The Scientific Case for Love as a Vaccine Against Violence

According to the World Health Organization, violence and abuse affect one in every three women and one in every two children globally. For millions of people, family life is physically violent and/or psychologically abusive. The consequences of this violence and abuse include poor physical and psychological outcomes, increased medical expenditures and lost productivity.

Despite advances in violence prevention such as parenting skills training programs (e.g. Triple P by Sanders) and visiting nurse programs (Olds), additional work is needed to urgently “vaccinate” societies against violence, i.e. fully implement universal level prevention strategies across populations. Many times, violence prevention efforts are met with resistance because of the stigma attached to violence. However, people are more receptive to concepts such as how to have a loving and happy family.

Drawing from Attachment Theory (Bowlby), Interpersonal Neurobiology (Siegel), and Mammalian Neuroscience (Panksepp), this presentation makes a scientific case for love as a universal level vaccine against violence. Additionally, it describes cost-effective “vaccine distribution systems” to disseminate violence prevention modalities rapidly across all sectors of society and which are based on an integration of Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura), Ecological Theory (Bronfenbrenner) and Diffusion Theory (Rogers.)