Week 8: L1: Violence In Relationships Flashcards
Risk factors for violence
- younger
- dating/co-habiting
- less well-educated
- more likely to
• be unemployed
• abuse drugs and alcohol
• less satisfied with relationship
• depressed and anxious
National family violence surveys
- occasional violence is reported in 50% of American couples
- measures with the Conflict Tactics Scale - 19 types of events ranging from sulking to using guns/knives
- married couples 16% report at least 1 act of physical aggression over past year; dating/cohabiting - 30%
Situational couple violence
Both men and women do it; usually doesn’t escalate, happens once every 1-2 months, seems to result from prolonged, unsuccessful attempts to resolve conflict
Intimate terrorism (Johnson, 1995)
- power-related violence
- formerly called “patriarchal” - may be culturally sanctioned but may also be an individual behaviour pattern
- power: “the ability if one person to intentionally influence the behaviour of another person”
Power and dependency
- dependency is key to power
- the “principle of least interest” - the person who has least interest in continuing the relationship has more power
- all kinds of relationships
Power bases - French and Raven (1968)
- reward power
- legitimate power
- referent power: charismatic leader, or someone whose loved
- expert power
- coercive power - force, violence
Intimate terrorism violence
- happens frequently in some families
- invariably escalates
- initiated almost exclusively by men
- pattern is one of general power and control using a number of tactics
Tactics - using coercion and threats, emotional blackmail, male privilege, intimidation - stalking/surveillance, isolation, children as weapon, economic abuse
Partner homicide
- overwhelming men who kill their partners
- men are more likely they w to kill others outside intimate relationships
- m also kill ex-partners, and frequently commit suicide following partner homicide
Reasons for intimate terrorism
Evolutionary theory
- held to stem from paternity uncertainty and to motivate possessive, controlling behaviors
- aim is to control sexual access
- note role of jealousy
Supports from studies of economic power in marriage
Intimate terrorist behaviour
Such men use few positive behaviours but many negative ones
- extreme needs for attention and reassurance
- unrealistic expectations of intimacy
Consequences - intrusive, angry, controlling an jealousy behaviors
Abandonment panic
- have a fear of being abandoned
- interpret signs of partner independence as abandonment
- extreme dependency on partners
- perceived lack of power
Sociological perspective on violence in relationship
Social learning theory
- important role of witnessing parental violence, as opposed to being victims of domestic violence
- women develop schemas that this is normal through parental violence
- may also make women less skilled at self-protection, less self-confident, and more likely to accept victimization
Women’s extreme violence in relationships is usually “reactive”
Who do intimate terrorists blame?
- others
- external or transient states
- extenuating factors and justifications
- by denying responsibility, can continue to behave violently
- attributional pattern matches clinical description of violent men - reluctant to seek therapy and resistant to it
Obsessive relationship intrusion (ORI) (Cupach & Spitzberg, 1995)
- repeated and unwanted pursuit and invasion of one’s sense of physical or symbolic privacy by another person, either stranger or acquaintance, who desires and/or presumes an intimate relationship
- ORI characteristics
• unrequited love (victim suffers more than obsessor)
• repeated, persistent, escalates
Fusion - complete dependence in a partner; identity fusion
ORI pursuer characteristics
- unsuccessful in love
- lonely and socially isolated
- insecure and hypersensitive to the threat of abandonment
