- Author
- Vreeland, R. G. | Waller, M. B.
- Title
- Psychology of Firesetting: A Review and Appraisal. Final Report.
- Coporate
- North Carolina Univ., Chapel Hill, NC
- Sponsor
- National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
- Report
- NBS GCR 79-157, December 1978, 58 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Contract
- GRANT-79021
- Keywords
- abnormal psychology | arson | arsonists | firesetters | human behavior | literature reviews | pyromaniacs
- Abstract
- Despite a rather large and diverse literature on firesetting, relatively little is understood about its determinants. This situation exists partly becaused of the enormous difficulities in carrying out systematic, well-controlled research studies on firesetting. Legal difficulties in accessing samples of arsonists, the manner of legal fisposition of arson cases, and the fact that relatively few arsonists are apprehended makes it likely that research samples will be narrow and biased; it is not surprising that conclusions have often been contradictory and comparisons between groups have been extremely difficult. A further problem is that previous attempts at classification of firesetters have usually been based arbitrarily upon one aspect of the act, such as the firesetting motive, while other, potentially more important, distringuishing features may have been overlooked. After reviewing previous attempts at classifying firesetters, the present study organizes current knowledge about the characteristics of firesetters into four major categories: antecedent environmental conditions, organismic variables, actual firesetting behavior, and the consequences of firesetting. Understanding a firesetter's behavior requires an assessment of each of these categories, and types of firesetters may eventually be difined by clusters or patterns of characteriatics rather than by a single, overriding feature. This approach is also useful in that it has theoretical implications as well as implications for prevention and treatment strategies.