Elizabeth Kandel Englander

About the author: Elizabeth Kandel Englander is associate professor of psychology at Bridgewater State College in Pennsylvania. Her interests are in the psychological causes of violence and violent crime. She studies biology, personality, child development, and social psychology, and examines the causes of domestic and street violence. Englander is also the author of Understanding Violence, from which the following viewpoint was excerpted.

Youth violence has been on the decline since 1994, but "copycat" school shootings and gang violence remain a source of social concern. School shooters are likely to have suffered social humiliation or rejection, which prompts them to retaliate. Indeed, while school shooters exhibit a wide range of mental health problems, and while some come from dysfunctional homes, adolescent violence is mainly triggered by social factors rather...