Drawing from social learning theories and symbolic interactionist understandings of social life, the authors suggest that physical punishment teaches aggressive and controlling strategies for solving the problems of living together and hinders the development of important problem-solving skills, specifically the ability to role take with others.…

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.…

A self-administered questionnaire was filled out by 349 Jordanian men to examine the correlation between their patriarchal ideology and their beliefs about wife abuse. The results revealed that high percentages of Jordanian men tended to justify wife abuse, to blame women for violence against them, and to believe that women benefit from beating.…

The beliefs of 356 Jordanian women about wife-beating were investigated, using a self-administered questionnaire. The participants showed a strong tendency to justify wife-beating, to believe that women benefit from violence against them, and to blame women for their beating. Furthermore, the participants expressed clear opposition to formal…