Explaining violence in young males through social dominance hierarchies

Abstract

The objective of the paper was to study the link between socio-economic status and violence in adolescent males and to then explain it using social dominance hierarchies. The study was completed using Global School-based Health Surveys (GSHS). A total of 24,952 male adolescents attending school were included in the study. Violence was the main outcome of interests and other variables included socio-economic status, age and country. In the multivariate analysis, only socioeconomic status was significant [OR 1.62 (1.28, 2.05) p<0.001], while age was not. By country, violence ranged from 11.2% in Swaziland to 40% in Mongolia. We concluded that violence is connected to socioeconomic status and the phenomenon can be better understood using social dominance hierarchies as a framework.