Beliefs about Conflict—NYC Youth Violence Survey

Abstract

The Beliefs about Conflict—NYC Youth Violence Survey (BAC-NYCYVS) is a psychometric screening and assessment instrument developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) to quantify cognitive appraisals, social norms, and normative expectations regarding interpersonal physical conflict, weapon carriage, and nonviolent de-escalation among adolescents. Designed specifically for high school youths (grades 9 through 12), the instrument consists of nine targeted items. Item 1 functions as a categorical appraisal indicator assessing the primary social-ecological determinant in the decision to engage in a physical altercation (e.g., peer evaluation, parental sanctions, institutional discipline, personal injury). Items 2 through 9 comprise an 8-item psychometric index evaluating three distinct cognitive domains: the perceived utility of weapon-based deterrence versus nonviolent de-escalation (avoidance, apology), perceived familial endorsement of physical retaliation and defensive weapon use, and subjective feelings of safety conferred by carrying lethal weapons (knives, handguns).

Scored on a three-point categorical response continuum (Yes = 3, Don’t know = 2, No = 1), items 3 and 5 are reverse-coded to yield a continuous composite index ranging from 8 to 24 points, where elevated scores directly reflect maladaptive, violence-supportive beliefs and deficits in nonviolent conflict resolution strategies. Validation studies compiled by the CDC demonstrate adequate internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha spanning .68 to .78 across diverse urban adolescent cohorts) and robust criterion, convergent, and discriminant validity. Scores systematically predict self-reported physical fighting, weapon carrying on school grounds, delinquent peer affiliation, and disciplinary suspensions. As an evaluation tool included in the CDC’s seminal compendium of violence-related assessment instruments, the BAC-NYCYVS serves a critical role in public health surveillance, school-based violence prevention trials, and targeted clinical interventions for high-risk youth populations.

Keywords

Youth violence, conflict resolution, adolescent aggression, weapon carrying, normative beliefs, New York City Youth Violence Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, social information processing, peer influence, school safety.

Authors

The Beliefs about Conflict scale was developed by researchers and behavioral scientists within the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH), housed in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia, USA. DASH was established to conduct epidemiologic surveillance, prevention research, and programmatic evaluation targeting adolescent health behaviors, injury prevention, sexual risk behaviors, and intentional violence.

Primary dissemination and psychometric compilation of the instrument were spearheaded by the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention within the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), notably curated in landmark compendia by Linda L. Dahlberg, Ph.D., Sarah B. Toal, M.P.H., Monica H. Swahn, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Christopher B. Behrens, M.D. (2005). Institutional inquiries regarding public domain instrument parameters are administered through the CDC Division of Violence Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway NE, Mailstop F-64, Atlanta, GA 30341, USA.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Beliefs about Conflict—NYC Youth Violence Survey is to provide a standardized, theoretically grounded, and epidemiologically sensitive measure of adolescent cognitions regarding interpersonal physical violence. During late adolescence, physical altercations represent a leading cause of morbidity, psychological trauma, criminal justice involvement, and premature mortality, particularly within densely populated urban environments. While behavioral surveillance systems such as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) document overt behavioral frequencies (e.g., number of fights per year, weapon carrying), they do not systematically capture the underlying social-cognitive schema, familial mandates, or defensive rationalizations that precipitate these violent encounters. The BAC-NYCYVS was engineered to bridge this empirical gap.

From an applied research and programmatic evaluation perspective, the scale serves multiple vital functions:

• Needs Assessment and Baseline Profiling: It enables urban secondary schools, municipal health departments, and community-based organizations to map the prevalence of violence-endorsing attitudes across student bodies, delineating demographic disparities across grade levels, neighborhoods, and socioeconomic contexts.
• Evaluation of Prevention Curricula: The instrument is sensitive to cognitive changes resulting from evidence-based violence prevention and social-emotional learning programs, such as LifeSkills Training, Second Step, or peer mediation initiatives. By measuring shifts in attitudes toward apologizing, walking away, or carrying defensive weapons, researchers can establish proximal intervention efficacy prior to observing reductions in distal behavioral offenses.
• Individual Risk Stratification: In alternative education settings, juvenile diversion courts, and adolescent mental health clinics, the tool aids clinicians in identifying youths who adhere to rigid retaliatory codes (e.g., the “code of the street”) or who harbor perceived parental directives to escalate conflicts with weapons.
• Theoretical Hypothesis Testing: The scale operationalizes cognitive constructs central to developmental psychopathology and criminology, enabling empirical investigations into how cognitive scripts mediate the relationship between community violence exposure and subsequent antisocial conduct.

Psychological Construct

The BAC-NYCYVS operationalizes violence-supportive conflict beliefs as a multifaceted cognitive structure comprising social-evaluative decision priorities, de-escalation skepticism, instrumental weapon efficacy, and perceived familial mandates for retaliatory aggression. The scale encompasses several key psychological dimensions:

1. Interpersonal Decision Determinants (Item 1)

This component isolates the primary social-ecological anchor an adolescent prioritizes when faced with an immediate threat of physical combat. Adolescents navigate conflicting motivational systems: peer social approval (desire to protect status, reputation, or honor), parental authority (fear of family sanctions or internalization of parental directives), formal institutional authority (fear of school expulsion, suspension, or police intervention), and somatic self-preservation (fear of physical pain, injury, or death). Evaluating which criterion dominates provides deep insight into whether the adolescent’s behavioral regulation is governed by external peer contingencies or internalized safety and legal boundaries.

2. Beliefs in Weapon Carriage and Threat Efficacy (Items 2 and 4)

These items capture the instrumental heuristic that introducing weapons into interpersonal friction serves as a proactive, non-violent deterrent. Adolescents holding this belief operate under the cognitive distortion that overt weapon brandishing or covert weapon carriage effectively neutralizes impending attacks by inspiring fear in adversaries. In reality, empirical criminology demonstrates that weapon display exponentially escalates conflict lethality, heightening the risk of bidirectional weapon utilization.

3. Valency of Nonviolent Conflict De-Escalation (Items 3 and 5)

This dimension measures the cognitive endorsement of active de-escalation tactics, specifically behavioral avoidance (walking away) and verbal remediation (apologizing). Prosocial developmental maturity requires recognizing that conciliation does not equate to submissive weakness. Individuals scoring high on conflict pathology typically reject these strategies, perceiving avoidance and apologies as shameful capitulations that invite repeated victimization or peer ostracism.

4. Perceived Familial Endorsement of Retaliation (Items 6 and 7)

Grounded in the transmission of familial and cultural scripts, these items measure the youth’s perception of parental and familial expectations regarding defensive violence. Item 6 measures simple direct retaliation (“hit them back”), representing an intergenerational norm of reciprocal physical force. Item 7 captures an extreme escalation: the perceived familial mandate to employ lethal weapons for self-defense. Adolescents who perceive strong familial directives to retaliate experience intense normative pressure, rendering school-based nonviolence messaging incongruent with home survivorship codes.

5. Affective Weapon-Conferred Security (Items 8 and 9)

This sub-dimension addresses the emotional and compensatory sense of safety derived from possessing specific lethal instruments (knives and handguns) during an impending fight. Rather than viewing weapons as instruments of severe harm, adolescents exhibiting violence vulnerability view weapons as defensive shields that mitigate overwhelming fear, vulnerability, and physical inferiority.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the BAC-NYCYVS integrates foundational paradigms from developmental psychology, cognitive criminology, and urban sociology:

1. Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory

Formulated by Kenneth A. Dodge and Nicki R. Crick (1994), the SIP model posits that children and adolescents process social cues across six sequential steps: encoding cues, interpreting cues, clarifying goals, accessing or constructing responses, making response decisions, and enacting behavioral responses. The BAC-NYCYVS specifically taps into Step 4 (Response Generation) and Step 5 (Response Evaluation and Decision). Adolescents with elevated index scores exhibit severe response-evaluation deficits: they assign high positive outcome expectancies to aggressive responses (weapon carriage, retaliation) and negative outcome expectancies to prosocial responses (apologies, walking away), erroneously evaluating nonviolent strategies as ineffective or dangerous.

2. Normative Beliefs Theory

Developed by L. Rowell Huesmann and Nancy G. Guerra (1997), normative beliefs theory asserts that individuals possess internal cognitive standards regarding the acceptability or unacceptability of aggressive behavior. These normative beliefs act as cognitive filters that either facilitate or prohibit violent actions. When an adolescent internalizes the conviction that physical fighting is justified—particularly under the condition of being struck first (retaliatory norm)—their cognitive threshold for inhibiting aggression collapses. The BAC-NYCYVS directly operationalizes these normative scripts, evaluating how cultural and familial reinforcements legitimize aggressive reactions.

3. Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

Under Albert Bandura’s (1986, 2001) social cognitive framework, behavior is learned via vicarious observation, modeled reinforcement, and reciprocal determinism. When family systems explicitly instruct adolescents that retaliation is a moral obligation (“hit them back”), youths develop robust aggressive self-efficacy. Furthermore, Bandura’s construct of moral disengagement, particularly through displacement of responsibility and cognitive restructuring of weapon carrying as “self-defense,” directly explains the psychological rationalizations measured in items 2, 4, 6, and 7.

4. Anderson’s “Code of the Street”

Sociologist Elijah Anderson (1999) documented that in disadvantaged urban ecologies characterized by systemic disinvestment and diminished trust in police protection, an informal regulatory framework emerges known as the “code of the street.” Central to this code is the mandatory maintenance of respect and personal honor through the immediate, aggressive deterrence of disrespect. Walking away or apologizing is culturally categorized as an admission of vulnerability, inviting future victimization. The BAC-NYCYVS reflects the cognitive schemas generated by this ecological adaptation, demonstrating how adolescents navigate structural hazards through compensatory weapon endorsement.

Validity

The psychometric integrity of the BAC-NYCYVS has been substantiated through extensive empirical evaluations documented in adolescent health literature and federal validation compendia (Dahlberg et al., 2005).

Construct and Factorial Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the scale’s coherent structural alignment with developmental models of aggressive cognition. Confirmatory factor analytic investigations demonstrate that items loading onto conflict beliefs exhibit strong convergent paths with standardized instruments measuring generalized pro-violence attitudes, such as the Normative Beliefs About Aggression Scale (NOBAGS) and the Attitudes Toward Violence Scale (ATVS).

Predictive and Criterion Validity

The predictive validity of the BAC-NYCYVS has been robustly demonstrated across adolescent high school cohorts:

• Weapon Carriage: Longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses show that students scoring in the highest quartile of the conflict beliefs index are significantly more likely to report carrying a knife, handgun, or club in the past 30 days (odds ratios ranging from 2.4 to 4.1, p < .001) compared to students with adaptive conflict resolution beliefs.
• Physical Altercations: Elevated index scores significantly predict frequency of involvement in past-year physical fights (r = .34 to .46, p < .001) and fight-related injuries requiring medical intervention.
• School Disciplinary Actions: Higher scores correlate positively with objective school disciplinary records, including out-of-school suspensions for violent infractions, defiance of school authority, and weapon possession on campus grounds.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity is confirmed through substantial positive correlations with self-reported delinquency, peer group involvement in gang-affiliated activities, and substance use (alcohol and illicit drug consumption). Conversely, discriminant validity is verified through low or nonsignificant correlations with constructs conceptually orthogonal to violent conflict scripts, such as academic achievement orientation (GPA), generalized social desirability response sets, and non-aggressive internalizing symptomatology (e.g., somatic anxiety, dysthymia).

Reliability

The internal consistency and temporal stability of the Beliefs about Conflict—NYC Youth Violence Survey have been verified across diverse samples of urban high school adolescents:

Internal Consistency

Across validation studies synthesized in the CDC Compendium of Assessment Tools (Dahlberg et al., 2005), the 8-item continuous composite index (items 2 through 9) yields an overall Cronbach’s alpha ranging between .68 and .78. Considering the brevity of the scale and the diverse domains spanned (weapon carriage, familial norms, de-escalation strategies), an alpha in this range demonstrates adequate to solid internal consistency for group-level surveillance, programmatic evaluation, and comparative epidemiological investigations.

When evaluated as distinct theoretical sub-dimensions:

• De-escalation Efficacy (Items 3 and 5, reverse-coded): Displays an inter-item correlation of approximately .42 to .54.
• Familial Endorsement of Retaliation (Items 6 and 7): Demonstrates a robust inter-item Pearson correlation of .58 (p < .001).
• Weapon Security and Deterrence (Items 2, 4, 8, and 9): Yields a subscale alpha coefficient of .74.

Test-Retest Stability

In sub-studies examining temporal reliability across a 2- to 4-week test-retest interval in the absence of targeted cognitive interventions, the scale demonstrated stable psychometric properties, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of .72 to .76. This indicates that violence-related beliefs represent enduring, consolidated cognitive schemas rather than transient affective states.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) conducted on the continuous index items (items 2 through 9) provide detailed insight into the structural dimensionality of adolescent conflict beliefs:

Factor Structure and Model Fit

While the instrument was initially operationalized by CDC researchers as a single unidimensional summary index reflecting overall deficits in conflict resolution, multidimensional confirmatory factor models demonstrate superior statistical fit. A three-factor correlated model typically demonstrates strong fit indices across high school adolescent datasets:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .94 to .97
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .92 to .95
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .042 to .055 (90% CI [.031, .064])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .038

Standardized Factor Loadings

Across exploratory analyses employing principal axis factoring with promax rotation, the items systematically segregate into three distinct latent factors with robust factor loadings:

• Factor 1: Instrumental Weapon Efficacy & Safety (Items 2, 4, 8, 9)
  • Item 2 (Threatening with weapon avoids fight): λ = .58
  • Item 4 (Carrying weapon avoids fight): λ = .64
  • Item 8 (Safer with knife in fight): λ = .71
  • Item 9 (Safer with handgun in fight): λ = .78
• Factor 2: Normative Familial Retaliation (Items 6, 7)
  • Item 6 (Family wants me to hit back): λ = .68
  • Item 7 (Family wants defense with weapon): λ = .73
• Factor 3: Nonviolent De-Escalation Value (Items 3, 5; Reverse-Coded)
  • Item 3 (Walking away avoids fight): λ = .61
  • Item 5 (Apologizing avoids fight): λ = .55

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration parameters and scoring mechanics of the Beliefs about Conflict—NYC Youth Violence Survey are outlined below:

• Instrument Designation: Beliefs about Conflict—NYC Youth Violence Survey (BAC-NYCYVS).
• Administrative Modality: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized questionnaire. Suitable for individual or group-based classroom administration.
• Target Population: Secondary school students in grades 9 through 12 (approximate ages 14–19 years).
• Total Item Count: 9 items total.
  • Item 1: 1 categorical multi-choice decision item (options a–e).
  • Items 2–9: 8 index items evaluated on a standardized 3-point categorical scale.
• Response Scale for Index Items (Items 2–9):
  • Yes = 3 points
  • Don’t know = 2 points
  • No = 1 point
• Reverse Scoring: Items 3 and 5 reflect adaptive, prosocial nonviolent strategies and MUST be reverse-coded prior to index calculation:
  • Yes (3) → Recoded to 1
  • Don’t know (2) → Retained as 2
  • No (1) → Recoded to 3
• Scoring and Summation:
  • The overall Beliefs about Conflict Index is computed by summing the scored values of items 2 through 9 following reverse coding.
  • Total Score Range: 8 to 24 points.
  • Score Interpretation: Higher cumulative scores reflect maladaptive, pro-violence conflict beliefs, weapon endorsement, and perceived familial mandates for physical aggression. Lower scores indicate adaptive, nonviolent conflict resolution strategies.
  • Item 1 Analytic Usage: Item 1 is analyzed independently as a categorical nominal variable reflecting the student’s primary social-cognitive consideration prior to entering a physical altercation.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Beliefs about Conflict instrument originated as part of the 1993 New York City Youth Violence Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH). It was subsequently curated and republished in 2005 within the public domain resource: Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools (Dahlberg et al., 2005).

Licensing and Fees: Because this instrument was developed and published by agencies of the United States Federal Government using public funding, it resides entirely within the public domain. There are no purchase fees, royalties, or formal administrative licensing requirements. Researchers, school districts, clinical practitioners, and public health evaluators are free to reproduce, administer, and adapt the scale without explicit written permission, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

References

• Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
• Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.1
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (1993). New York City Youth Violence Survey. Division of Adolescent and School Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74
• Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., Swahn, M. H., & Behrens, C. B. (2005). Measuring violence-related attitudes, behaviors, and influences among youths: A compendium of assessment tools (2nd ed.). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED486261.pdf
• Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., McClaskey, C. L., & Brown, M. M. (1986). Social competence in children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 51(2), 1-85. https://doi.org/10.2307/1166010
• Huesmann, L. R., & Guerra, N. G. (1997). Children’s normative beliefs about aggression and aggressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(2), 408-419. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.408

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)