TITLE:
Perception of Partner Abuse and Its Impact on Marital Violence from Both Spouses
AUTHORS:
Claude Bélanger, Cynthia Mathieu, Hélène Brisebois
KEYWORDS:
Marital Violence; Psychological Violence; Physical Violence; Spousal Abuse; Perception of Abuse
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.4 No.11,
November
27,
2013
ABSTRACT: Few studies have investigated
bi-directional models of marital violence. Research
suggests that female victims are also often perpetrators of violence.
Accordingly, some researchers propose that we should test the hypothesis that the victim and
perpetrator roles can be played by both men and women. The
current study addresses this issue by attempting to understand the effect that
perceptions of spousal violence will have on both partners’ level of marital
violence. Our objectives were to verify the links between levels of
violence and perceptions of violence by both partners, and actual self-reports
of each type of violence perpetrated. We verified if self-reports and partner’s
reports of violence would differ, if one partner’s abuses would influence the
other partner’s abuses, and whether the spouse’s self-reported violence or the
other spouse’s perception of that violence had a differential impact on the
level of violence perpetrated. Twenty-three couples in which the
male partner was undergoing treatment for marital violence took part in the
study. Results indicate that for both partners perceptions of partner violence modulate
the level of marital violence that is perpetrated. The link between perceptions
and violent behaviors appears to explain female marital violence better than that
it does for males. Implications based on these results are discussed.