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Journal of Environmental Psychology 28 (2008) 327–338

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Environmental Psychology

0272-49

doi:10.1

$ Por

Grant, N

Scholar� Corr

E-m

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jep

Children’s reasoning about poverty, physical deterioration, danger, andretribution in neighborhood contexts$

Ronald O. Pitner a, Ron Avi Astor b,�

a Independent HealthCare Consulting and Market Research Firm, USAb University of Southern California, MRF Building, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0411, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Available online 12 March 2008

Keywords:

Poverty

Danger

Children

Retribution

Morality

44/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. A

016/j.jenvp.2008.03.002

tions of this study were funded through an

ational Academy of Education/Spencer Fellow

Fellowship to the first author.

esponding author. Tel.: +1818 613 3459.

ail address: rastor@usc.edu (R.A. Astor).

a b s t r a c t

This study examined children’s moral, social and personal reasoning patterns about different

neighborhood contexts. Three hundred and seventy-seven participants were selected from grades 2,

4, 6, and 8. Participants were shown 2 sets of photographs depicting the exact same houses and

neighborhoods. One photograph displayed higher levels of physical incivilities and the other displayed

higher levels of territoriality and place attachments. The vast majority of participants made strong social

attributions of both danger and poverty towards physical contexts, depending on the level of incivilities

depicted in the photographs. Moreover, an overwhelming majority gave justifications that fell into the

moral domain. For most of the participants, the immorality of retribution overrode the negative

attributions surrounding context. However, for those that approved of retribution behaviors, the

physical setting appeared to influence their judgments. The findings suggest that the concept of extreme

poverty (as represented by physical incivilities) and danger are fused at the cognitive level through

linked interpretations of the same environmental cues.

& 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Violence occurs in all segments of American society and in allsocio-economic contexts. However, from an epidemiologicalperspective, the strong associations between high rates of inner-city poverty and high rates of childhood aggression are perhapsone of the most consistent findings in social science research(American Psychological Association, 1993; Case, 2004; Farrington& Loeber, 2000; Gauthier, 2003; Jackson, 2003; Leadbeater,Hoglund, & Woods, 2003; Raver & Spagnola, 2003; Serbin & Karp,2004). For the past 30 years, architects, criminologists, and urbanplanners have gathered empirical evidence suggesting that themost physically deteriorated urban neighborhoods also tend to beboth our society’s poorest and most dangerous settings (e.g.,Caughy, O’Campo, & Muntaner, 2003; Newman, 1973; Perkins,Meeks, & Taylor, 1992; Skogan, 1976; Taylor, 1997, 1999). Giventhis, it is reasonable to suggest that neighborhoods with highlevels of physical incivilities serve as implicit markers for bothpoverty and danger. As such, examining how children and youthraised in these deteriorated neighborhoods make sense of their

ll rights reserved.

NIMH Social Work Center

ship, and a Fulbright Senior

environments could be an important first step in elucidating therole that the physical context plays in their reasoning aboutpoverty and violence. Nevertheless, children and youth’s under-standings of the relationship between the physical deteriorationof neighborhoods, poverty, and perceived community danger haverarely been examined in empirical studies (for an exception thatincludes youths views of poor neighborhoods see Weinger, 1998).

We suspect that this gap stems from the current definitions ofchildhood poverty, which are often narrowly operationalized inmany studies as ‘‘family income.’’ In this study we contend thatone important aspect of children and youth’s conceptions of ‘‘urbanpoverty’’ is associated with the physical decay of neighborhoods.By conceptualizing poverty in this manner, we are better able toexplore the ways children and youth identify and think about thephysical decay of neighborhoods. For example, when describingsevere urban and inner-city poverty the mass media commonlydisplays extreme images of abandoned houses, uncollected trash,graffiti, crack or methadone houses, empty lots filled withabandoned cars, dilapidated storefronts, and forsaken publichousing units. How children and youth perceive and attributemeaning to these types of images may influence their views onother social transactions that occur in those same neighborhoods.In neighborhoods with extremely high levels of physical incivi-lities, we believe it is likely that children and youth makeattributions about potential danger, the quality of schools, and thenature of relationships between members of those communities.

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Nevertheless, rather than assess how they conceptualize andreason about poverty, most studies exploring the effects ofchildhood poverty on children and youth use family income asthe primary independent variable (see Eron, Gentry, & Schlegel,1994; Farrington & Loeber, 2000; Gauthier, 2003; Guerra,Huesmann, Tolan, Van Acker, & Eron, 1995; Metropolitan LifeInsurance Company & Harris Poll (1993–1994); Molidor, 1996;Serbin & Karp, 2004). In this study we are interested in exploringhow children and youth raised in environments with high levels ofphysical incivilities think about neighborhood decay as a form ofpoverty, and especially in how these variables relate to their senseof safety and potential danger.

Children and youths’ belief that specific contexts are poten-tially dangerous could influence their willingness to act in apreemptive capacity (i.e., as self defense) or perceive provocation/danger with minimal or no behavioral cues (e.g., Astor, Meyer, &Behre, 1999). Social information processing researchers have usedthe term ‘‘hostile attribution’’ to refer to a bias that aggressivechildren and youth display when evaluating violent acts (e.g.,Crick, Grotpeter, & Bigbee, 2002; Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990). Wecontend that this ‘‘bias’’ may not be directed at behaviors alone.For some children and youth, a neighborhood with a high level ofphysical incivilities may represent a context fraught with hostileattributions. Thus, aggressive children and youth may have adifferent theory of ‘‘place’’ that contributes to their perceptions ofprovocation, and in turn, allow for more retribution. This patternmay be stronger in areas that have high levels of incivilities(including unmonitored/unsupervised areas within school build-ings). If some groups of children interpret these contexts aspotentially provocative and dangerous, they may be more likely toapprove of retribution in response to slight transgressions in thosecontexts. In this study, we hypothesize that deteriorated physicalenvironments will have an additive effect on children’s attribu-tions of harm. Thus, it is expected that aggressive children will bemore approving of violence that occurs in settings that have highlevels of physical incivilities and less approving in settings thathave a higher level of territoriality and place attachment.

1.1. Theoretical background: Harm informational assumptions,

moral reasoning, and physical contexts

There is currently a large body of social-cognitive domainresearch that supports the proposition that children and youthreason about socially complex issues using three domains ofreasoning: moral, social conventional, and personal (Astor, 1994,1998; Astor & Behre, 1997; Behre, 1998; Pitner, Astor, Benbenishty,Haj-Yahia, & Zeira, 2003a, 2003b, Smetana, 1985; Tisak & Turiel,1988; Turiel, 1983, 1994, 1998; Wainryb, 1991). Moral reasoningpertains to judgments about harm, justice, and fairness; socialconventional reasoning focuses on social norms, rules, laws andconsensus; personal reasoning pertains to judgments aboutpragmatic or personal concerns. More recently, social-cognitivedomain researchers have begun to take into account the role thatthe social and physical context plays in children and youths’evaluations of violence (e.g., Astor & Meyer, 2001; Astor et al.,1999; Behre, Astor, & Meyer, 2001; Meyer, Astor, & Behre, 2002;Meyer, 2000; Pitner et al., 2003a, 2003b).

The concepts of poverty, neighborhood physical incivilities,and violence also carry potential moral, social/organizational, andpersonal meanings. Children and youth may make moral, socialconventional, or personal attributions about neighborhood in-civilities that influence how they judge violent behaviors thatoccur in those settings. Although there appears to be an implicitassociation between poverty, potential danger, and environmentswith high levels of physical incivilities, there is no empirical

evidence that these associations exist in children and youths’thinking patterns. Thus, it is not empirically clear if children andyouth being raised in such environments ascribe moral, social, orpersonal meanings to physically deteriorated urban environments.

Research in urban planning, architecture, social psychology,environmental psychology, criminology and public health hasmaintained that the physical environment can profoundly affectadults and children’s physical and mental health (e.g., Branting-ham & Brantingham, 1981; Eck & Weisburd, 1995; Gifford &Lacombe, 2006; Perkins, Florin, Rich, Wandersman, & Chavis,1990; Perkins et al., 1992; Skogan, 1976; Taylor, 1997; White,1990). This literature, however, has not examined whether theseenvironments influence an individual’s thinking patterns aboutharm. Ample evidence suggests that environments with highlevels of incivilities lack place attachments and social control, andtend to be violence prone (Astor et al., 1999; Astor, Benbenishty, &Meyer, 2004; Bechtel & Churchman, 2002; Brown, Perkins, &Brown, 2003; Colquhoun, 2004; Day, 1994; Goldstein, 1994;Greenberg, Rohe, & Williams, 1982; Newman & Franck, 1980;Perkins et al., 1992; Proshansky, Ittelson, & Rivlin, 1970; Taylor,2002). The urban planning literature characterizes these areas aslocations that promote avoidance and fear because the physicalcues nested in the deterioration are also interpreted as potentiallydangerous and lack communal care (e.g., Brown, Perkins, & Brown,2004; Felonneau, 2004; Harris & Brown, 1996; Perkins et al., 1992;Perkins, Wandersman, Rich, & Taylor, 1993; Robin, Matheau-Police, & Couty, 2007). Would these physical cues affect children’smoral, social conventional, and personal reasoning about poten-tial harm? We predict that children and youth will haveassumptions about the potential immorality that surroundslocations with high levels of physical incivilities. These assump-tions, we contend, will involve the belief that unprovoked acts ofpsychological and physical harm are more likely to occur in thoseenvironments. Thus, we hypothesize that children will make morehostile attributions about physically deteriorated areas, and willbe more likely to believe that violence occurs in those areas.

This inquiry examines several related hypotheses. (1) Respon-dents will associate neighborhood physical incivilities withpoverty, and will make more harm attributions about thesecontexts. (2) Respondents will focus on neighborhood care andmonitoring when describing safe neighborhoods. (3) Respondents’use of moral, social conventional, and personal justifications willbe contingent upon whether or not they are making judgmentsabout settings that have high levels of physical incivilities(4) Respondents will be influenced by the setting in whichviolence occurs, and thus, will be more approving of violence inthe physically deteriorated setting. We predict that this would beparticularly true for aggressive respondents. (5) The majority ofrespondents will feel that violent retribution would be worse if itoccurred in a neighborhood that has high levels of physicalincivilities.

Would different groups of children and youth (male/female,aggressive/non-aggressive, children at different ages) perceivephysical incivilities, poverty, and danger in different ways?Practice and research literatures are inconclusive about the waysthese different groups may have selective ways of responding tothese cues. Hence, this study sought to examine these issues.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

The students that participated in this study were selected fromfive elementary schools (N ¼ 222) and two middle schools(N ¼ 155) located in two urban cities within a large Midwest,

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metropolitan area (total N for this study ¼ 377). The seven schoolswere part of a larger NIMH project that examined various aspectsof school violence. The schools and surrounding neighborhoodswere purposefully selected because they had very high rates ofschool and community violence, high ratios of student/familypoverty, and high levels of neighborhood physical incivilities(tabulated from census tract data, local police data, observationalmethods and school records). For example, the average number ofvisibly abandoned buildings was 172 in the immediate square-mile radius surrounding the schools, with a range of 98–371 foreach school (compiled by the researchers on a street-by-streetbasis). There were also a total of 79 murders, 325 rapes, 1508robberies, and 3579 arrests for aggravated assault/battery in theneighborhoods surrounding the schools during the 3 yearspreceding the student interviews.

The student participants were selected from grades 2 (N ¼ 82),4 (N ¼ 89), 6 (N ¼ 105), and 8 (N ¼ 101). There were 251 (67%)male participants and 126 (33%) female participants. Approxi-mately 82% of the sample of students was receiving free orreduced fee lunch through the school (see Table 1 for a completesummary). Census data showed that over 90 percent of theresidents living in the school catchment areas were officiallybelow the federal poverty line.

Since the perception of dangerous contexts and retribution wasone area of exploration, it was important to know if the studentswe were interviewing had histories of aggression or nonaggres-sion. Hence teacher and staff ratings of aggression were used as ameans to select our aggressive and non-aggressive studentgroups. Using a widely used nomination method (Eron, 1987),teachers and key school staff members were asked to identifystudents that exhibited frequent and severe aggressive behaviors,as well as students that had no known history of aggression atschool. The nominated students with the highest levels ofaggression constituted the ‘‘aggressive group’’ within each grade,whereas those that had no history of aggression constituted the‘‘non-aggressive group.’’ The aggressive group was paired with thenon-aggressive group for age/grade, school, race, and gender. This

Table 1Summary characteristics of gender, grade, and aggression level.

Grade Aggressive Non-aggressive N

M (N) F (N) M (N) F (N)

2nd 24 15 29 14 82 (21.8%)

4th 27 13 33 16 89 (23.6%)

6th 33 18 35 19 105 (27.9%)

8th 31 13 39 18 101 (27.0%)

115 59 136 67 377

Fig. 1. Example of a decayed house (a) and a com

assured that we would have an equal proportion of aggressive andnon-aggressive respondents in each group. Moreover, the aggres-sive group was selected from the same schools and classrooms asthe non-aggressive group. This design was developed to maintainthe ecological integrity of the two groups. The advantage of thismethod was that the aggressive group included only the most

aggressive children and youth and the comparison group includedonly the least aggressive children and youth from the same social-environmental settings. The students and interviewers were blindto the status of the students in each group and the specifictheoretical hypotheses of the study.

Overall, 46.8% of the females and 45.8% of the males werecategorized into the aggressive group. Moreover, there was a fairlyproportional distribution of aggressive and non-aggressive chil-dren within each grade. Children and youth falling into theaggressive group represented 47.6% of 2nd graders, 44.9% of 4thgraders, 48.6% of 6th graders, and 43.6% of 8th graders.

2.2. Instruments and procedure

This between subject research design is focused on threeindependent variables (i.e., gender, grade, and level of aggression)and four outcome variables (i.e., poverty recognition, attributionsof dangerous setting, safe house recognition, and judgments ofviolence). In order to examine this, three sets of neighborhoodphotographs were used for the interviews (six photographs alltogether). The original three photographs depicted high levels ofphysical incivilities, including extremely deteriorated homes,neglected streets, and urban decay (which were characteristicssimilar to those of the surrounding areas of our participatingschools). The buildings and neighborhoods in each photographwere digitally restored. Thus, we had two photographs of thesame building structure and surrounding neighborhood: one of aphysically deteriorated setting and another in a restored neigh-borhood without physical decay. In doing this, our neighborhoodphotographs varied only on the variables of physical incivilities vs.territoriality and place attachment. Figs. 1 and 2 representexamples of two sets of photographs used in the study. Thephotographs only contained images of buildings and neighbor-hoods; there were no humans or animals depicted in any of them.This allowed for a more direct examination of attributions aboutdanger and/or poverty surrounding the buildings and physicalstructures.

Table 2 describes the dependent measures assessed for allquestions related to the photographs. As can be seen, these weredivided into four main categories: poverty recognition, attributionof dangerous setting, safe house recognition, and judgments ofviolence. We asked respondents a series of open-ended andstructured social-cognitive domain questions aimed at exploring

puter-enhanced photo of the same house (b).

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Fig. 2. Example of a decayed neighborhood (a) and a computer-enhanced photo of the same neighborhood (b).

Table 2Questions assessing dependent measures for each photograph.

Poverty

recognition

Attributions of dangerous setting Safe house recognition Judgments of violence

Photograph 1 Photograph 1 Photograph 2 Photograph 3

1. Which

house is

in a poor

area?

2. Some children say they are scared to

walk by one of these houses. They think

that one of the houses might be more

dangerous. Which one these houses do

you think they were talking about?

4. Bob’s mom is tired of living in a dangerous

neighborhood. She wants to move to a safe

neighborhood where her child can play outside

and not worry about getting hurt by other

people. If she got to pick one of these two

neighborhoods, which one do you think she

would pick to move to?

6. Jim is walking on the sidewalk and sees

another boy sitting on these steps. Suddenly,

the boy starts yelling out to Jim, ‘‘you’re ugly

and stupid, your mama is ugly and stupid, and

your whole family is ugly and stupid.’’ After

Jim heard those names, he grabbed the boy and

punched him in the face many times. The boy

had a broken nose and it was bleeding a lot

3. Why? 5. Why? 6a. Was it okay or not for Jim to hit the other

child?

7. Why?

8. Would retribution be okay or not in the

‘‘other’’ setting?

9. Why?

10. Which setting (deteriorated or non-

deteriorated) would this be worse to happen

in?

11. Why?

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their social attributions towards settings that have physicalincivilities and those that have greater signs of social control.The first two questions involved a photograph of the same house,in both its deteriorated and non-deteriorated form (Fig. 1).

2.2.1. Poverty recognition question

Students were first shown both photographs simultaneouslyand asked: Which one of these houses do you think is in a poor area?

This question was coded binomially.

2.2.2. Attribution of dangerous setting question

The second question used the same set of photographs. For thisquestion, students were presented with the following scenario:Some children say they are scared to walk by one of these houses.

They think that one of these houses might be more dangerous. Which

one of these houses do you think they were talking about? Again, thisquestion was coded binomially. After they picked a house theywere asked, why do you think it was this house? This question wasdesigned, in part, to examine whether the cues that suggest that aplace is poor are the same cues that evoke attributions of danger.Table 3 defines the categories used for all of the justificationscoded in this study. As can be seen, there were five major codingcategories: Moral, social conventional, personal, descriptive, andalternative. Moral justifications were divided into five subcate-gories. Moral-environment referred to the physical welfare of an

individual being endangered by the physical structure in theenvironment; moral-person referred to the physical welfare of anindividual being endangered by another person in the environ-ment; moral-psychological referred to the psychological welfareof an individual being endangered by a person, or by the physicalstructure; moral-general referred to the welfare of an individualbeing endangered, but the source of this endangerment is unclear;and moral-care referred to a general lack of care by or aboutpeople, institutions, or places. Social conventional justificationsreferred to social order, norms, rules, and/or authority. Personaljustifications referred to individual preferences. We also codedtwo other categories that were commonly referred to byrespondents. Descriptive justifications were general referencesto the physical appearance of a structure. Justifications that fellinto the ‘‘alternative’’ category were all in reference to Photograph3 (see Table 2). These types of justifications referred to alternativeactions that should have been taken by the people in the scenario.Examples of each of these categories are given in Table 3. Ingeneral, these categories represent an elaboration of the cate-gories described in Astor (1994, 1998).

2.2.3. Safe house recognition question

For the third question (see Fig. 2), students were shown asecond set of photographs (one depicting neighborhood physical

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Table 3Justification coding categories.

Justification category Justification type Justification definition and example

Moral Environmenty Physical welfare of an individual is endangered by the physical structure in the environment (e.g., this house

is dangerous because if someone one walked by it, the whole house could collapse on them and hurt them,

or they could hurt themselves on the debris around the house)

Persony Physical welfare of an individual is endangered by another person in the environment (e.g., kids would be

scared to walk by that house because they might think that someone will come out and shoot them, or that

gangs hang out in those areas and that they may try to beat them up)

Psychologicaly Psychological welfare of an individual is endangered by a person in the environment or by the physical

structure in the environment (e.g., this house makes kids ‘‘scared’’ because it looks haunted; if he calls you

names you will be sad)

Generaly Welfare of an individual is endangered, but unclear whether this endangerment is physical or psychological

or whether the source of endangerment is the physical structure or another person (e.g., bad things will

happen to people in that neighborhood; it would just be dangerous for a kid to walk by that house)

Carey General lack of care by or about people, institutions or places (e.g., that one is poor because people burn

down houses in poor areas because they don’t care about them; this house is dangerous because no one tries

to clean it up)

Social conventionaly References to social order, norms, rules, authority (e.g., this house is in a good neighborhood, so neighbors

can watch what is happening; they cannot do that in this bad neighborhood)

Personaly References to individual preferences (e.g., I don’t like bad areas; he can hit him if he wants to)

Descriptivey General reference to the physical appearance of the structure (e.g., that house is burnt, broken down, and

just looks bad)

Alternativey In a ‘‘judgment of violence’’ scenario, this referred to an alternative action to hitting (e.g., Jim shouldn’t have

hit the boy in the nose; he should have just walked away; he should have ignored him—words don’t hurt;

Jim just should have told an adult)

R.O. Pitner, R.A. Astor / Journal of Environmental Psychology 28 (2008) 327–338 331

incivilities and one depicting signs of territoriality. The scenariowent as follows:

Bob’s mom is tired of living in a dangerous neighborhood. Shewants to move to a safe neighborhood where her child can playoutside and not worry about getting hurt by other people. Ifshe got to pick one of these two neighborhoods, which one doyou think she would pick to move to? Why?

As was the case in the previous questions, the first questionwas coded binomially, and the second one was coded using thejustification categories in Table 3. These questions were designedto examine what attributes children and youth make aboutneighborhoods that have high levels of physical incivilities andthose that do not. Based on the urban education literature, weassumed children and youth would use cues of restoration andneighborhood care as proxies for higher neighborhood safety.Whereas, the first three questions and the first set of photographsasked about cues surrounding danger and poverty, this set ofquestions asked about neighborhood cues regarding safety, andserved as a reliability and validity check for the first set ofphotographs.

The first two sets of photographs and questions were designedto explore pre-existing beliefs children and youth might haveabout neighborhood poverty, decay, restoration, danger andsafety. A slightly different procedure was used for the remainingquestions.

2.2.4. Judgment of violence questions

The goal of these sets of questions was to examine whether ornot children and youth incorporated pre-existing beliefs aboutneighborhood contextual cues in their judgments and reasoningwhen presented with behavioral provocation and retributionscenarios. Thus, a third set of photographs was used for thesequestions. Rather than show both photographs simultaneously, as

was done in the prior photographs, respondents were randomlyassigned to be shown either a photograph depicting a neighbor-hood physical incivilities or one depicting signs of neighborhoodterritoriality. Both photographs were of the same house andneighborhood. All respondents were read the following provoca-tion/retribution scenario, which was a variation of a scenariopresented in prior social-cognitive domain studies on retribution(note, this scenario was very similar to the one used by Astor,1994; Astor & Behre, 1997; Pitner et al., 2003a, 2003b):

Jim is walking on the sidewalk and sees another boy sitting onthese steps. Suddenly the boy starts yelling out to Jim: ‘you’reugly and stupid, your mama is ugly and stupid, and your wholefamily is ugly and stupid.’’ After Jim heard those names, hegrabbed the boy and punched him in the face many times. Theboy had a broken nose and it was bleeding a lot.

The photograph of the neighborhood was held up while thescenario was read. After hearing the scenario, respondents wereasked to make judgments about whether or not they believed itwas okay for Jim to hit the other child, and to give justifications fortheir judgments. The first part of this question was codedbinomially, whereas the second part was coded using thejustification categories in Table 3. This set of questions wasdesigned to examine whether or not the physical context affectedrespondents’ judgments and reasoning about violence. As men-tioned, each child was randomly assigned to only one photographfor the first two questions. This randomized between subjectdesign gives a better measure regarding the extent to which thephysical context influenced the judgment for different groups ofchildren and youth.

After respondents answered these two questions, they wereshown the opposite photograph (either depicting neighborhoodphysical incivilities or territoriality) and asked if they thought theretribution would be justified or not if it occurred in the alternate

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neighborhood. They were also asked to explain why they believedthis. Like in the previous sets of questions, the first part of thisquestion was coded binomially and the second part was codedusing the justification categories in Table 3. For the final set ofquestions both photographs were held up simultaneously andrespondents were asked to make a judgment about which settingit would be worse for this provocation/retribution scenario tooccur in. This was coded categorically using the categories ofneighborhood physical incivilities, neighborhood territoriality, orthe same. Respondents were also asked to explain why they madethis choice. This question was coded using the justificationcategories in Table 3. This set of questions was designed to seeif respondents’ thinking patterns were different when they haddirect comparisons between two opposite neighborhoods.

2.3. Analyses

Each respondent’s individual interview was tape-recorded,transcribed, and coded. As mentioned, the justification codingcategories are described in Table 3. Respondents’ judgments andjustifications were analyzed utilizing coding schemes developedand used in prior studies (Astor, 1994; Astor and Behre, 1997;Astor et al., 1999). In this study, two independent raters coded thetranscripts. We examined 25% of the same transcripts that eachinterviewer had coded independently in order to compare themon their level of agreement. Inter-rater agreement of independentcoders using the justification coding system has ranged from 82%to 100% in previous studies. In this study, inter-rater agreementwas 100% for judgments, 90% for domain use, and 85% for specificjustification categories. A third independent rater was used tocode the cases where there was less than a 100% agreementbetween the other two raters. In such cases, we used the codingsthat were agreed upon by the third rater and one of the otherraters, Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used inanalyzing and interpreting the data. The study design was createdwith the goals of conducting nonparametric statistics on somequestions, multivariate analyses to answer other questions, andqualitative analyses with the more open-ended interview data.

3. Results

As mentioned, Table 2 describes the dependent measuresassessed for all questions related to the photographs, which weredivided into four main categories: poverty recognition, attributionof dangerous setting, safe house recognition, and judgments ofviolence. The results follow these four categories. Moreover, thefindings were coded using the justification categories in Table 3.

3.1. Poverty recognition and attribution of dangerous setting

Approximately 98% (N ¼ 370) of respondents identified thephotograph of the house depicting neighborhood incivilities as theone that was more likely to be in a poor area, and 96.5% (N ¼ 361)believed that this was a setting that children would think isdangerous and scary. These results confirm our first hypothesisthat respondents would not only associate neighborhood physicalincivilities with community poverty, but would also make morehostile attributions about this setting. Respondents gave variousreasons for why they felt that the house in the physicallydeteriorated setting would be the most dangerous, although themajority (79.9%) of these reason fell into the moral domain.Approximately forty-eight percent gave moral-person justifica-tions (e.g., kids would be scared to walk by that house becausethey might think that someone will come out and shoot them),

15.0% gave moral-psychological (e.g., that house is haunted and itmakes kids scared), 11.4% gave moral-environment justifications(e.g., that house may collapse and hurt someone), 4.2% gavemoral-general justifications (e.g., bad things happen to people inthat neighborhood), and 1.7% gave moral-care justifications (e.g.,that one is dangerous because no one seems to care about thatarea).

A common denominator for all of these justifications was thatrespondents made moral attributions about the setting basedsolely on its physical appearance. Moreover, the physical cues thattriggered these attributions appeared to be the same cues thatsignify that this house was in an impoverished area.

3.2. Safe house recognition: Children and youths’ association

between settings with signs of territoriality and perceptions of safety

Respondents were shown a second set of photographsdepicting identical neighborhoods, except one neighborhood hadsigns of territoriality while the other had signs of physicalincivilities. They were then asked which neighborhood would bethe safest to move to. This question served as a reliability checkfor the ‘‘Attribution of Dangerous Setting’’ question (see Table 2).However, we were also interested in examining if the reasoningbehind safety and neighborhood territoriality inversely mirroredthe reasoning about neighborhood incivilities. Approximately 99%(N ¼ 374) of respondents believed that the family would be saferif they moved to the neighborhood that depicted signs ofterritoriality. Again, the justifications given varied widely. How-ever, 77.0% of respondents gave descriptive-type justifications(e.g., it looked better and was more aesthetically pleasant than thedeteriorated neighborhood), and 53.5% gave justifications that fellinto the moral domain. Of these moral justifications, 19.3% gavemoral-environment justifications, 15.8% gave moral-person justi-fications, 8.8% gave moral-care justifications, 5.1% gave moral-general justifications, and 4.5% gave moral-psychological justifi-cations. It is important to note that respondents gave many moremoral justifications when they responded to questions regardingthe ‘‘attributions of dangerous setting’’ and gave many morejustifications related to descriptions of the setting when theyresponded to this question regarding ‘‘safe house recognition.’’

As was the case earlier, a common denominator for all of thesejustifications was that respondents made moral attributions aboutthe neighborhood based primarily on its physical appearance. Wehypothesized that respondents would select the neighborhoodthat had signs of territoriality on beliefs that there was a higherlevel of neighborhood care and monitoring. A proportion ofrespondents did use this type of justification. However, respon-dents’ judgments appeared to be overwhelmingly influenced bythe fact that this neighborhood simply was more aestheticallypleasing.

3.3. Judgments of violence: Embedding behavior into the context

The findings presented so far indicate that children and youthmake more moral attributions about harm when viewingphotographs of neighborhood incivilities. Would these sameattributions toward location differentially affect how they judgeand reason about retribution that occurs in both of these areas? Ascan be seen in Table 2, a third set of photographs were used toexamine this issue.

3.3.1. Behavior embedded into settings depicting neighborhood

incivilities and neighborhood territoriality

3.3.1.1. Hitting for name calling. For the majority of respondents,the physical context did not play a role in their judgments of

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retribution. Approximately 87% (N ¼ 324) of respondents con-demned retribution in both settings. For these respondents,hitting was perceived to be wrong irrespective of the physicalcontext. However, it was possible that the context played amore prominent role in the judgments of those respondentsthat approved of violence. Thus, although this was a smallerpercentage of the respondents, this issue was important toexamine. The analyses suggest that the context played a rolein the judgments of those that approved of retribution. Ofthose that approved of retribution for name calling, 46.8%(N ¼ 22) approved of it in both settings, 34.0% (N ¼ 16) approvedof it in only the setting with poor physical conditions, and 19.2%(N ¼ 9) approved of it in only the setting with good physicalconditions.

It was also important to examine whether the contextinfluenced respondents’ justifications for approving of violence.When respondents approved of retribution in both contexts, theywere much more likely to give moral justifications for theirjudgments (approximately 91% gave moral justifications). And, anoverwhelming majority of these justifications pertained toretribution. For example, many respondents felt that the childthat was calling names did not have a reason to talk about theother child and his family. Thus, the other child was justified inhitting. Respondents used this type of reasoning for bothneighborhood settings. This is highlighted in the following quoteby a 6th grader: ‘‘it’s okay becauseyit don’t matter where youatyit just depends if he says something bad enough to you.’’ Forthe respondents that approved of retribution in both contexts,

Table 4Summary of logistic regression analyses.

Dependent variable Independent variables

Model 1

Approval of retribution

Gender

Aggression level

Grade

2nd grade

4th grade

6th grade

Model 2

Settings with signs of territoriality selected

Gender

Aggression level

Grade

2nd grade

4th grade

6th grade

Model 3

Settings with physical incivilities selected

Gender

Aggression level

Grade

2nd grade

4th grade

6th grade

Model 4

Both settings selected

Gender

Aggression level

Grade

2nd grade

4th grade

6th grade

Note: Model 1, w2 (5, 373) ¼ 11.58*; Model 2, w2 (5, 377) ¼ 6.09, n.s.; Model 3, w2 (5, 37

Comparison groups are males, aggressive respondents, and 8th graders. Nagelkerke R2 is

the coefficient from 1. A coefficient greater than 1 indicates an increase in the odds for a

decrease in the odds for a unit change.

saying bad things about another person’s family members wasenough of an offense to justify violence.

A smaller proportion of respondents approved of retribution inonly one context. The majority of their justifications were also inregards to retribution (66.7% for approval in the context depictingterritoriality and 37.5% for approval in the context depictingphysical incivilities). However, unlike respondents that approvedof retribution in both contexts, these respondents gave a variety ofjustifications, depending on which context they condemned orcondoned violence. For instance, when respondents approvedof retribution in only the physically deteriorated setting, 37.5%used social conventional reasoning. Respondents either believedthat residents would be monitoring the neighborhood that hadsigns of territoriality, or that no one would be monitoring the onethat had signs of physical incivilities. Moreover, 31.5% ofrespondents believed that the appropriate response to namecalling should be to ignore the person, or to walk away.

It was less common for respondents to approve of retributionin the non-deteriorated setting and condemn it in the deterioratedsetting. When this occurred, 33.3% of respondents condemnedretribution in the deteriorated setting because they believed thatthe ‘‘name caller’’ in that setting was a dangerous person.Approximately 33% of respondents also condemned retributionbecause they felt that the appropriate response was to ignore thename caller and walk away.

A logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine theeffects of gender, grade, and aggression level on respondents’approval of retribution. This is illustrated as Model 1 in Table 4.

Beta Exponentiated beta Nagelkerke R2 Wald w2

.06 11.58*

�.54 1.72 1.82

�.89* 2.44 6.07**

2.97

�.33 .72 .45

�.92 .40 2.79

�.14 .87 .10

.03 6.09

�.58 .56 3.16

.05 1.05 .03

2.50

�.25 .78 .39

�.66 .52 2.50

�.22 .80 .36

.05 14.53***

.19 1.20 .64

�.31 .74 2.00

11.41**

.91** 2.49 7.98**

.69I 1.99 5.08*

.13 1.13 .20

.10 23.66***

�.01 .99 .00

.28 1.32 .93

17.64***

�1.90*** .15 11.49***

�1.12** .32 7.19**

�.09 .91 .08

7) ¼ 14.53**; Model 4, w2 (5, 377) ¼ 23.66***; *po.05, **po.01, ***po.001.

the R2 for the model. The exponentiated logistic coefficient shows the difference of

unit change in the independent variable, while a coefficient less than 1 indicates a

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Table 5Percentage of respondents identifying specific context as the worst place for

violence.

It is worse in the setting

depicting neighborhood

territoriality

It is worse in the setting

depicting neighborhood

incivilities

It is the same

in both

contexts

2nd Graders

16.7% (N ¼ 13) 78.2% (N ¼ 61) 5.1% (N ¼ 4)

4th Graders

12.3% (N ¼ 10) 76.5% (N ¼ 62) 11.1% (N ¼ 9)

6th Graders

16.7% (N ¼ 17) 58.8% (N ¼ 60) 24.5% (N ¼ 25)

8th Graders

20.0% (N ¼ 20) 54.0% (N ¼ 54) 26.0% (N ¼ 26)

R.O. Pitner, R.A. Astor / Journal of Environmental Psychology 28 (2008) 327–338334

Overall, the model suggests that gender, grade, and aggression levelwere good predictors of respondents’ approval of retribution, w2 (5,373) ¼ 11.58, po.05. There were no significant interactions;however, there was a main effect for aggression level.1 Consistentwith previous research, aggressive respondents were more likely toapprove of retribution than were non-aggressive respondents.There were no significant effects for grade level or gender. Pairwisechi-square analyses were conducted to determine whether aggres-sive and non-aggressive respondents’ approval of retribution wasdifferentially influenced by the context. There were significantdifferences between aggressive and non-aggressive respondents intheir approval of retribution in ‘‘the setting depicting only physicalincivilities,’’ w2

¼ (1, N ¼ 16) ¼ 3.43, p ¼ .05; in their approval in‘‘the setting depicting only territoriality,’’ w2

¼ (1, N ¼ 9) ¼ 3.86,po.05; and a marginal difference when they approved ofretribution in both settings, w2

¼ (1, N ¼ 22) ¼ 2.87, p ¼ .07. Thus,contrary to our hypothesis, it appeared that aggressive respondentsapproved of retribution much more than did non-aggressiverespondents, irrespective of the context.

3.3.2. In which context would retribution be worse?

These questions also involved the third set of photographs (seeTable 2). Respondents were asked where they thought it would beworse for retribution to occur: In the setting depicting neighbor-hood incivilities, in the setting depicting neighborhood territori-ality, or if it would be the same in both contexts. Overall, 66.9% ofrespondents believed that violence would be worse in thedeteriorated setting, 16.7% believed that it would be the same ineither context, and 16.4% believed that it would be worse in thenon-deteriorated context. Table 5 shows the percentage ofrespondents that identified these contexts, broken down by grade.As can be seen, there were grade level differences in theresponses. The descriptive data presented in Table 5 suggeststhat older respondents were more likely than younger ones tobelieve that approval of retribution would be the same in bothneighborhoods. Also, younger respondents appeared to think thatit is worse for retribution to occur in neighborhoods that havesigns of physical incivilities. A series of logistic regressions wereconducted to determine how gender, grade, and aggression levelwere associated with respondents’ judgments about which settingis worse for violence to occur. This information is presented inTable 4 as Models 2, 3, and 4.

In Model 2, the selection of the setting depicting neighborhoodterritoriality was used as the dependent measure. Overall,respondents’ judgment that it is worse for violence to occur in

1 In this study, the interaction terms were removed from the models if they

were not significant.

this setting did not vary by gender, grade, or aggression level,w2¼ (5, N ¼ 377) ¼ 6.09, n.s. Also, there were no significant

interactions. Model 3 used the selection of the setting depictingneighborhood incivilities as the dependent measure. This modelwas a strong predictor of respondents’ judgment that it wasworse for violence to occur in settings with physical incivilities,w2¼ (5, N ¼ 377) ¼ 14.53, po.01. There was also a main effect for

grade level, w2¼ (3, N ¼ 377) ¼ 11.41, po.01. Both 2nd and 4th

graders were more likely than 8th graders to believe that it isworse for violence to occur in the deteriorated setting. There wereno significant differences between 6th and 8th graders. Moreover,there were no effects for gender and aggression level, nor werethere any significant interactions.

The final logistic model used respondents’ judgment thatviolence is the same in both contexts as the dependentmeasure. This model was a very strong predictor of respondents’judgment that violence was the same in both contexts,w2¼ (5, N ¼ 377) ¼ 23.66, po.001. As was the case with

the second model, there was a main effect for grade level,w2¼ (3, N ¼ 377) ¼ 17.64, po.001. Second and fourth graders

were significantly less likely than 8th graders to judge thatviolence would be the same in both contexts. Sixth graders, again,did not differ from 8th graders. There was also no effect for genderand aggression level, nor were there any significant interactions.

3.3.2.1. Settings with physical incivilities are the worst place for

violence to occur. It was also important to examine the types ofjustifications respondents gave when they selected the differentcontexts. Table 6 presents the types of justification respondentsused when making their selection. Overall, a higher percentage ofrespondents gave moral justifications (62%) when they selectedthe setting with signs of physical incivilities. The majority of theserespondents (47.3%) believed that children could either be harmedby something dangerous in the physical context (such as brokenglass or debris), or that they could be harmed by potentiallydangerous people (e.g., gang members or drug users) who residein the area. Approximately 8% of respondents believed that itwould be worse for violence to occur in the deteriorated area,primarily because that was an area where bad things were likelyto happen. It is interesting to note that 19.8% of respondents chosethe deteriorated area, simply because they perceived it as dilapi-dated and poor.

Social conventional reasoning was another type of reasoningrespondents used when selecting the deteriorated area. Approxi-mately 7% of respondents believed that violence would be worsein the deteriorated area because no one (e.g., neighbors or police)would be monitoring that area. Other respondents (5.1%) felt thatno one in the deteriorated area would care if violence occurred inthat area.

3.3.2.2. Settings with signs of territoriality and place attachments are

the worst place for violence to occur. It was also common for re-spondents to give moral justifications when they selected thissetting as the worse place for violence to occur. The majority ofthese justifications (20%) were related to the fact that the re-sidents cared about that area. And, because they cared about thatarea, the residents were more likely to call the police if somethingbad happened. This type of reasoning is reflected in the fact that25.0% of respondents gave social conventional justifications whendescribing why the worse place for violence to occur would be insettings with signs of territoriality.

3.3.2.3. Both settings are bad for violence to occur. As can be seen inTable 5, 6th and 8th graders were more likely than 2nd and 4thgraders to make this type of judgment. An overwhelming majority

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Table 6Types of justifications respondents used when selecting worst place for violence to occur.

Overall moral domain usage Moral-environment Moral-person Moral-psychological Moral-care Moral-general Social conventional Descriptive

B

41.7% (N ¼ 25) 6.7% (N ¼ 4) 8.3% (N ¼ 5) 3.3% (N ¼ 2) 20.0% (N ¼ 12) 5.0% (N ¼ 3) 25.0% (N ¼ 15) 8.3% (N ¼ 5)

D

62.0% (N ¼ 147) 27.0% (N ¼ 64) 20.3% (N ¼ 48) 2.5% (N ¼ 6) 5.1% (N ¼ 12) 8.0% (N ¼ 19) 7.2% (N ¼ 17) 19.8% (N ¼ 47)

S

10.9% (N ¼ 7) 0% 4.7% (N ¼ 3) 4.7% (N ¼ 3) 0% 0% 4.7% (N ¼ 3) 0%

Note: B denotes that respondents believed it would be worse for violence to occur in settings depicting neighborhood territoriality. D denotes that they believed it would be

worse for violence to occur in settings depicting neighborhood incivilities. S denotes that they believed it would be the same if violence occurred in either context.

R.O. Pitner, R.A. Astor / Journal of Environmental Psychology 28 (2008) 327–338 335

of these respondents justified their judgments by stating thatviolence is bad, irrespective of the context.

4. Discussion

Few studies directly explore how children and youth factor indeteriorated and potentially dangerous contexts into their reason-ing processes. The absence of inquiries on this topic represents anobstacle for the creation of contextually sensitive and devel-opmentally sound violence prevention programs. For example,although most descriptive studies show that a higher proportion ofchildren and youth living in high poverty and physicallydeteriorated environments engage in violent behaviors over time(e.g., Farrington & Loeber, 2000), most children and youth raised inthese contexts do not engage in any violent activities during thecourse of their development. Knowing how aggressive and non-aggressive children and youth raised in neighborhoods with highlevels of physical incivilities reason about these contextualvariables could help researchers understand how children andyouth from the same areas develop different behavioral andreasoning trajectories.

As the results of this study showed, virtually all respondentswere able to identify which house was in a poor neighborhood,and 93% of them mentioned some negative aspect of the house orthe physical surroundings of the house. Our findings suggest thatthe majority of respondents made strong moral attributions ofdanger based upon these same physical cues. In their judgmentsand justifications, deteriorated structures were associated withfamily and neighborhood poverty and potential danger in theneighborhood immediately surrounding the structure. Respon-dents were overwhelmingly likely to make ‘‘harm’’ attributionsabout these structures, and their attributions seemed to be mostinfluenced by their belief that dangerous people (e.g., gangmembers or drug users) resided in those areas. Almost half ofthe respondents projected dangerous people into the settings withphysical incivilities, although older respondents were significantlymore likely to do this than were younger ones. This develop-mental pattern could reflect older respondents’ greater under-standing of danger within a context. Specifically, older childrenhave had more exposure to the media, which often displays unsafesituations and unsafe settings, as well as dangerous people withinthose settings. Because of this greater exposure, older childrenmay have a clearer understanding that deteriorated places, in andof themselves, are not as dangerous as they are when dangerouspeople reside in them.

In general, respondents discussed the ‘‘safe house recognition’’questions in terms of the structures having greater economicresources, safety, care, social capital, and monitoring behaviors.Approximately half the respondents made moral attributionsabout this setting. These attributions, however, were focused on

the belief that children would be less afraid of getting hurt (bypeople or by the physical structure) in this setting than theywould be in settings with higher signs physical incivilities.Approximately 19% of respondents mentioned that the manicuredappearance of this neighborhood made it less likely that a personwould get hurt by something in the physical environment (e.g.,they would not get hurt by broken glass or other debris), and15.8% believed that people would be less worried about gettinghurt by ‘‘dangerous people’’ in this neighborhood. There were,however, developmental differences in the use of these types ofmoral attributions about context. In particular, eighth graderswere more likely than younger respondents to mention thatresidents cared about the neighborhoods that had signs ofterritoriality, and that this was what made them safer. Theopposite was also true. That is, they believed that residents caredless about neighborhoods that had higher signs of physicalincivilities, which is what contributed to them being unsafe andviolence-prone. For example, it was common for respondents tomention that violence was more likely to occur in these areasbecause no one cared about them. The fact that older respondentswere more likely than younger ones to make moral attributions isnot new and fits within the much larger literature on moralreasoning. These findings suggest that moral attributions tophysical settings follow a similar pattern that has long beenassociated with moral reasoning about behavioral acts.

We also explored how different groups of children and youth(male/female, aggressive/non-aggressive, children at different ages)perceive poverty and danger within various settings. Our findingsdid not show any differences in respondents’ abilities to makelinkages between poor and dangerous settings. However, thereasoning behind these linkages differed by aggression level andage level. Aggressive respondents were less likely than non-aggressive ones to use moral reasoning when talking about thephysical dangers of the deteriorated environments. And, asmentioned above, younger respondents were less likely than olderones to use moral reasoning when justifying their judgments.

The first three sections of this study were divided into povertyrecognition, attributions of dangerous setting, and safe houserecognition questions. The pattern of responses from thesequestions suggests that the concept of extreme poverty (asrepresented by physical deterioration and danger) may be fusedat the schematic level through linked interpretations of the sameenvironmental cues. For respondents in this study, signs ofneighborhood incivilities indicated poverty, which, in turn,indicated that the area was unsafe. This study provides evidencethat attributions of danger and poverty are linked in children andyouth’s judgments and reasoning about physical deterioration ofhouses and neighborhoods. Because this joint linkage is so strong,we believe violence intervention programs should address theseattributions toward ‘‘places and physical contexts.’’ Moreover, wesuggest that actual reclamation of territory or renovation of

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neighborhoods should take into account children and youths’sense of being poor, and of safety/danger in their life spaces.Based on our prior work within school settings (e.g., Astor et al.,1999; Astor, Meyer, & Pitner, 2001), we believe that thesemoral attributions about neighborhood incivilities would alsogeneralize to school settings. Future research should explore thesehypotheses.

The types of generalizations that participants made were rarelyapplied to everyone in the community. For example, respondentsbelieved people in one neighborhood were ‘‘more likely’’ to bedangerous or poor. Nevertheless, the conviction of their responsessuggested that physical cues of decay are powerful cognitive andemotional triggers. Based on the interviews, we suspect that mostrespondents would still identify neighborhoods with physicalincivilities as both poor and dangerous, just based on the physicalcues–even if we change the scenario to reflect that the familyincomes were significantly higher. This possibility could beexplored in future studies. However, if our hypothesis is correct,the visual imagery of neighborhood incivilities is more visceraland may imply potential psychological or physical harm by itsmere existence, irrespective to family income.

Our findings suggest that moral attributions to physicalsettings may follow a similar pattern that has long beenassociated with moral reasoning about behavioral acts. Thisseemed true for age, gender, and aggression-level. In fact, ourwork implies that children and youth could project moralattributions based only on issues of physical decay of theneighborhood in a similar way to how they would about peopleand behaviors. Our final section of this study (i.e., ‘‘judgments ofviolence) addressed this issue by focusing on behavioral provoca-tion in settings with signs of physical incivilities and in settingswith signs of territoriality. Would the contexts of deteriorated andnon-deteriorated neighborhoods influence children and youths’reasoning about behavioral transactions, such as violent retribu-tion between peers?

The vast majority (87%) of respondents ‘‘condemned’’ retribu-tion in all contexts. Also for just under half of the students who‘‘approved’’ of retribution, neighborhood context did not make adifference. For these two groups, the immorality of eitherprovocation or retribution overrode any harm attributions theyhad about danger in the settings. These students focused mainlyon the behavioral aspects of the scenarios and not where it tookplace. However, context did make a difference for a little over halfof the children and youth that approved of retribution. For thisrelatively small but important group, most approved of retribu-tion only in the setting with higher levels of physical incivilities,while a smaller proportion approved of retribution only insettings that have signs of neighborhood territoriality. Whenrespondents only approved of retribution in settings with physicalincivilities, approximately 40% gave social conventional justifica-tions. These justifications were mainly focused on the belief thatviolence could occur in these settings because there would be lessmonitoring in those areas; as a result, no one would get intotrouble for committing violent acts there. When respondents onlyapproved of retribution in settings with signs of territoriality,approximately a third of them believed that violence was morejustified there because there would be less dangerous people inthat location, as opposed to the deteriorated location. Thesepatterns clearly showed that context not only played a role in themajority of respondents’ ‘‘approval’’ of retribution, but also in thetypes of justifications they used for their approval.

Aggressive children and youth were more likely than non-aggressive children and youth to approve of retribution in everycontextual category. We predicted that aggressive respondents’judgments and justifications would be more influenced by thecontext than non-aggressive respondents. However, our findings

suggest that aggressive children and youth are likely to factor incontextual issues in the same way that non-aggressive childrenand youth do. It also suggests that they are more influenced by theacts of provocation and retribution and less where it takes place.This does not mean they do not factor in location, only that theyfactor in location similarly to students who are non-aggressive,suggesting that there is no contextual bias.

However when asked if provocation/retribution would beworse in settings with physical incivilities or in settings withsigns of neighborhood territoriality, two-thirds of respondentsidentified the context that had signs of physical incivilities, whichsuggests that context influences children and youth’s perceptionsof the severity and consequences of violent acts. Moreover, whenlooking at the types of justifications respondents used, approxi-mately half gave moral justifications focused either on violencebeing worse in the physically deteriorated area because a personwill be more likely to get hurt by a dangerous person or by debrisin the streets. It is important to mention that there were also verystrong age effects related to context and retribution. Youngerrespondents were much more likely than older ones to think thatprovocation/retribution would be worse in settings with highersigns of physical incivilities. Correspondingly, older respondentswere more likely to express the opinion that provocation/retribution would be the same in each setting, regardless of itsphysical condition. This suggests that for younger childrenneighborhood incivilities are more frightening, and has a greaterpotential to factor in with how they see provocation andretribution.

It was less common for respondents to select the setting withsigns of territoriality as the worse place for violence to occur.However, for those that did select this setting, approximately 25%gave social conventional justifications and 20% gave moral-carejustifications. As mentioned earlier, it was common for respon-dents to state that more people would be monitoring these areas;thus, the likelihood of getting into trouble for provocation/retribution would be greater there. Similarly, respondents be-lieved that residents ‘‘cared’’ more about these neighborhoods,which makes it more likely that they would call the police toreport trouble in those areas. Again, these patterns show how thecontext has an impact on respondents’ perceptions of the severityof provocation/retribution, and on how it affects the types ofjustifications they use.

In summary, this research suggests that children and youth’sunderstanding of environmental cues could have implications forhow they perceive issues of poverty and danger. These kinds ofenvironmental cues go beyond parental income levels or free/reduced lunch status, or even census tract community informa-tion, because these are the sites that are perceived by children andyouth who live, visit, or travel through neighborhoods. However,children and youth’s implicit associations with them have rarelybeen examined. A better understanding of their psychologicalschemas surrounding neighborhoods would benefit how thesesettings affect their judgment and reasoning.

Within the aggression literature, social and physical cues havelong been seen as potential triggers to aggressive behaviors (Cricket al., 2002; Dodge et al., 1990). However, the findings from thisstudy showed that aggressive children and youth viewedneighborhood cues of poverty and danger similarly to their non-aggressive counterparts. Overall, this inquiry suggested thatyounger children are more vulnerable to social behavior insettings with higher degrees of incivilities because they fear suchsettings more than older children. Currently, most school andcommunity safety programs focus heavily on skill building, roleplaying and mentoring (e.g., Blakeney & Blakeney, 1991; Gold-stein, 1988; Goldstein & Conoley, 1997). Our study suggests thatsafety programs should also focus on the physical environments.

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Previous studies have shown that the physical environment isvery important in establishing safe school and neighborhoodsettings (e.g., Astor et al., 1999). This inquiry suggests that harmattributions of neighborhood decay, poverty and danger areinterrelated and are measurable in children and youth. Childrenand youth may not know their parents’ income levels, but theycan see their neighborhoods and schools, and they do constructnegative attributions about those images.

Most importantly, this study suggests that settings carry theirown moral attributions, even when behaviors and people arevisually absent. We suspect that adults make the same kind ofmoral attributions about issues of poverty, danger, and physicaldecay. More research needs to be conducted on moral reasoningas it pertains to geographical location. The media may be playing astrong role in providing information that danger is present inspecific cities and locations. Individuals may take that informationand make attributions about various locations and spaces. It ispossible that like the children and youth in our study, adultsassign likelihoods of ‘‘physical risk’’ to locations, cities, neighbor-hoods or even countries (i.e., for discussions on this see Astor,1998; Astor et al., 1999; Meyer & Astor, 2002; Meyer, Astor, &Behre, 2004). This may occur without the individual personallyseeing or being in the location. Hence, social attributions may bevery closely linked to beliefs about physical locations. In additionto the media, the level of decay seen in a particular locationappears to be a source of information that people interpret.Children and youth in this study viewed physical decay, in part, asa sign of disorganization and a lack of care. We believe that thisdynamic could be occurring in many cultures across the globe andmay reflect a human predisposition, preferring order to disorderand care to lack of care. However, this should be examinedempirically in future studies.

In conclusion, this study shows the utility of exploringchildren’s moral, social, and personal reasons about violentbehavior in different physical settings. The participants in thisstudy clearly made moral attributions about locations basedprimarily upon their physical appearance. Future research shouldfurther explore the dynamic role that the physical context plays inchildren and youth’s moral, social, and personal reasoning aboutviolence and safety.

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