This research aims to examine the child-rearing experiences and attitudes toward the violence of mothers who witnessed or experienced violence in their childhood and those who have not. The research is conducted over a study group of 30 mothers whose 5- to 6-year-old children are attending kindergarten. The data have been collected using the…

Several researchers have explored the role of alcohol in domestic violence and attributions of blame. To compare the amount of blame attributed to an incident of wife abuse, alcoholic (N=52) and nonalcoholic (N=159) subjects read an account of wife abuse and distributed a percentage of the blame to the man, the woman, and the situation.…

A study was conducted to investigate whether readers of newspapers that carry large amounts of crime news have a greater fear of being victims of crime than do readers of newspapers that place less emphasis on crime coverage. Data were gathered through a content analysis of crime news in three newspapers of widely differing circulation, interviews…

This investigation used a convergent measures design to explore the relationship of television viewing habits and preferences to experimentally emitted aggressive behavior. The catharsis argument posits that watching programs high in aggressive content provides a socially adaptive outlet for involvement with aggression. Groups of college and…

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), characterized by disguises, secrecy, bigotry, and terror, came into power in the South after the Civil War. In some parts of the country the KKK, an extreme example of pathological group process, appears as strong and violent today as ever. Fromm (1941) noted that the basis of group psychology is the individual personality…

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Rorschach test are frequently used in juvenile justice settings to assess current psychological functioning and to predict future behavior. The Exner Comprehensive System, which standardized the Rorschach, made possible a comparison of the Rorschach and the MMPI in an investigation of…

Although many battered women seek help from their family physicians as outpatients, rates of current and lifetime victimization among outpatient female patients have not been well studied. This study tested two hypotheses regarding whether battered women presented to the clinic in a different manner than did nonbattered women. First, within the…

What differentiates nonviolent individuals from violent individuals? This paper addresses the question by linking current psychological literature on human values with literature on nonviolence. Recent contributions to values theory have begun to establish a universal structure of human values. The theoretical case is made that nonviolent…

Most child abuse has a violent quality. A review of the research on child abusers reveals some interesting psychosocial and historical characteristics. Research has shown violence to be more likely in less stable populations, in persons with poor driving records and histories of severe accidents, and in those who are undereducated and unsuccessful…

Many social policies rely on assessments of violence potential in their implementation. Decisions concerning such civil matters as involuntary institutionalization and level of institutional custody, and criminal matters such as type or length of sentence and the granting of bail often rely on estimates of the potential that an individual will be…

Abuse between intimates has begun to be examined. Recent research has studied the incidence and causes of violence in marriages and in premarital relationships. A study was conducted to examine the level of intimate violence, patterns of violence for each gender, and the relationship of stress to violence in adult relationships. Study participants…

An investigation was designed to test the proposition that people who are apprehensive about crime will exhibit a greater preference for crime drama that features the restoration of justice than will those people who are less apprehensive about crime. Undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory mass communications course served as subjects.…

This study specifically explored the relationships among childhood trauma, long-term psychological consequences, beliefs about family violence, and gender role stereotypes in Asian and Asian American women. A prediction was made that childhood physical violence and witnessing family violence would create long-term negative symptoms; higher levels…

Hope has been theorized to be a stable cognitive mindset that develops over time, as children experience success at meeting challenges and in conquering obstacles to their goals (Snyder et al, 1994). To determine the effects of children's violence exposure, both as victims and as witnesses, to children's hope, 99 children living in violent areas…

Knowledge of individual differences of victim responses to and recovery from rape is necessary in order to provide for each victim's individual needs. Black women may be exposed to more violence in their culture and may be treated differently than white women. These differences may lead to different recovery patterns between black and white rape…