Disputes over girlfriends. Violence as a code of behavior. The study found that identities and normative behavioral codes were situation-specific. Both orientations lived side by side within the same individuals. The reaction of bystanders is a key factor in the outcome of a situation.
Bystanders can cool off or heat up the response to a confrontation or dispute.
Repeated violent interactions can motivate a person's strategic decisionmaking to internalize a street code. The pressure of guns often escalates the stakes of a dispute and increases its potential lethality. Alcohol, drugs, and violence. Alcohol and drugs can influence social interactions in two ways that may lead to violence. First, alcohol can shape the dynamics, decisions, and strategies in a violent or near-violent episode that is, interactions in which one or both individuals have been drinking will turn out differently than those in which one or both are sober.