Study of violence in boys/men

January 3, 2014 4:52 PM

Looking for a post or comment I believe I saw on MetaFilter about a (recent?) study of violence in boys/men. The salient feature I remember is that the study broke boys or young men down into four groups, depending on the level of violence each engaged in. The study then found that as these kids grew up, all but one group mostly shed their violent ways (or were seldom violent to begin with), while the fourth group remained dangerous and was responsible for the bulk of violent crimes. Sound familiar to anyone? Thanks!
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell to MetaFilter-Related at 4:52 PM (14 comments total)

I, too, enjoy Boyz II Men.
posted by box at 5:45 PM on January 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

I can't find the comment, but I think this is the article.
posted by balacat at 7:14 PM on January 3, 2014 [8 favorites]

Yep, that's exactly the study I had in mind. Thank you, balacat.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:33 PM on January 3, 2014

Conrad got his answer, but the post is still open because… it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.
posted by klangklangston at 9:56 PM on January 3, 2014 [8 favorites]

the study broke boys or young men down into four groups

Almost. The study actually broke the young men into three main groups. These were Boyz II Men, Another Bad Creation, and Bell Biv DeVoe, but then in the subsequent discussion a lot of folks sort of conflated these three into an larger category that eventually came to be called the "East Coast Family."

So I can totally see why you thought you were remembering four groups.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 2:44 AM on January 4, 2014 [18 favorites]

There are two studies cited in the NYTimes article that balacat linked to. The 1994 study broke their subjects into 4 main groups. The 2006 study divided their subjects into three groups.
posted by marsha56 at 4:15 AM on January 4, 2014

Now you know.
posted by box at 8:18 AM on January 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

"Almost. The study actually broke the young men into three main groups. These were Boyz II Men, Another Bad Creation, and Bell Biv DeVoe, but then in the subsequent discussion a lot of folks sort of conflated these three into an larger category that eventually came to be called the "East Coast Family."

So I can totally see why you thought you were remembering four groups."

You misread the methodology; I don't blame you, it's easy to miss the citation of New Edition as a cohort from the 1989 group that preceded the others.
posted by klangklangston at 12:51 PM on January 4, 2014 [6 favorites]

MC Brains was not part of the sample set.
posted by box at 6:03 PM on January 4, 2014

Boys who had internalized the belief that "that girl is poison" were more likely to be recidivists.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:29 PM on January 4, 2014 [6 favorites]

Works cited: Rap, G.
posted by box at 7:15 PM on January 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hey, they just played a little snippet of Motownphilly in the Eagles-Saints game. No Stephanie Tanner clip, though.
posted by box at 7:40 PM on January 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Somebody should really buy those poor Boyz II Men some better fitted sports coats.
posted by maryr at 8:23 AM on January 5, 2014

Just a note, last week we stayed in a hotel in rural Ireland that featured live entertainment in the lounge in the evenings. One morning we discovered that the evening's entertainment would be New Edition. Sadly, when we arrived at the lounge that evening we did not find Bobby Brown nor his bandmates starting their comeback from some humble rain-soaked North Atlantic outcropping.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:50 AM on January 6, 2014 [1 favorite]