Studied etiology of physical aggression toward spouses in couples (N=328) 6 weeks prior to marriage and 6-18 months after marriage. Found men had higher ratings of violent activities outside home but men and women engaged in similar amounts of aggression within their families. Found women more likely to generalize aggression. (Author/CM)

Evaluates the impact on spousal violence of shelters for battered women. Predicts that shelters will have beneficial effects only for battery victims who are already taking control of their lives. For other women, a shelter stay may in the short run encourage retaliation. (Author/ABB)

Compared physical violence rates in Black families (N=147) of 1975 First National Family Violence Survey and its 1985 replication (N=576). Compared Black family sample to general survey respondents (1975, N=2,143; 1985, N=6,002). Found decline in violence toward Black women, Black-to-White ratio increase for violence toward men and children, and…

Interviewed and physically assessed 102 married men in an attempt to develop a biopsychosocial model of male domestic violence. Used Tobit analysis to identify significant predictors. Analyzed separately, each domain was significantly related to male domestic violence. When considered together, only the biological and social domains yielded…

Examined effects of race and social class in comparative study of husband-to-wife violence experienced by 307 Black and White women. Results revealed no significant differences between proportion of Black and White women victims of marital violence. Data suggest that when social class positions are controlled, Black middle class women experienced…

Examined role of social isolation in greater incidence of aggression in cohabiting couples than married persons using national survey data from 13,017 respondents. Claims these factors are related to cohabitors' aggression: they are likely to be youthful and black; lack social control associated with participation in organizations; and tend to…

Considered perceptions of relationship quality (positive communication, caring gestures, recollections of happiest times) in 81 discordant clinic and 51 nondiscordant community couples. Spouses in nondistressed community marriages reported more frequent and higher quality positive communication and longer lasting and more recent happiest memories…

Compares the rate of physical abuse of children and spouses from a 1975 study with rates from a 1985 replication. The 1985 rates were substantially lower than in 1975. Possible reasons for the lower rates are examined and evaluated. (Author/ABB)

Religious commitment is found to differentiate levels of both communication and physical violence for both wives and husbands in Quaker families. High levels of peace activism are associated with low levels of marital violence for wives but with high levels for husbands, which suggests that commitment to Quaker principles is confounded with…

Data on couples show that rates of domestic violence are related to attitudes about violence and to social structural variables. With respect to physical punishment of one's children and to spousal violence, findings show a spouse's violence has greater impact on the respondent's violence than the respondent's own attitudes about violence.…

Data from a sample of 2,143 adult men and women were used to explore the relationship between wives' dependency on marriage, and wife abuse. Results indicated that it is economic and not psychological dependency which keeps women in severely abusive marriages. (Author)

Found that parental hitting, reported by 17 percent of the sample, failed to affect attitudes about women's roles. Behavior did affect attitudes concerning the use of violence against women. Suggests men are more likely to approve of violence against women if they observed their fathers hitting their mothers. (Author)

Presents a theoretical perspective that integrates elements of social structural and social psychological explanations of spouse abuse. Suggests certain types of status inconsistency and status incompatibility involve very high risks of spouse abuse, particularly life-threatening violence. Other types of inconsistency seem to protect couples from…

Explores the effectiveness of modeling acts of aggression and dominance as casual indicators of forms of wife abuse and their effects on women's health, including physical injuries, psychopathology, alterations to psyche, anger, alcohol and drug use, and subsequent general health status. New estimates of the relative severity are provided.…

Examined relationship between verbal and physical aggression in marriage, using data from 1985 National Family Violence Re-Survey. Results indicated that when physical aggression occurred, verbal aggression occurred also. Concludes that for male-to-female aggression subculture of violence theory best explains movement from verbal to physical…