Psychologists' Judgments of Psychologically Aggressive Actions When Perpetrated by a Husband Versus a Wife

• NCJ Number: 208983
• Journal: Violence and Victims Volume: 19 Issue: 4 Dated: August 2004 Pages: 435-452
• Author(s): Diane R. Follingstad; Dana D. DeHart; Eric P. Green
• Date Published: August 2004
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

A nationwide sampling of practicing psychologists received two separate versions of a survey listing potentially psychologically abusive behaviors perpetrated by either a wife toward her husband or the same actions perpetrated by a husband toward his wife to determine whether clinical judgments of men’s versus women’s behavior and symptoms typically rating the men as more pathological and dangerous would extend to assessments of psychologically aggressive actions.

Abstract

While the perpetration of physical abuse, especially without weapons, seems inherently more dangerous when engaged in by a man toward his partner, there is only one study, conducted in 2001, which suggests that the perpetration of psychological abuse is inherently more harmful when engaged in by men as opposed to women. The assumptions that gender influences who is more likely to engage in physical abuse and that behaviors by one gender can more readily be interpreted as abuse, extending over into professional judgments of psychological actions engaged in by men versus women in intimate relationships has not yet been investigated. This study hypothesized that professionals’ judgments of psychological aggression would view these actions by males as more problematic than these actions by women. In other words, similar actions would be viewed as more abusive and more severe when engaged in by a man toward his wife than the reverse. Two surveys were conducted with the same 1,000 psychologists from the American Psychological Association’s membership. The second survey was mailed approximately 9 months to 1 year following the first survey. Completed surveys numbered 263. As hypothesized, psychologists deciding whether particular actions were definitely, maybe, or never psychological abuse were more likely to consider actions of a husband toward his wife to be abusive than when a wife engaged in the same behaviors toward her husband. Overall, the findings suggest if a psychologist decided that behavior was psychologically abusive, that the perception of the behavior was still different if it was engaged in by the husband as opposed to the wife. References