Kathleen Malley-Morrison

Psychological Effects of Partner Abuse Against Men: A Neglected Research Area

This article discusses the research on abuse against men in intimate relationships with a primary focus on the effects of this abuse. We begin by discussing the incidence of physical aggression against men, then address methodological and conceptual issues associated with the incidence data. We next review studies assessing the effects of aggression against men and discuss ways in which this research can be furthered and improved. Finally, we discuss why men would choose to stay in these relationships and consider the scant research on emotional abuse against men. In the early 1970s, the abuse of wives by their husbands finally gained the recognition and attention it deserved in the academic community and the public. This recognition was long overdue, as wives tend to be victimized by their husbands at an alarming rate. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 1994, 900,000 women were the victims of assault by an intimate partner (Craven, 1997). Nationally representative surveys show an even bleaker picture: In their 1975 survey of American families, Straus and Gelles (1986) found that, among wives reporting violence from their husbands in the previous year. 12.1% said that they had been the victim of some sort of violence and 38% reported that they had been the victim of severe violence. This rate of severe violence toward wives equaled 2.1 million wives nationwide. In their 1985 resurvey, Straus and Gelles found an apparent decline in the incidence of wife beating. Specifically, there was a 27% decrease in the rate of severe violence by husbands, which translated into 432,000 fewer cases of severe violence against wives. Although the severe assault of 1.6 million wives is still not acceptable, Straus and Gelles argued that this apparent decline may have been the result of the increased attention that wife beating had received and the consequences that had been instituted for men who assault their intimate partners. The effects of abuse against women are significant. For instance, many women who are the victims of either minor or severe assaults by their intimate partners are physically injured. Specifically, in Straus’s 1985 nationally representative survey, 7.3% of the women who reported being severely assaulted by their spouses needed to seek medical attention (Stets & Straus, 1990). Similarly. Makepeace (1986) found in a study of dating couples that 7.7% of women sustained a moderate or severe physical injury as a result of the violence they experienced. Cascardi, Langhinrichsen, and Vivian (1992) found even graver statistics: 15% of the women who reported experiencing minor spousal abuse and 11% of the women who reported experiencing severe spousal abuse reported suffering broken bones, broken teeth, or injury to a sensory organ.

Young Adult Attachment Styles and Intimate Relationships with Close Friends A Cross-Cultural Study of Koreans and Caucasian Americans

The contribution of attachment styles to social intimacy and expectations of friends was investigated in Caucasian American and Korean young adults. Koreans scored higher on preoccupied attachment, lower on intimacy, and lower on friendship expectations. In regression analyses, secure attachment contributed positively and dismissive attachment contributed negatively to intimacy and positive expectations; culture added significantly to the equations, with Korean students reporting less intimate relationships with friends and more negative expectations than Caucasian Americans.

Attending to the Role of Race/Ethnicity in Family Violence Research

Since the 1970s, researchers and public health and/or social policy communities have devoted increasing attention to family violence. Although officially reported crime figures for family violence appear to be declining, rates continue to be high in broadly defined racial and/or ethnic minority groups. More careful assessments of the potential role of race/ethnicity in family violence, and similarities and differences occurring across and within groups categorized based on race/ethnicity, are essential if adequate interventions are to be developed and utilized. This article provides suggestions on conducting better studies on family violence in the United States, particularly with respect to issues of race/ethnicity. The authors begin by considering conceptions and definitions of race/ethnicity and providing a broad definition of family violence. They then suggest issues for consideration at each stage of the research process, from reviewing previous research, to making methodological decisions, selecting samples, choosing measures, and analyzing and interpreting findings.

A Cognitive-Ecological Approach to Elder Abuse in Five Cultures: Human Rights and Education.

ABSTRACT The population of the world is aging rapidly—a development that the World Health Organization (2004) has labeled as “a demographic revolution.” According to its statistics, there are currently 600 million people in the world over the age of 60, a figure that will double by 2025 and double again by 2050. Within this age group, the numbers of the “oldest old” (people over 80) are increasing the most rapidly. With these dramatic changes, there is an escalating need for education around issues related to aging. Cross-culturally, elders are one of four groups (along with children, women, and individuals with disabilities) found to be consistently vulnerable to family violence (Levesque, 2002). While cross-cultural research on domestic violence and abuse generally has expanded, elder abuse, as a subtype of domestic violence, remains poorly understood cross-culturally. All of the authors in this issue mentioned that a dearth of research on elder abuse within the populations they sampled was a limitation in trying to understand elder abuse within these societies. Their papers, combining qualitative data and quantitative analyses, provide a useful basis for expanding our understanding of cross-cultural aspects of elder abuse. In this concluding paper, we discuss the issues highlighted in the research reported in the papers within this volume. We also comment on how insights from the research might be used to educate the general public, service providers, and human rights workers concerning perspectives on elder abuse and factors that may influence elder maltreatment. The ultimate goal of such understanding is to develop adequate prevention strategies that will address both general and culture-specific risk factors that contribute to elder abuse.

International Perspectives on Elder Abuse: Five Case Studies

ABSTRACT This introduction to the special issue on international perspectives on elder abuse presents basic elements of a cognitive-ecological approach to elder abuse. It also describes the research project out of which the current set of studies emerged, and provides a rationale for the five case studies (Japan, Germany, African Americans, Israel and Brazil) focused on in this issue.

Emotional Commitment, Normative Acceptability, and Attributions for Abusive Partner Behaviors

A model of how individuals in premarital relationships arrive at attributions for abusive partner behaviors was assessed. Evaluations of the abusiveness of partner behaviors and level of emotional commitment were of particular interest. Three categories of behaviors were examined: (a) physical abuse, (b) psychological abuse, and (c) sexual abuse. Participants were 103 young adults involved in premarital relationships who completed modified versions of Billinghams Emotional Commitment Scale and Shepard and Campbells Abusive Behavior Inventory. A series of ANOVAs revealed that commitment level was a significant predictor of premarital attributions. Individuals categorizing themselves as highly committed blamed their partners significantly less for abusive partner behaviors than did individuals reporting moderate levels of commitment. Across all abuse types, females placed more blame on their partners for abusive partner behaviors than did males.

Moral Disengagement and Engagement

Moral disengagement constructs, as formulated by Albert Bandura, provide tools for understanding the tendency of many ordinary people not only to tolerate violence by their leaders but also to provide rationales endorsing the morality of the violence. According to Bandura, the major types of moral disengagement mechanism are the cognitive reconstruction of harmful behavior; misrepresentation, minimization, and/or disregard for the negative consequences of harmful behavior; removing or obscuring personal accountability for harmful behavior; and devaluing the recipient of harm. Utilizing a coding manual for identifying eight moral disengagement mechanisms as well as corresponding mechanisms of moral engagement, we analyzed qualitative responses from a sample of 475 adults living in the United States to two open-ended items addressing potential governmental rights to aggression (invasion and torture) as well as a potential individual right to protest against governmental aggression. These analyses revealed higher levels of moral disengagement in regard to a right to invasion than for rights to torture and protest as well as greater moral disengagement in regard to torture than to protest. Domestic participants (they and their parents were born in the United States) gave more morally disengaged responses to the invasion item than did international participants (they and their parents were born outside the United States). In addition, the specifi c mechanisms of moral disengagement and engagement differed in their frequency across items, across gender, between domestic and international groups, and between members of different political parties. Issues of construct validation, the interface of moral disengagement theory and just war principles, and implications for intervention are discussed.

Russian perspectives on elder abuse: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT The purpose of this exploratory study was to analyze Russian perceptions of elder abuse as reflected in their examples of abusive behavior from an adult child to an aging parent. Also of interest was the possibility of gender differences in the Russian perspectives on elder abuse. The convenience sample consisted of 21 Russian participants (10 males, 10 females, and one without gender identified), who provided examples of extreme, moderate, and mild abuse from an adult child towards an aging parent. Most examples of extreme abuse were forms of physical violence. Typical examples of moderate abuse were instances of psychological aggression–particularly verbal aggression–and neglect. The most common examples of mild abuse were verbal aggression and neglect. One-way analyses of variance revealed statistically significant gender differences in the number of references to psychological aggression in general and to verbal aggression in particular in the examples of moderate abuse, with females giving more examples than males.

International Handbook of War, Torture, and Terrorism

Part I. Perspectives on National Security.- Western Europe.- United Kingdom, Canada, United States & Australia.- Central and Southern Europe, and Eurasia.- The Middle East.- The Gulf States.- Africa. Latin America.- South and Southeast Asia.- East Asia.- Part II. Perspectives on Protest.- Western Europe.- United Kingdom, Canada, United States & Australia.- Central and Southern Europe, and Eurasia.- The Middle East.- The Gulf States.- Africa. Latin America.- South and Southeast Asia.- East Asia.- Part III. Apology and Forgiveness.- Western Europe.- United Kingdom, Canada, United States & Australia.- Central and Southern Europe, and Eurasia.- The Middle East.- The Gulf States.- Africa. Latin America.- South and Southeast Asia.- East Asia.- Part IV. Perspectives on Peace and Reconciliation.- Western Europe.- United Kingdom, Canada, United States & Australia.- Central and Southern Europe, and Eurasia.- The Middle East.- The Gulf States.- Africa. Latin America.- South and Southeast Asia.- East Asia.

Proposing and Completing Your Dissertation

The dissertation is the oldest consistent requirement for becoming a doctor in most academic disciplines in the United States. The dissertation, which has its roots in the 19th Century German educational system, is the central requisite for the highest level of educational attainment, the doctor of philosophy (Rosenberg, 1962). It is distinguished from pedagogical training, which happens at earlier stages in the educational process, and is the formal demonstration that a student has attained the skills necessary to independently produce relevant scientific research and scholarship. In the United States, the dissertation was first adopted as a requirement for the doctorate by Yale University in 1861 (Furniss, 1965) and quickly became the central exposition in the passage from student to doctor for most academic disciplines in most universities. Within psychology, completion of the dissertation has been central to training at the doctoral level since the Ph.D. degree was first granted to G. Stanley Hall in 1878 (Street, 1994). This requirement is common to most doctoral psychology students and, in that sense, might be seen as the unifying or binding activity for doctorial training in our field. In its most recent survey, the US Department of Education (2000) found that 46,010 doctoral degrees were granted in 1998. Almost 10% of those degrees (4,073) were Ph.D.s in psychology.