| Abstrakt: | In the last 30 years in Poland, the number of female suspects and women convicted of engaging in aggressive crime has significantly increased. At the same time Poland faced a number of socio-cultural changes, which led to changes of stereotypes and beliefs in society and probably also affected the increase of women's aggressiveness.
The goal of this PhD Thesis was to analyze the relationship between the beliefs of women committing violent crimes and their readiness for aggression. Three patterns of readiness are distinguished: emotional-impulsive, habitual-cognitive and personality-immanent.
The research used a sample of 173 women, who were detained in a prison or custody; women were then divided into two groups. The basic study group, (group A), included 96 accused or convicted of a violent crime, while the comparative group, (group B), included 77 women convicted of committing a non-violent crime. The study was conducted by the questionnaire method.
Research examined the differences between imprisoned female offenders of violent crimes and women convicted of non-violent crimes in three patterns of readiness for interpersonal aggression and particular beliefs of the respondents concerning themselves, the world, people, and time frames. Furthermore, the dissertation determined risk factors and mechanisms shaping the high intensity of individual forms of readiness for aggression of women detained for committing crimes involving violence.
The research revealed that women detained for committing crimes with the use of violence show a higher intensity of emotional-impulsive, habitual-cognitive, and personality-immanent readiness for aggression than the female perpetrators of crimes that do not bear the marks of violence. Among the cognitive variables, the strongest associated with readiness for aggression were present and future temporal orientations, the dimension of psychological masculinity, revenge and active entitlement, and self-esteem. Conducted regression analysis indicated that the most important predictors of emotional-impulsive readiness for aggression were: youth age, the high present hedonistic and a low past-positive time perspectives. The most important predictors of habitual-cognitive readiness for aggression turned out to be the
dimension of psychological masculinity, experiencing violence in childhood, and positive valuation of factors influencing the use of violence. The most important predictors of personality-immanent readiness for aggression were: experiencing violence in childhood, youth age, and the dimension of psychological masculinity.
The dissertation also presents detailed path models explaining partially the variability of each form of readiness for aggression. These models have obtained satisfactory matching indicators for empirical data.
The obtained results may be applied in the area of prophylactic, rehabilitation, and therapeutic interactions dedicated to women with high level of readiness for aggression in order to minimize the risk of taking criminal behaviors. |