Domestic Violence - Most Common Specific Types of Physical Violence - Research Paper Example

?STAGE ONE: The of interest for this researcher is family conflict. This issue is further narrowed down to domestic violence. The interest stems from a curiosity in regard to conflict and violence within personal relationships. Domestic violence involved conflicts and violence perpetrated on family members such as espousal violence, parent physically abusing children or children abusing the elderly. The subject is still quite broad so it was further specified into finding out the most common form of domestic violence. An abusive behavior can be recurring such as slapping and could increase in severity. This is now the focus of this investigation. According to the American Medical Association, the most common form of domestic violence is spouse abuse involving battery. (p. 6) I am also inclined to further trim the scope of this down to wife-beating because male violence is arguably more dangerous than violence perpetrated by women. After having outlined these points, I would like to focus on specific acts in this type of violent behavior at home. What are the causes of the violent acts? How often do these acts occur? How severe it gets within a particular period of time? Review of Related Literature The extant literature on domestic violence is quite extensive. While most of these are generic in their approaches, covering other forms of violence against different family members, they provide important information that illustrates a pattern of behavior for the abuser and the victim in spousal violence. For example, Fincham (1990) cited the patriarchal conceptualizations wherein male domination is expected within the family. Here, wife battery is almost justified and never treated more than a simple misdemeanor because of the view that is based on the premise that men assume an authoritarian role within the family and that they exercise a historically rooted power, sanctioned by the patriarchal society, religion and past legal definitions. (p. 332) There are other psychological theories that explain why spousal abuse and wife-battery is the most common form of domestic violence. Numerous studies have been undertaken explaining the models of classical conditioning and exchange theory, among others. Meanwhile, Victoria Burbank differentiated “wife battery” from “wife beating”. In her work, wherein she extensively explored the plight of women aborigines in Australia, she defined wife battery as that violence that is “out of the ordinary” where wives were injured, harmed, incapacitated and sometimes murdered; while “wife beating” involves an intentional inflicting of pain that sometimes becomes frequent and routine for the perpetrator. (p. 158) Burbank also confirmed the patriarchal theory by pointing out that male aggression towards their wives has a certain degree of acceptance. (p. 159) There are also studies that investigated the manner by which wife-battery are considered as such. There are those investigations that reveal how certain laws both today and in the past provide specific requirements in order for a violent act to be criminalized. For example, slapping or shoving are publicly permitted acts and may not constitute legal offense. According to Straus, Gelles and Smith (2009), this is problematic because, on the average, men are larger and more powerful than their wives and that a punch or a slap can be more threatening than how the law treats it to be. (p. 58) The researchers also explained how the significance of minor assault and aggravated assault and how these classifications do not do justice to the dynamics of violence between husband and wife. Perspectives The legal system and the society as a whole view wife battery with a sense of acceptance since men are expected to dominate the family. No matter what the politically correct ideal family is, men in our society are expected to provide, lead and control the family. Consistent with this norm is the male authoritarian behavior, which, for its part, is conducive to violent acts. This is supported by what had been written about this research subject, which point to the fact that there are acceptable degrees of violence against wives. There are slaps that are not legally considered abuse. From the point of view of the victim, however, a single slap may become so threatening and cause severe stress and anxiety, especially considering the physical capability of men to do injury. This is the reason why there is a need to investigate and measure the physical and psychological injuries suffered by victims of spousal battery. Straus, Gelles and Smith emphasized this point, stressing that the distinction between minor violence and severe violence may serve to understate what is minor for males and overstate what severe violence is for females. Research Approach In order to identify the specific violent acts involved in wife battery, measure the degree and frequency of such acts and examine the physical and psychological harm of the violent behavior it is important to use quantitative approach. For this purpose, a survey should be conducted with a carefully devised questionnaire. A fundamental component of this questionnaire will be the adoption of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). The original CTS is “a 19-item, 6-point, zero-anchored, Likert-type, self-report inventory,” and consists of “a list of actions a spouse might take in a conflict with a partner.” (Stosny 1995) There are criticisms to CTS. The most important of which explains that while it provides a credible and accurate measurement of how frequent an abuse is, it fails to include the severity or the degree of violence involved. In order to avoid this problem, the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales appear to be more suitable for this research. It is called as CTS2 and contains five subscales with each subscale having minor and severe levels. (CTS/UCLA 2011) The quantitative approach may also be complemented by adding qualitative elements, in order to gather more data through observations. For instance, a focus group interview may be conducted. In addition to the focus group interview, secondary data will also be collected in order to outline case studies. These sources would include journals other texts published on the subject, internet sources as well as other documents released and published by stakeholders and cause-oriented groups. References American Medical Association. (2004). American Medical Association family medical guide. John Wiley and Sons. Burbank, K. (1994). Fighting women: anger and aggression in Aboriginal Australia . Berkeley: University of California Press. Fincham, F. (1990). The Psychology of marriage: basic issues and applications. New York: Guilford Press. Straus, M., Gelles, R. and Smith, C. (2009). Physical violence in American families: risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8,145 families. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Stosny, S. (1995). Treating attachment abuse: a compassionate approach. Berlin: Springer. UCLA. (2011). "Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)". Retrieved from http://chipts.cch.ucla.edu/assessment/IB/List_Scales/Conflict%20Tactics%20Scale_PDF.pdf [15 September 2011]. Read More