Impulsiveness And Coping Behaviors In Prison Inmates

• In Event: Inmate Violence and Misconduct

Abstract

Physical violence inside prisons is a common event (Struckman-Johnson, 2000; Wolff, Blitz, Shi, Bachman, & Siegal, 2006). In this paper, participants are 200 male and 200 female prison inmates housed in Wisconsin minimum security prisons who are asked to complete an anonymous survey on “social stress, personality, and coping behavior in male inmates” and the data are quantitatively analyzed. The Threat Appraisal and Coping Theory suggests that when facing social stressors, individuals may perceive that they are powerless to change them, which may prompt “maladaptive coping” deviant behaviors. This study provides a unique analysis of predictors of increased risk for violence in prison inmates, using a variable sequence proposed by the Threat Appraisal and Coping Theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984): SOCIAL STRESSORS->POWERLESSNESS->VIOLENCE AS COPING BEHAVIOR. This paper discovers social stressors related to inmate coping behaviors. The hypothesis of this paper is that the proposed variable sequence will be significant for both male and female inmates, with higher indirect effect values for inmates high in impulsiveness and hostility.

Authors

• Salih Hakan Can, Pennsylvania State University, Schuylkill

• Durmus Alper Camlibel, University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh