Violent Crime Rate Studies in Philosophical Context: A Destructive Testing Approach to Heat and Southern Culture of Violence Effects

The logic behind the translation of conceptual hypotheses into testable propositions was illustrated with the heat hypothesis. The destructive testing philosophy was introduced and applied. This consists of first showing that a predicted empirical relation exists, then attempting to break that relat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 1996-04, Vol.70 (4), p.740-756
Main Authors: Anderson, Craig A, Anderson, Kathryn B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Biological and medical sciences
Cities
Climate
Crime
Crime Rates
Environmental Factors
Geography
Heat
Heat Effects
Human
Hypothesis Testing
Legal Arrest
Medical sciences
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Rates
Regional Differences
Regional disparities
Relationship
Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency
Social psychology
Sociocultural Factors
Southern States
Temperature
United States of America
Violence
Violent Crime
Weather
White People
Whites
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Summary:The logic behind the translation of conceptual hypotheses into testable propositions was illustrated with the heat hypothesis. The destructive testing philosophy was introduced and applied. This consists of first showing that a predicted empirical relation exists, then attempting to break that relation by adding competitor variables. The key question in destructive testing is "How difficult was it to break the relation?" This approach was used to analyze the heat effect on violent crime rates (Study 1) and on White violent crime arrest rates (Study 2) in U.S. cities. One competitor variable was the particular focus of analysis: southern culture of violence. The heat hypothesis was supported by highly significant correlations between the warmth of a city and its violence rate. This heat effect survived multiple destructive tests. Some support for the southern culture effect was also found, but this effect was more easily broken.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.70.4.740