Testing a Theoretical Model of the Relationship Between Impulsivity,Mediating Variables,and Husband Violence

The present study involved a multimethod assessment of impulsivity among 86 men. Using two questionnaires and four performance-based measures of impulsivity, the factor structure of the impulsivity data was examined. Four constructs that theoretically mediate the relationship between impulsivity and husband violence (i.e., substance abuse, anger/hostility, marital dissatisfaction, and psychological abuse) were assessed to examine a mediational model predictive of husband violence. Substance abuse and marital dissatisfaction mediated the relationship between impulsivity and psychological abuse. Psychological abuse mediated the relationship between substance abuse and marital dissatisfaction and husband violence. Although anger/hostility was not a mediator, there were bivariate associations between anger/hostility and impulsivity, psychological abuse, and husband violence. The results of the regression analyses were virtually identical when controlling for the effect of intelligence on the model variables. The implications of the findings for the assessment of impulsivity and for future husband violence research are discussed.     

Shame,guilt, and anger in college students exposed to abusive family environments

The relationship between an abusive environment within the family and proneness to shame, guilt, anger, and hostility in college students revealed that greater exposure to emotional abusiveness was significantly related to higher shame, overt and covert hostility, and expressed and unexpressed anger. Greater exposure to physical abusiveness was significantly related to overt hostility and a tendency to experience anger without a specific provoking situation. Women reported higher shame and guilt, whereas men reported higher levels of overt hostility and expressed anger. Shame proneness was related to covert hostility and unexpressed anger for both men and women. However, guilt proneness was not related to exposure to family abusiveness or, with one exception, to the anger and hostility variables. Implications for therapy with adult survivors of child abuse are discussed.     

Comparing Wife Abuse Perceptions Between Chinese Police Officers and Social Workers

Seventy-one Chinese social workers and 74 Chinese police officers residing in Hong Kong were surveyed on their gender-role attitudes, endorsement of wife abuse myths, and definitions of wife abuse. Results showed that compared to social workers, police officers held more conservative gender-role attitudes, endorsed more myths about wife abuse, and adopted more restrictive definitions of physical and psychological wife abuse. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that definitions of wife abuse were related to different predictors for these two groups of professionals. Among social workers, egalitarian gender-role attitudes were a significant predictor of broad definitions of physical wife abuse, but no significant predictor was found for psychological wife abuse. Among police officers, significant predictors of definitions of physical wife abuse included marital status, educational attainment, and endorsement of wife abuse myths; gender-role attitudes were the only significant predictor of definitions of psychological wife abuse.     

Attitudes of Jordanian society toward wife abuse

The authors conducted an exploratory study among a convenience sample of 260 Jordanian men and women, using self-administered open and closed questions to examine the participants' approach toward wife abuse. In general, there was high awareness of wife abuse and the different types of abuse (mainly physical and psychological), a general tendency to oppose wife abuse, a tendency to blame the victim for abuse, and a lesser tendency to blame the abuse on the husband, marital problems, as well as familial and societal conditions. There was also a strong tendency to consider wife abuse a personal and familial issue rather than a social and legal problem. Therefore, the preferred method for coping with wife abuse and violence was the expectation that the abused wife should change her behavior and assume responsibility to change her husband followed by resorting to informal agents (family or community or religious figures). Less preferred coping methods included confronting the husband and expressing desire to break up or separate and resorting to formal agents (social welfare programs, counseling, legal system), as a last resort in cases of repeated abuse and severe physical violence. The implications of these findings for future research, interventions, and policy formulation are discussed.     

Reputation and behavior of battered women who kill their partners: Do these variables negate self-defense?

Vignettes describing a case in which a battered woman killed her husband were presented to college students. Independent variables were the presence or absence of verbal aggression by the woman toward her husband before the final beating, the woman's reputation and social desirability as a wife and mother, and whether or not a weapon was present when the battering husband threatened the woman before she killed him. After reading a vignette, subjects (N=413) selected a verdict, reported what influenced their verdicts, and completed attitudinal measures on sex-role attitudes, attitudes toward wife-beating, and “just world” attitudes. The presence of verbal aggression by the woman increased the odds of subjects choosing a guilty verdict by 1.71 times compared to the absence of verbal aggression. A defendant characterized as a “bad” wife/mother or a dysfunctional wife/mother was, respectively, 6.24 and 2.49 times more likely to be found guilty rather than not guilty by reason of self-defense (NGRSD) than the “good” wife/mother. Use of a weapon by the husband did not significantly increase the number of NGRSD verdicts over conditions in which no weapon was present. Neither subjects' attitudes nor demographics appeared to be related to their choice of verdicts.     

Definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse among undergraduate students of social work

The article focuses on definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse among undergraduate social work students in Israel. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. The vast majority of students in Study 1 acknowledged acts thought to constitute wife assault and disapproved of a husband's use of force against his wife. The majority of students in Study 2 did not justify wife abuse nor tend to believe that battered women benefit from beating, although they tended to blame the violent husband for his behavior. Significant amounts of the variance in dependent variables were explained by the students' marital role expectations (Study 1) and their attitudes toward women and sex role stereotypes (Study 2). The students' year of study and participation in family violence or wife abuse courses did not contribute toward explaining the variance in their beliefs. Results are discussed in light of the students' patriarchal ideology, and implications for future research are presented.     

Attributions for episodes of marital aggression: The effects of aggression severity and alcohol use

This study examined attributions for husband to wife marital agression as a function of aggression severity and husbands' alcohol use. Subjects were a community sample of 117 wives and 109 husbands who reported an episode of serious physical aggression during a structured interview, conducted at one year of marriage. The results showed that husbands' attributions were influenced by both severity and alcohol use. In particular, sober husbands tended to blame their wives for severe aggression, but, unexpectedly, drinking husbands tended to assume responsibility for severe aggression. In contrast, wives' attributions were influenced mainly by severity. Wives also discriminated between the locus and stability dimensions of causal attributions, whereas husbands relied solely on the locus dimension. Specifically, wives held husbands' behavior more responsible for severe aggression than their own behavior and held husbands' character much more responsible than their own character. Additional findings with regard to relationship attributions were discussed.     

Justification, perception of severity and harm, and criminalization of wife abuse in the Palestinian society

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of Palestinian adults toward different dimensions of wife abuse. A cross-sectional survey, using a combination of self-administered questionnaires and interviews, was conducted among a systematic random sample of 624 adult Palestinian men and women from the West Bank and Gaza Strip (18 years or older). Study results indicated a strong tendency to justify wife beating in different situations, such as when the wife is perceived as having an affair with another man or as physically attacking her husband. Participants considered the following acts of husband's violence against wife as most severe: using a weapon (86%), having sex with the wife against her will (67%), and hitting her with his fist (57%). The majority of participants thought that wife beating should be considered a crime (82.3%). Traditional marital role expectations was the main significant predictor for all of the study criterion variables. Gender, place of residence, age, and marital status were significant predictors of some of the criterion variables.     

Antecedents of abusive personality and abusive behavior in wife assaulters

One hundred and forty men referred for wife assault and 45 demographically matched controls were assessed for psychological variables associated with abusive personality (anger, cyclical (borderline) personality organization (BPO) and chronic experience of trauma symptoms) and abusive behaviors (both physical and emotional) as reported by their female partners. Predictor variables for these abuse measures included the EMBU which assesses recollections of parental warmth and rejection and the Conflict Tactics Scale which assesses physical abuse in the family of origin. A composite of BPO, anger, trauma symptoms and fearful attachment called Abusive Personality (ABP) correlated .42 with wives reports of emotionally abusive behaviors. ABP was positively and significantly correlated with recollections of negative parental treatment by the abuse perpetrator. A compositive of parental rejection and verbal and physical abuse by parents correlated .41 with ABP. A discriminant function of high and low ABP found that ABP was predicted by paternal rejection, physical abuse, and absence of maternal warmth. Physical abuse by either parent correlated significantly with all subscales and total scores on the ABP measure. When combined with data showing ABP to correlate significantly with frequency of use of violence by wife assaulters (Dutton, 1995b, Dutton and Starzomski, 1993), the current study suggests a personality syndrome of assaultive males that has antecedents in the early experiences of these men. The present data suggest that family of origin experiences may have effects beyond modeling of abusive behaviors. These effects include development of a specific personality form associated with abusiveness.     

Physical,Psychological, and Sexual Intimate Partner Aggression Among Newlywed Couples: Longitudinal Prediction of Marital Satisfaction

This study examined associations between physical, psychological, and sexual intimate partner aggression (IPA) perpetration during the first year of marriage (T1) and victim marital satisfaction one (T2) and two (T3) years later among a sample of 202 newlywed couples. Prevalence rates of all forms of IPA were consistent with those documented in prior research. Higher levels of all types of IPA generally were associated with lower victim marital satisfaction at all time points, when controlling for initial levels of satisfaction. Couples who reported severe bidirectional psychological IPA demonstrated lower husband and wife marital satisfaction at T2 and lower husband satisfaction at T3 than couples who reported husband-only, wife-only, or no psychological IPA. Analyses examining the relative predictive abilities of all forms of IPA perpetration showed that psychological IPA was the most consistent unique contributor of victim marital satisfaction. Study findings highlight the importance of psychological IPA, in addition to physical IPA, in examinations of correlates of marital satisfaction.     

Intimate Partner Violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: Prevalence and Risk Factors

This paper presents results from a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of married women (N?=?3,500) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Interviews assessed the 12-month prevalence of participants’ exposure to psychological, physical, and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) and risk factors including: demographic characteristics, several factors of marital relations, stressful life events, political violence, status inconsistency, family size, locality, region, help resources in the community, and locality-level acceptance of wife abuse. The prevalence estimates of IPV were: psychological aggression, 50 % minor and 12 % severe; physical assault, 17 % minor and 6 % severe; and sexual coercion, 4 % minor and 6 % severe. Results revealed that stressful life events, husbands’ controlling behavior, and marital conflicts were related to all forms of IPV (all p-values?<?0.05). Greater locality-level acceptance of wife abuse was statistically associated with greater odds of each type of violence except sexual violence. The limitations and implications of the study for future research are discussed.     

Wife Abuse in Hong Kong Chinese Families: A Community Survey

The present study aimed to explore the extent and pattern of wife abuse in Hong Kong Chinese families. The sample included 1,132 married women aged 18 or older randomly selected from the community. Results showed that 67.2% of the surveyed women reported at least one incident of verbal abuse, and 10% experienced at least one incident of physical abuse by their husbands during the surveyed year. Husband-to-wife minor physical violence was almost seven times more than husband-to-wife severe physical violence (9.8% vs 1.4%). Couples' age and their age differences were related to physical wife abuse but not verbal wife abuse. Specifically, physical wife abuse in the form of minor violence occurred most frequently among married men and women aged 30 or below; and both minor and severe physical violence to wife was found most frequently among couples whose ages were more than 20 years apart. Couples' education level, differences in education, occupation, family income, and number of children were not related to various forms of wife abuse; whereas the length of marriage and marital satisfaction were significant correlates of wife abuse. Results were discussed with regard to relevant local and Western studies.     

Individual and Marital Consequences of Victimization: Moderating Effects of Relationship Efficacy and Spouse Support

Marital dissatisfaction and depression are common characteristics of abused women. In this investigation, we attempted to identify variables that might buffer women's marital satisfaction and stability, and their psychological adjustment against the effects of verbal and physical abuse. Verbal and physical victimization had significant negative direct effects on women's marital satisfaction: victimized women were characterized by less satisfaction and less stability regardless of their sense of relationship efficacy or their perceptions of spousal support. However, the effects of victimization on women's depression were moderated by relationship efficacy, perceived intimacy, and acceptance of emotional expression provided by the spouse: nonvictimized women who perceived more support and felt more efficacious, relative to those who felt less support and less efficacy, experienced fewer depressive symptoms, while victimized women who perceived more support and felt more efficacious in their relationships, relative to those characterized by less support and less efficacy, experienced more depressive symptoms. In the context of marital violence, increasing levels of relationship efficacy and perceptions of spouse support may be accompanied by an increase in the risk for depressive reactions.     

Does alcohol make a difference? Within-participants comparison of incidents of partner violence

Episodes of husband-to-wife violence in which the husband consumed alcohol were compared with episodes of husband-to-wife violence, reported by the same individuals, in which the husband was not drinking. Among this community sample of newlyweds, wife reports, but not husband reports, indicated that violent episodes in which the husband was drinking included more acts of violence and were more likely to involve severe violence. Both wife and husband reports indicated that wives were more likely to be physically aggressive in husband drinking episodes compared to sober episodes. However, whereas wives reported that their aggressive behavior was a response to husband aggression, husbands reported that wives were more likely to initiate violence in these episodes. Violent episodes that include alcohol may be more severe and more mutually violent than sober episodes. Discrepancies between husband and wife reports may reflect differences in recall or self-serving biases.     

Hostility and stress as mediators of aggression in violent men

This research investigated hypothesized differences on the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory between five groups of men who varied in terms of being violent toward female cohabitants, nonfamily members, or no one, and in terms of marital satisfaction. Other measures, such as stress and childhood abuse data, were employed to interpret the findings. A two-way MANCOVA (group by race) with six sociodemographic covariates revealed significant differences on three Hostility Inventory subscales. The maritally violent men had significantly higher total Hostility than any of the other groups and were significantly discriminable from the other groups. Nonetheless, the beliefs and behaviors of violence-prone individuals overlap to some degree. A cognitive-behavioral model with stimulus variables of life Stressors, intervening variables of hostility and negative stress reactions, and response variables of different forms of aggression served as a framework for interpreting the results.     

Psychological Abuse of Chinese Wives

The present studies aimed to facilitate understanding of psychological wife abuse in Chinese families by extending the generality of the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA) to Chinese. Study 1 examined the factorial validity of the original ISA using Chinese college students. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis rejected the 2-factor structure of the original ISA. Based on results of exploratory factor analysis, an alternative 19-item Chinese ISA was devised, which showed satisfactory internal consistency and correlated with the original ISA and the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). Study 2 aimed to determine the concurrent and construct validity of the Chinese ISA. Results showed that the scale could adequately differentiate between victims of wife abuse from those women who had no abuse experiences. It also correlated with the CTS, marital dissatisfaction, and negative mental health measures of general psychological symptoms, depression, and anxiety. The clinical cutting scores of the Chinese ISA were also determined to predict psychological and physical wife abuse in Chinese families.     

Marital Rape: Is the Crime Taken Seriously Without Co-occurring Physical Abuse?

This vignette study was conducted to determine how observers' beliefs about marital rape are altered by the knowledge of a prior history of husband-to- wife physical violence. Participants (n = 50 college students) read three different marital rape situations; in one situation the husband had been physically violent in the past; in another he had not. In the third situation, participants were not given any information about the physical abuse history between the spouses. As expected, participants blamed the victim most for the marital rape and minimized the seriousness of the rape when they had been told that there was not a prior history of husband-to-wife physical abuse. These findings suggest that observers use a physical violence history to establish the coercion needed to determine that marital rape had occurred. The legal implications of these findings are discussed.     

Retrospective reports of family-of-origin divorce and abuse and college student's pre-parenthood cognitions

This study examined the relationship between pre-parenthood cognitions and family-of-origin divorce and aggression. College students from divorced (N=46) and intact (N=66) families were asked to report their positive and negative pre-parenthood beliefs. Young adults from divorced families were found to anticipate more concerns about parenthood than those from intact families. Second, consistent with hypothesis, number of parenting concers differed by reported level of physical victimization from father. Level of witnessing father-to-mother violence was also significantly associated with pre-parenthood concerns, as individuals who witnessed severe levels of father-to-mother violence reported more concerns about parenthood than did those witnessing mild violence, emotional abuse, or no physical or emotional abuse. Victimization from mother and witnessing mother-to-father violence were unrelated to pre-parenthood concerns. None of the family-of-origin experiences was found to relate to positive reasons for children. These findings suggest that divorce and physical abuse by father in the family-of-origin may result in altered negative pre-parenthood cognitions. The findings were discussed in relation to theories about the intergenerational transmission of negative family events, as well in relation to gender sensitive models of family violence.     

Police attitudes in assigning responsibility for wife abuse

Prevailing myths concerning wife abuse generally tend to blame the victim. The present study examines the degree of responsibility assigned by police officers to the wife, the husband, as well as the couple's socioeconomic situation in cases of wife abuse. The officer's position (neutral vs supportive) adopted toward the woman is also investigated. The influence of eight characteristics related either to the spouses or to the situation of violence on both the officer's position and the attribution of responsibility is analyzed. The characteristics are: couple's socioeconomic status, type of household, drinking by husband, alleged antagonism on the part of the wife, ambivalence of wife to press charges, type of abuse, history of assault, and violence toward children. The results are based on answers to case vignettes provided by 235 municipal police officers. The data were analyzed by performing a multivariate analysis of variance. Results indicate the type of abuse to be the characteristic with the greatest impact on police attitudes. While the husband is systematically considered more responsible than the wife, police officers always consider the wife somewhat responsible, particularly when there is alleged antagonism by the woman and when threats of violence are present.     

Prevalence and distribution of premarital aggression among couples applying for a marriage license

This study used a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale to examine the prevalence of premarital aggression in a community sample of husbands and wives. The sample consisted of 625 couples participating in a longitudinal study of marital functioning and alcohol use. Consistent with past studies, the overall prevalence rate of husband-to-wife premarital aggression was 35%. Sociodemographic variables were associated with premarital aggression, with differences emerging primarily with regard to moderate aggression rather than mild aggression. Further, factors such as race, education, social class, cohabitation, and presence of children were independently associated with premarital aggression. This study is one of the first to examine premarital aggression in a large, heterogeneous sample of young husbands and wives at the same stage of relationship development. Future analyses will examine the prevalence, frequency, and continuity of husband and wife aggression over the first year of marriage.