emotion

Abstract:
The relation between social rejection and growth in antisocial behavior was investigated. In Study 1,259 boys and girls (34% African American) were followed from Grades 1 to 3 (ages 6-8 years) to Grades 5 to 7 (ages 10-12 years). Early peer rejection predicted growth in aggression. In Study 2,585 boys and girls (16% African American) were followed from kindergarten to Grade 3 (ages 5-8 years), and findings were replicated. Furthermore, early aggression moderated the effect of rejection, such that rejection exacerbated antisocial development only among children initially disposed toward aggression. In Study 3, social information-processing patterns measured in Study 1 were found to mediate partially the effect of early rejection on later aggression. In Study 4, processing patterns measured in Study 2 replicated the mediation effect. Findings are integrated into a recursive model of antisocial development.

Peer Rejection, Development, Child, Adolescent, Juvenile, Antisocial, Violence, Aggression, Delinquency, Development, Social Cognition, Social Information Processing

Abstract:
There is a growing body of scientific research that has drawn a distinction between instrumental (or proactive) and reactive forms of aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Whereas neurocognitive, psychophysiological, and other psychological factors have been shown to distinguish these aggressive subtypes, social cognitive research on alternative types of instrumental antisocial behavior (e.g., stealing, cheating, and illicit substance use) in youth is limited. Research on social information processing and aggression has shown that evaluative behavioral judgments may be of particular importance to understanding instrumental antisocial tendencies. Herein presented is a review of research on social cognition and discernible forms of instrumental antisocial behavior. It is demonstrated that, consistent with social cognitive research on proactive aggression, the relevance of a specific set of evaluative behavioral judgments appears to be common to alternative patterns of instrumental antisocial conduct. Conclusions may have particular importance for (a) research on the development of discernible instrumental antisocial trajectories, (b) clinical intervention, and (c) the formulation of a conceptual model of instrumental antisocial decision-making.

Instrumental, Motive, Aggression, Youth, Child, Adolescent, Violence, Antisocial, Decision Making, Social Judgment

Abstract:
This paper reviews and organizes relevant theory and research toward a conceptual framework of instrumental antisocial decision-making and behavior in youth. To date, social cognitive study of the development of youth antisocial functioning has largely focused on response patterns (e.g., cognitive responses to aversive cues). Though instrumental decision making is paid significant attention in research on adult criminality, there exists no framework by which youths' goal-driven behavioral decisions that are made in pursuit of antisocial motives and interests may be understood. This is a problem in that lessons from research on children and adolescents suggest that there are meaningful differences in structure, phenomenology and function of subtypes of antisocial behavior (instrumental versus reactive). The absence of such a model may account, at least in part, for why the study of instrumental antisocial behavior in youth remains relatively limited.

Instrumental, Antisocial behavior, Decision making, Children, Adolescents, Aggression, Social cognition, Antisocial, Violence, Juvenile

Abstract:
Systems perspectives view development as the product of hierarchically-organized levels of varied life processes that are continually changing and interacting as time passes. This theoretical approach may be of considerable importance to developing research programs in child social cognition, particularly since multilevel, multiprocess models of social information processing and aggressive behavior in youth are still in relatively formative stages. This paper proposes that key systems principles can be conceptually applied to social information-processing models in ways that are critical to furthering future research in social-cognitive foundations of aggressive behavior. Examples of initial applications to current social informationprocessing models of aggression in childhood are presented. Implications of this theoretical approach for substantive empirical research (e.g., modes of processing) are discussed and directions for methodological design (e.g., computer simulation) are
proposed.

Systems theory, Aggressive behavior, Social information processing, Cognitive development, Social cognition, Aggression, Violence, Juvenile, Antisocial

Abstract:
Considerable scientific and intervention attention has been paid to judgment and decision-making systems associated with aggressive behavior in youth. However, most empirical studies have investigated social-cognitive correlates of stable child and adolescent aggressiveness, and less is known about real-time decision making to engage in aggressive behavior. A model of real-time decision making must incorporate both impulsive actions and rational thought. The present paper advances a process model (response evaluation and decision; RED) of real-time behavioral judgments and decision making in aggressive youths with mathematic representations that may be used to quantify response strength. These components are a heuristic to describe decision making, though it is doubtful that individuals always mentally complete these steps. RED represents an organization of social-cognitive operations believed to be active during the response decision step of social information processing. The model posits that RED processes can be circumvented through impulsive responding. This article provides a description and integration of thoughtful, rational decision making and nonrational impulsivity in aggressive behavioral interactions.

Decision Making, Antisocial, Aggressive, Violent, Social Behavior, Judgment, Social Cognition, Social Information Processing, Development, Child, Adolescent, Juvenile

Abstract:
A cultural defense to criminal culpability cannot achieve true pluralism without collapsing into a totally subjective, personal standard. Applying an objective cultural standard does not rescue a defendant from the external imposition of values - the purported aim of the cultural defense - because a cultural standard is, at its core, an external standard imposed onto an individual. The pluralist argument for a cultural defense also fails on its own terms - after all, justice systems are themselves cultural institutions. Furthermore, a defendant's background is already accounted for at sentencing. The closest thing to a cultural defense that a court could adopt without damaging the culpability regime is a narrow de minimis rule.

cultural defense, sentencing, culpability, criminal procedure

Abstract:
Externalizing behavior problems of 124 adolescents were assessed across Grades 7-11. In Grade 9, participants were also assessed across social-cognitive domains after imagining themselves as the object of provocations portrayed in six videotaped vignettes. Participants responded to vignette-based questions representing multiple processes of the response decision step of social information processing. Phase 1 of our investigation supported a two-factor model of the response evaluation process of response decision (response valuation and outcome expectancy). Phase 2 showed significant relations between the set of these response decision processes, as well as response selection, measured in Grade 9 and (a) externalizing behavior in Grade 9 and (b) externalizing behavior in Grades 10-11, even after controlling externalizing behavior in Grades 7-8. These findings suggest that on-line behavioral judgments about aggression play a crucial role in the maintenance and growth of aggressive response tendencies in adolescence.

Decision making, Aggression, Antisocial, Adolescence, Juvenile, Youth, Violence, Social Cognition, Development, Social Information Processing

Abstract:
This study examined the bidirectional development of aggressive response evaluation and decision (RED) and antisocial behavior across five time-points in adolescence. Participants (n = 522) were asked to imagine themselves behaving aggressively while viewing videotaped ambiguous provocations, and answered a set of RED questions following each aggressive retaliation (administered at Grades 8 and 11 [13 and 16 years]). Self- and mother-reports of antisocial behavior were collected at Grades 7, 9/10, and 12 (12, 14/15, and 17 years). Using structural equation modeling, we found a partial mediating effect at each hypothesized mediational path, despite high stability of antisocial behavior across adolescence. Findings are consistent with an individual systems perspective by which adolescents' antisocial conduct influences how they evaluate aggressive interpersonal behaviors, which affects their future antisocial conduct.

Systems Theory, Development, Adolescence, Juvenile, Aggression, Decision Making, Antisocial, Violence, Delinquency, Social Cognition, Social Information Processing

Abstract:
This study examined the mediating role of loneliness (assessed by self-report at Time 2; Grade 6) in the relation between early social preference (assessed by peer report at Time 1; kindergarten through Grade 3) and adolescent anxious/depressed symptoms (assessed by mother, teacher, and self-reports at Time 3; Grades 7–9). Five hundred eighty-five boys and girls (48% female; 16% African American) from three geographic sites of the Child Development Project were followed from kindergarten through Grade 9. Loneliness partially mediated and uniquely incremented the significant effect of low social preference in childhood on anxious/depressed symptoms in adolescence, controlling for early anxious/depressed symptoms at Time 1. Findings are critical to understanding the psychological functioning through which early social experiences affect youths’ maladjusted development. Directions for basic and intervention research are discussed, and implications for treatment are addressed.

Development, Psychopathology, Depression, Anxiety, Loneliness, Clinical, Childhood, Adolescence, Maladjustment, Maladaptive

Abstract:
Using longitudinal data on 585 youths (48% female; 17% African American, 2% other ethnic minority), the authors examined the development of social response evaluation and decision (RED) across childhood (Study 1; kindergarten through Grade 3) and adolescence (Study 2; Grades 8 and 11). Participants completed hypothetical-vignette-based RED assessments, and their antisocial behaviors were measured by multiple raters. Structural equation modeling and linear growth analyses indicated that children differentiate alternative responses by Grade 3, but these RED responses were not consistently related to antisocial behavior. Adolescent analyses provided support for a model of multiple evaluative domains of RED and showed strong relations between aggressive response evaluations, nonaggressive response evaluations, and antisocial behavior. Findings indicate that RED becomes more differential (or specific to response style) and is increasingly related to youths’ antisocial conduct across development.

social information processing, decision making, antisocial behavior, child development, adolescence

Abstract:
The relations among social information processing (SIP), cardiac activity, and antisocial behavior were investigated in adolescents over a 3-year period (from ages 16 to 18) in a community sample of 585 (48% female, 17% African American) participants. Antisocial behavior was assessed in all 3 years. Cardiac and SIP measures were collected between the first and second behavioral assessments. Cardiac measures assessed resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate reactivity (HRR) as participants imagined themselves being victimized in hypothetical provocation situations portrayed via video vignettes. The findings were moderated by gender and supported a multiprocess model in which antisocial behavior is a function of trait-like low RHR (for male individuals only) and deviant SIP. In addition, deviant SIP mediated the effects of elevated HRR reactivity and elevated RHR on antisocial behavior (for male and female participants).

antisocial behavior, heart rate, social information processing, adolescents