Considering emotional abuse in the link between spouse and child abuse (original) (raw)
Related papers
Child Abuse & Neglect, 2006
Objective: The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which intimate partner violence and different forms of child maltreatment occur within and across childhood and adulthood for a high-risk group of women. Method: Low-income adult women were interviewed, retrospectively, regarding their experiences with intimate partner violence and child maltreatment in childhood and adulthood, and intra-and intergenerational relationships between multiple forms of family violence were identified. Results: Analyses demonstrated weak to moderate associations between various forms of violence within generations. Only weak support was found for the transmission of violence hypothesis that maltreated children are more likely to grow up to maltreat their own children. Stronger support was found for the theory of learned helplessness, whereby children maltreated or witness to violence during childhood are more likely to be victimized as an adult. Conclusion: The results from this study suggest that interventions with children who are identified for one form of victimization should be assessed for other forms of victimization, and interventions should also address learned behaviors or beliefs associated with continued or future victimization.
Intergenerational transmission of partner violence: A 20-year prospective study
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2003
An unselected sample of 543 children was followed over 20 years to test the independent effects of parenting, exposure to domestic violence between parents (ETDV), maltreatment, adolescent disruptive behavior disorders, and emerging adult substance abuse disorders (SUDs) on the risk of violence to and from an adult partner. Conduct disorder (CD) was the strongest risk for perpetrating partner violence for both sexes, followed by ETDV, and power assertive punishment. The effect of child abuse was attributable to these 3 risks. ETDV conferred the greatest risk of receiving partner violence; CD increased the odds of receiving partner violence but did not mediate this effect. Child physical abuse and CD in adolescence were strong independent risks for injury to a partner. SUD mediated the effect of adolescent CD on injury to a partner but not on injury by a partner. Prevention implications are highlighted.
Background: This study provides an exploration of factors implicated in the intergenerational cycle of child maltreatment. Families with newborns where at least one of the parents was physically and/or sexually abused as a child (AP families) were compared in terms of risk factors to families where the parents had no childhood history of victimisation (NAP families). The mediational properties of risk factors in the intergenerational cycle of maltreatment were then explored. Methods: Information was collected by community nurses as a part of the 'health visiting' service. Data was collated across 4351 families, of which 135 (3.1%) had a parent who self-reported a history of abuse in childhood. The health visitor visited each family at home when the child was 4 to 6 weeks of age to assess the presence of risk factors. Results: Within 13 months after birth, 9 (6.7%) AP families were referred for maltreating their own child in comparison to 18 (.4%) NAP families. Assessments found a significantly higher number of risk factors for AP families. Mediational analysis demonstrated that the presence of three significant risk factors (parenting under 21 years, history of mental illness or depression, residing with a violent adult) provided partial mediation of the intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment, explaining 53% of the total effect. Conclusion: Prevention may be possible, once a history of parental childhood abuse has been identified, by offering services in priority to those families where a parent is under 21 years, has a history of mental illness/depression and/or there is a violent adult residing in the household. However, it must also be acknowledged that these factors do not provide a full causal account of the intergenerational transmission and consideration should be given to additional factors, such as parenting styles (see Part II of this mediational model, Dixon, .
2002
On the basis of a learning-theory approach to the intergenerational transmission of violence, researchers have focused almost exclusively on violent men's childhood experiences of physical abuse and witnessing family violence. Little consideration has been given to the coexistence of other forms of child maltreatment or the role of family dysfunction in contributing to violence. This study shows the relationships between the level of child maltreatment (physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing family violence), childhood family characteristics, current alcohol abuse, trauma symptomatology, and the level of physical and psychological spouse abuse perpetrated by 36 men with a history of perpetrating domestic violence who had attended counseling. As hypothesized, a high degree of overlap between risk factors was found. Child maltreatment, low family cohesion and adaptability, and alcohol abuse was significantly associated with frequency of physical spouse abuse and trauma symptomatology scores, but not psychological spouse abuse. Rather than physical abuse or witnessing family violence, childhood neglect uniquely predicted the level of physical spouse abuse. Witnessing family violence (but not physical abuse) was found to have a unique association with psychological spouse abuse and trauma symptomatology. These results present a challenge to the understanding of domestic violence obtained from learning theory.
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a continuum of abuse that is associated with a number of negative outcomes including substance misuse, depression, and suicidal ideation. This study aims to investigate the intergenerational transmission of IPV perpetration and the mechanisms involved. Intergenerational transmission was investigated using information from two generations of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development which is a prospective longitudinal study of 411 males from an inner London area in the UK who have been followed up over a period of 50 years. Information with regard to IPV perpetration, specifically physical violence, was garnered from self-reports by the male at age 32, from their female partner at age 48, and from their male and female children in early adulthood. Regression analyses were used to investigate intergenerational transmission and examine whether psychosocial risk factors could be identified as potential intergenerational pathways. Having a father wh...
2008
Objective: This study examined the association between partner psychological abuse and child maltreatment perpetration. Methods: This cross-sectional study examined a population-based sample of mothers with children aged 0-17 years in North and South Carolina (n = 1,149). Mothers were asked about the occurrence of potentially neglectful or abusive behaviors toward their children by either themselves or their husband/partner in the past year. Partner psychological abuse was categorized as no psychological abuse (reference), husband perpetrates, wife perpetrates, or both perpetrate. Outcome measures for psychological and physical abuse of the child had four categories: no abuse (reference), mother perpetrates, father/father-figure perpetrates, or both parents perpetrate, whereas child neglect was binary. Adjusted relative risk ratios (aRRRs), adjusted odds ratios, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated with regression models. A relative risk ratio was the ratio of odds ratios derived from multinomial logistic regression. Results: Children were at the greatest risk of maltreatment when parents psychologically abused each other versus no abuse: the aRRR for child psychological abuse by the mother only was 16.13 (95% CI: 5.11, 50.92) compared to no abuse, controlling for child age, gender, Medicaid welfare, and mother's level of education. Both parents psychologically abuse each other versus no abuse also results in an aRRR of 14.57 (95% CI: 3.85, 55.16) for child physical abuse by both parents compared to no abuse. When only the husband perpetrates toward the wife, the odds of child neglect was 5.29 times as much as families with no psychological abuse (95% CI: 1.36, 20.62). Conclusions: Partner psychological abuse was strongly related to child maltreatment. Children experienced a substantially increased risk of maltreatment when partner psychological abuse was present in the homes. Practice implications: This study observed that intimate partner psychological abuse significantly increased risk of child maltreatment. Increased public awareness of partner psychological abuse is warranted. Primary prevention should include education about the seriousness of partner psychological abuse in families. Domestic violence and child welfare agencies must recognize the link between partner psychological abuse and child maltreatment and work together to develop effective screening for each of these problems.
A Test of Various Perspectives on the Intergenerational Transmission of Domestic Violence*
1995
Past research indicates that adults who were subject to severe physical discipline as children are often violent toward their spouse and children as adults. This association is usually attributed to modeling or the learning of attitudes that legitimate hitting family members. Using four waves of data from a sample of midwestern families, this study found only limited support for these explanations. Analysis showed that the relationship between childhood exposure to harsh parenting and recurrent adult violence toward children or a spouse was mediated by the extent to which parents displayed an antisocial orientation. This pattern of findings is consistent with criminological theories that view criminal and deviant behavior of all sorts as rooted in a general antisocial orientation acquired in childhood largely as a result of ineffective parenting.
Psychology of Violence
Objective: This prospective, longitudinal investigation examined psychological violence across generations. We examined how parent psychological violence experienced during adolescence influenced the stability of one's own intimate partner psychological violence perpetration across time and how psychological violence is related to harsh parenting in adulthood. Method: Data came from 193 parents and their adolescent who participated from adolescence through adulthood. Parental psychological violence was assessed in early adolescence. Partner violence was assessed in late adolescence, emerging adulthood, and adulthood. Harsh parenting to their offspring was assessed in adulthood. Results: Parent psychological violence in early adolescence was associated with one's own intimate partner psychological violence in late adolescence. Partner psychological violence was stable from emerging adulthood to adulthood. Moreover, parental violence was also related to their own harsh parenting in adulthood. Conclusions: Findings suggest that children exposed to parental psychological violence during adolescence may have greater difficulty developing acceptable behaviors in their own romantic relationships over time, as well as parenting their own child in adulthood. Findings highlight the importance for clinicians and policymakers to develop and utilize effective educational and preventive interventions designed toward not only adolescent behaviors, but also that of the parent. Understanding how the family environment impacts current and long-term functioning is important in helping stop the cycle of violence across generations.
Why sexual abuse? An exploration of the intergenerational hypothesis
Child Abuse & Neglect, 1989
The issue of sexual abuse in the family backgrounds of offenders and mothers of victims is explored in a clinical sample of 154 cases of intrafamilial sexual abuse. More than a third of the offenders and about half of the mothers had experienced or been exposed to sexual abuse as children. Cases were divided into those where the sexual abuser was the biological father in an intact family, those where he was a stepfather or mother's live-in partner, and those where he was a noncustodial father. In biological father cases, parents were about equally likely to have experienced sexual abuse during childhood, in the stepfather/live-in partner cases, the mother was more likely to have had such an experience, and in the noncustodial father cases, the offender was more likely to have come from a sexually abusive family.
Spousal Abuse as a Function of Childhood Abuse
The primary intent of this study was to examine the relationship between the level of physical punishment that males received as children and their use of aggression in later intimate heterosexual relationships. An available group of 30 males, who were either married or in a steady relationship, completed a 53-question survey containing both graded and buffer questions. Findings reveal that the level of physical punishment received correlates positively with the level of aggression used by the males in their subsequent intimate relationships (r = .42). The researcher shows that these findings may be due to the formation of an addiction to abusive behavior and proposes future studies that may differentiate abuse as an addiction from the currently popular explanations (specifically social learning theory).