Cyber-Violence: Towards a Predictive Model, Drawing upon Genetics, Psychology and Neuroscience

Abstract

The following paper outlines the latest incarnation of Owen’s (2014) evolving, meta-theoretical, Genetic-Social framework, and the intention is to illustrate the explanatory potential of the sensitizing device, in particular meta-constructs such as the biological variable (the evidence from behavioural genetics for an, at least in part, biological influence upon human behaviour), psychobiography (the unique, asocial, inherited aspects of the person such as disposition), and neuro-agency (a new term which acknowledges the influence of neurons upon human ‘free-will’), in the task of conceptualising cyber violence. In what follows, cyber violence is reconceptualised, moving the definition beyond the usual notion of gendered online violence towards a broader conception which incorporates hate trolling, cyber-terrorism, predatory online sexual ‘grooming’ and so on. It is the contention here that the synthesis ‘applied’ to cyber violence via flexible causal prediction may be of use to criminological theorists, social policy-makers and practitioners working in the field of the criminal justice in the task of constructing predictive models of cyber violence.