Embargo lifted at 9.30am AEDT on Tue 25 October 2011

US scientists have used surveys of youths from Boston, Massachusetts, to suggest a link between high fizzy soft drink consumption and violence among teens.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like a copy of the research or to speak to an expert, then please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

*The ‘Twinkie Defense’: the relationship between carbonated non-diet soft drinks and violence perpetration among Boston high school students, by Solnick & Hemenway, was published in Injury Prevention at 09.30am AEDT Tuesday 25 October 2011.

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Michael Moore is CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA)

“These findings probably tell us more about the people who drink large volumes of soft drink rather than necessarily suggesting a causal link between soft drink and anti-social behaviour. The study rely cries out for more research to understand why heavy use of soft drink may be an indicator of poor behaviour and what are the social conditions that lead to such heavy use. Such a study would also need to look at the impact of alcohol, caffeinated drinks and illicit drugs which we do know have both an indicator and a causal link.”

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Professor Mike Daube is commenting on behalf of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA). He is also Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University and Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth.

“This is an interesting report, but I would suggest an exceptional degree of caution in interpreting the findings. It shows that a lot of young people involved in aggressive behaviour drink soft drinks, but it is hard to draw any further conclusions at this stage. There would undoubtedly be great health benefits in reducing soft drink consumption in young people and the wider community.”

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Dr Karena Burke is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Health and Human Services, CQUniversity

“I find this a particularly interesting paper that, as the authors rightly state, looks at an association that is rarely considered regarding teenage aggression. The large sample size gained for the study also adds weight to their findings. A big limitation, and one acknowledged by the authors, is the lack of information regarding the dietary habits of these students – it would have been very interesting to examine their overall dietary practices – particularly given the results of a recent Australian study (Oddy et al., 2009) which found that teenagers with a western diet (higher consumption of food containing saturated fats and sugars) were much more likely to show indications of behavioural problems and symptoms that may have been indicative of a propensity for psychological disorder.

There is very little research that looks at the impact of long term consumption of drinks containing high levels of caffeine, sugar and artificial additives (e.g. preservative sodium benzoate and artificial colourings) on mental health – physically we know that high consumption is associated with obesity, diabetes and heart disease, but the jury is still out regarding the psychological implications of this level of regular consumption.

The message to take away is really everything in moderation – as humans we were not made to consume these drinks on a regular day to day basis, physiologically they can have devastating effects on our bodies in a physical sense, it’s not hard to believe that they may have similar effects on our brain chemistry in large, long term doses, especially amongst teenagers whose brains are still growing, developing and changing in response to their environments.”

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Comments collected by our friends at the UK SMC

Dr Seena Fazel is Senior Lecturer at the University of Oxford:

“As the authors themselves rightly caution, there may be other factors that they have been unable to account for that lead to both high soft drink consumption and aggression in young people, so it is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from this study on its own.

However, it does suggest that a trial of an intervention to reduce high soft drink consumption may be worth considering in high risk populations, and may lead to broader health benefits beyond reducing aggression.”

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Prof Peter Kinderman is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool:

“The causes of violence in young people are complicated and this work is presenting an overly simplistic interpretation of the role of ‘soft’ drinks. There are a large number of known risk factors that would contribute to violent behaviour that have nothing to do with the consumption of these drinks.

We know, in many areas of human behaviour that correlation does not imply causation. We also know that poor diet is associated with a range of negative health and social outcomes. This study is unsurprising. But, more importantly, it fails to address ‘third-variable issues that could explain the findings – kids exposed to different social, parental or educational backgrounds might therefore have different diets and different attitudes to aggression, without any direct causal link.

As the authors themselves say: ‘…there may be other factors, unaccounted for in our analyses, that cause both high soft drink consumption and aggression…’. That’s true, and renders this study rather limited, I’m afraid (especially because that outcome could easily have been predicted). A laboratory study of the impact of such drinks on aggression and violent behaviour is very feasible and ultimately far more informative.”

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24 hours after the spree killing by Derek Bird in Cumbria UK, the growing question among public, media and investigators appears to be “why”.  Actually the question why divides into three different questions.  Why did he do it?  Why did these particular people get shot?  Why did this happen?

The last question covers what can be viewed as an example of extreme behaviour in the sense that the behavioural act is violent and does not happen frequently. Frequency of such acts depends upon the conjunction of cognitive processing that leads to the behaviour being identified as being an option, a belief and feelings of lowered self worth (of being rejected, discounted, “not counting”), a reinforcing context that increases the sense of isolated rejection/devaluing, a stimulus or trigger event, and access to the means of enacting the option (in this case, guns).

Under continued provocation, anyone one of us may reach that conjunction. Indeed, each of us is likely to have pressure points which may impel us to violent acts that we (and those around us) may not believe possible.

Access to the means of enaction becomes the crucial point – and this is so in rage events, spree killings (like that by Derrick Bird), and even terrorism. We see more acts of road-rage and pack violence and terrorism because the tools to enact these are many and thus more available. Availability is the key concept here. Gun regulation works in the sense that the legislation reduces the access/availability of guns so fewer impulsive acts can be committed – and if this legislation targets automatic weapons then we reduce the casualty/kill total. Gun legislation does not stop people from getting guns and thus will not stop such spree killings or use of guns in crime from happening.  There is almost no where in the world where if you find the right contacts (and have ready cash) you cannot secure a gun.

So we return to motivation.

First let us present a quick summary of this latest event. Derek Bird, 52, divorced, father of two, became a grandfather four weeks ago, self-employed taxi driver, took with him a .22 calibre rifle and a shotgun. He held firearms certificates and thus lawfully possessed these guns…  In this sense his actions were premeditated.  At least once on the day before it is alleged that he said something like “will not see you again”.  Among the 12 people he shot to death was his brother, David, who was shot in or near David’s house, the family solicitor who was shot in the driveway of his house, and reportedly a close friend and taxi driver on or near a taxi rank. These appear to have been done early in the spree (before or by 10.35 AM). Those killed or wounded were shot as they went about activities in the various streets and roads he drove along (at least 38 miles). Near a hamlet called Boot he stopped his now damaged car, took a short walk through some woodland, and killed himself.  According to early statements made by the lead investigator, Detective Chief Superintendent Goulding, Derek Bird did have a 20 year old police record for minor theft, held certificates to own firearms, had no medical or mental health records, and was not on medication. Rumours and reportage suggest there may have been some family disputation, a dispute with other taxi drivers, and financial difficulties.

Interpretation/speculation

First let us look a little more at the generic ways in which an individual can commit a spree killing.

Put simply (and perhaps at times too simplistically given the complexities of neural processing, personality, situation, and environment), we all have our own internal perceptions of self worth, of being powerful and in control, as being viewed by others as if not being significant then at least equal (and thus “counting” for something).

Each of us are confirmatory in our cognitive processing – confirming that which we believe or want to believe. Some of us will over focus on those beliefs and discount contrary information. With different aetiologies (from brain damage through to enculturation) we can develop illnesses like depression or anorexia, or become cult-inclined or become violent terrorists. Each path probably depends on our personal world-view or world-construct. If we believe the world oppresses us, (rejects our equality) we can become anti-social or even terrorists. If we believe that the world obstructs us we can become frustrated and some of us can become violent. A common theme across spree-type killers is an increased or heightened sense of being devalued. For some, this even may arise through self-perception  – that confirmatory process in which the perceived evaluation of others is matched by the situation the percipient perceives he or she is in (financial stress, low value job, low value relationships).

Whether we go down any of these paths to some extent depends on our world-view (and thus also on what we call personality traits) and on the way each of us handles rejection. We all experience rejection. Many of us balance specific rejection against specific perceived ‘acceptance’ (or empowerment).We may, for example, invest more interest in personal relationships family or hobbies when we feel blocked (rejected) at work. Alternatively, we may invest more energy and empowerment/acceptance at work when we feel blocked or rejected in personal relationships. Blockage in both can lead to alienation, frustration, anger – and is one factor in the development of serial criminals (particularly killers and sex criminals). Again, remember this is from within the cognitive perception of the percipient.

With a background context and perception of being devalued, discounted, and blocked, a spree killer can then encounter a specific trigger event that often can be a significant rejection from the perspective of the could-be spree killer. Dominant events in this case often are being dismissed from work or specifically rejected by a significant person in that could-be killer’s life at that moment.

While current media and investigator attention is on the last 24 to 48 hours of Derrick Bird’s life, this need not be the case. Indeed, if the alleged “not see you again” statement is correct, then the decision to act was probably formed at least the day before the acts took place and thus the precipitating act needs to have arisen earlier. Many spree killers take some time (often due in particular to needing to gain access). While the increased stressor in Derrick’s case may be even a mix of emotions surrounding becoming a grandfather 4 weeks ago wherein family interactions can become distracted or dismissive (thus rejecting), changes in status (including inheritance expectations) can prove rasping, and even the reflection on what one has got out of life may prove unsettling and even promote angst and revive frustrations.

One probable key in the linked motivations of a spree killing are those that are committed early. The killer starts where possible with at least some of those held most responsible for causing the need to act. In Derrick Bird’s case, this would appear to be his twin brother and the family solicitor. One aspect worth checking is whether Derrick saw his brother David as being more successful or even more favoured than Derrick. Others (including the family solicitor and taxi driver friend) may have been seen as contributory (rejectors) or facilitators (presenting devaluing opinions of Derrick from Derrick’s perspective). As for those shot in the street, some may have been known (say passengers) and thus being representatives of those that rejected him and thus suitable targets, others may simply have somehow gained his attention and been classed in the “take you out as well” or even, in the last half of the spree killing journey, “take you with me”.

Somewhere in the ongoing spree killing action many perpetrators hit a devastating fact – what they are doing does not actually change their hurt or their situation. Reassertion of power by violence has transitory reward in many such cases. At that point, if they were not already on a path to suicide, they realise the futility of their act and simply wish to stop the hurting they feel. There remains a choice of way to go – by the act of others (so-called suicide by cop”) or by their own action. For some, suicide by cop may be driven by a concept of a glorious but doomed fight against the enemy (the world); for others this suggests even accepting that they are so impotent and able to control events that they even need someone else to end their existence. In the latter case, an isolated and lonely suicide is probable. There are also others whose egos (sense of self) is so great or exaggerated that they cannot permit lesser people to commit the biggest act of power – the taking of the killer’s own life – and so these select suicide.

Are these people really irrational?  This depends upon the perspective adopted. From within the mind of the killer, the actions taken are “rational” in the sense of being deliberated over, seen as logical and even necessary, and are chosen. That such thinking, perceived options, and choices differ from most of a population is probably true. We need to separate the “public” need to avoid thinking that they as individuals may not go down such paths may be behind the label “irrational”.

Could the signs be seen to prevent such events? Hindsight is of course an easy means of finding this is so. Given the turmoil and variation that happens in each of our lives, our different ways of handing pressure, our self-centred focus, prevailing laws and enculturation/socialisation that contains a mix of individual rights and live-and-let-live, and the self-protective (deceptive) behaviours that may be adopted by could-ne killers, a realistic (if publicly unpalatable) answer is probably not. Moreover, many spree killers (like suicides) can often seem more peaceful and less agitated  once the individual accepts the choice of stopping the mental/emotional/cognitive hurt by killing. They may even say farewell in some form to certain people, even gift away personally valued items.

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As details flow in about the tragedy in Finland, in the latest Science Blog, Associate Professor Robert Heath, a crisis management expert at the University of South Australia, discusses several issues related to the shooting

“When people commit an extreme act it is usually a choice between what they consider the worst hurt and least hurt. Humans have limited options in any situation, we think we have an infinite number but usually it adds up to 5 or less. Once you have learned somehow through your experience and your interpretation of that experience, that your life is painful or is going to be more painful or could become extremely painful, you start choosing the least pain.

What happens once you see your options as ‘everybody is against me, I am not powerful enough, the world is bad, I am in pain, I am very angry’, what happens is you start saying ‘if I am going to hurt then other people are going to hurt with me’. Once that sort of broad option hits your head, if you have got access to a gun or mass violence from explosives or even arson or something like that, then the chances are very strong that you will probably activate it.

Unfortunately in most of these cases there are either one or two scripts that end up almost the same way. The first script is “I am going out in a blaze of glory” and that is usually anywhere from the terrorist swing of blowing yourself up or killing yourself but it is often through suicide by cop, that is you force law enforcement authorities to eliminate you as a threat.

In this situation the chances are he was slightly on the second script which is “this will show the world I am a powerful being” and after he has done a few shootings, and it does not take more than a few minutes at times, he suddenly realises that there is not an answer with this either. At that point in time the only thing you can do is end the pain so you kill yourself.

Coming across to the Australian situation, there is tighter gun control but yes it can happen here. So what are the signs people should be looking for? Unfortunately parents, for example, tend to block out changes in their kids, partly because adolescence is not exactly smooth sailing and partly because parents are locked into their own worlds, especially if they are both working or if they have got multiple kids or kids with special needs. Any of those distracters can stop people from completely interpreting the scene.

Also this is accretional growth, that is it is slow. It is not like overnight they wake up saying ‘that is it. I am going to kill everybody’. Its an idea that percolates for a long period of time and they look for conformation that it is the best option they have got. Often this option may be what they end up doing becuase they ignore, overrule or exclude any contrary opinion. This is also how terrorist groups form or indeed any action group.

What can we look for? Shut down signs. What we are looking at is someone who starts excluding the people around them. They will dress diferently, they won’t communicate with certain groups, they become less communicative, they can often have somewhat of a blank face or are unresponsive. Even with people who were ‘mild friends’ they will start shutting them down if those friends do not have the same point of view. What happens of course, especially at school level or that age goup is that kids say ‘if you start excluding me then I will exclude you as well’ so people simple shut down and join another group.

The other thing you look for is when people start saying there is a problem. This person gave a clear signal there was a problem because he expressed an actual intent of violence on Youtube but he never expressed it in a directed way. He never said ‘I am going to shoot you John so and so’ with a directed intent to create harm. If he had, this could have allowed, in some countries, a chance for psychological review or allowed authorities to hold that person for 24 hours and that sort of thing.

The other part to all this is of course that if everybody got prosecuted, put in jail or sent to phychological evaluation for saying things like ‘I am going to kill you’ then there would be a lot of us lined up. Many of us have had that intemperate moment but later we might say ‘that was not me that was just my anger speaking’.

So it is very difficult for psychologists or indeed the authorities or even school and university authorities to actually act on what is formative rather than factual. This is part of the problem, it is also part of the problem with intelligence and looking for terrorists, because yes you can identify people by these patterns and trends but until they actually do something, legally you can’t really do much about it.

So coming back to the Australian circumstance, it is a little less likely but if you notice there are still outbursts of gang violence here and that is another sign of this exclusion/inclusion type of thing going on but it is groups rather than individuals.

It is probably more likely in Australia, that if a person is hurting over exclusions happening to them in their teenage years that we would see more suicide rather than this angst suicide where they take it out on others.”

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Robert Heath is a crisis management expert at the University of South Australia. In this entry, Robert discusses several issues related to today’s shooting at Virginia Tech in the US state of Virginia.

There are various issues that can be summed up in about five areas.

1. COULD THIS TRANSLATE TO AUSTRALIA?

Of course the answer to that is that we have less ownership and less access to weaponry (automatic and semi-automatic) but we have had some university firearm incidents.

One of the major questions being asked was did the authorities react effectively.

People forget that what happened was police were called to a double homicide and then at least one hour later a multiple homicide occurred more than a kilometre away. While it is now quite likely these are connected events, they need not connect the two incidents. The police response seems reasonable and expected.

I would also assess the university response as reasonable. They claim to have used emails and the weather alert system but we need to remember that most students and staff will not check emails as they are coming onto campus.

2. CLOSING DOWN THE CAMPUS

There were some questions about whether they should close the campus down.

This is like trying to close down a large city – with a campus of 2600 acres; there are lots of points of entry. You have to assess thing two ways – if you shut the system down and people are walking aimlessly around the campus then you may be making them vulnerable to the threat.

3. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

I’m surprised that it doesn’t happen more often given the access to firearms in the US and psychological problems that people experience.

At this point I am speculating, but what does happen is that people with specific access to arms and specific psychological issues usually hit a trigger point and this trigger point can be rejection by a partner, or would-be partner, a life failure such as failure in exams, losing a job or failure to get a job, and a perception – and this is critical – that the world has disadvantaged them. So you need A: the access, B: the motivation, and C: the psychology (eg: “I’m better than this, I’m going to show you all” etc).

This decision is either an impulse decision out of anger or it’s pre-meditated. When you have a trigger point and kill one person, it’s easier to kill more people.

4. EXPECTATIONS
I think we again need to look at expectations. Expectations can be split into three parts.

• Our expectation of having a safe society (something that politicians tend to discuss when there’s an election) is somewhat misleading. In general our society is safe. However when a serious incident happens, we expect that solutions will quickly be found. Whether this is because too much crime and mystery on films and TV create this expectation, or whether it is our wish, the reality is that while most of us will never be touched by crime or a disaster, crime and disaster happens on a daily basis.
• Can we expect a better response either in America or Australia than what we saw at Virginia Tech – the answer is probably not and this is because we over-expect personal safety in our communities and fail to understand how difficult it is to make correct decisions when you have missing or uncertain information. By and large anywhere in the western world, when a spree killing happens, the first responsibility of the response agency is to secure the area and try to ensure no further casualties (including themselves).
• For first responders, this leads to a serious question in terms of how much they intervene to prevent further casualties when they do not know whether there is more than one offender and who or what this offender looks like.

5. MANAGING THE MEDIA
This is related to managing the media in these events and dealing with the victims etc. As a society, we need to understand due process in criminal investigation, first of which is that it is usual for the law enforcement agency to inform the family of victims. When there is a multiple fatality this takes time. Second, criminal investigations means things are closed down for some time to enable forensic investigation. Just because one appears to identify the offender doesn’t mean that you can assume you have a solution. The chain of evidence becomes important in these events.

IN CONCLUSION
From a community perspective, there is always some shock and disbelief. It is quite probable that when more information comes out about the offender or offenders that colleagues and friends would say there was no sign that this person would commit such an offence, and this is because the processes are deeply cognitive and psychological. Just what caused the shootings may emerge in time but we need to understand the psychological cause and affect and point of view of the offender. In other words, one reason we do not understand is because at that point in time the human offender is not thinking and valuing elements of his or her world as the larger or normal group of people would.

If you are a scientist and wish to contribute to this Science Blog, please contact the AusSMC.
Comments received are moderated by the AusSMC and placement cannot be guaranteed.

The opinions expressed in this Science Blog are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Science Media Centre.