Kevin Swartout

My current research program can be broken down into three main areas: (1) social influences on individuals’ aggressive attitudes and behaviors; (2) person-centered approaches to analyze longitudinal data on violence and victimization; and (3) exploring the relation between substance use and violence. My first research area began as a conceptual application of the social influence, social networks, and attitudes literatures to the study of violence and aggression. The general goal of this research area is to combine psychological and sociological principles and methods to better situate violence in a social and structural context.

My second research area stems from my interest in innovative statistical analyses and methodologies. Person-centered analyses—such as cluster and latent class analysis and growth mixture models—use co-variation among individuals to cluster them into meaningful groups. This method allows researchers the opportunity to detect meaningful subgroups of individuals within their samples. I have used these methods to model longitudinal data on violence and victimization and have uncovered a number of intriguing patterns. Findings from this line of research have the potential to change the way researchers conceptualize how violence and victimization develop across time.

My third research area involves the relation between substance use and male-to-female aggression. Projects in this area have involved longitudinal growth modeling—using both multilevel modeling and structural equation modeling approaches—with time-varying alcohol and drug use as predictors of physical and sexual aggression.