Inventory of Beliefs About Wife Beating - The Construction and Initial Validation of a Measure of Beliefs and Attitudes

• NCJ Number: 106821
• Journal: Violence and Victims Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1987) Pages: 39-57
• Author(s): D G Saunders; A B Lynch; M Grayson; D Linz
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Although attitudes and beliefs about wife beating have been regarded as important for understanding the factors that cause and perpetuate woman abuse, researchers have not had adequate instruments to measure these attitudes and beliefs.

Abstract

This article reports on the construction of a scale of attitudes about wife beating and an assessment of the scale's dimensionality and validity. Data were collected from 675 students, 94 residents of a mid-western city, 71 men who batter, and 70 advocates for battered women. Five reliable subscales were derived, and seven tests of validity were supported. Many of the results are analogous to those in studies of attitudes toward rape. Several possible uses of the measure are described. 69 references, 3 notes and 3 tables. (Author abstract modified)