Socialization and Domestic Violence
Discuss about the Psychological Concepts Related To The Issue.
Socialization is the way children are taught to grow up and become full-fledged members of the society. This is through nature and nurture where the former entails activities that take place in the external environment while the latter is related to conscious efforts exerted on the individual. In a patriarchal and matriarchal society, men and women are socialized in different ways where women are supposed to be submissive while males are the head of the house (Murthy, Ganesh, Srivirajarani, & Madhusudan, 2004). Children who are socialized in domestic violence environment grow to understand that violence is a way of resolving disputes within the household. Further, girls who grow seeing their mothers abused grow up with defensive mechanisms against men which can make them abusive. Researchers have linked childhood experiences of aggression and violence abuse in adulthood. This is termed intergenerational transmission of violence which learning the behaviour through modelling. The child learns how to commit the violence and the positive attitudes associated with the violence if he is a boy while a girl learns way of reacting to such violent situations. This means that women who grew up in abusive backgrounds may have sworn not to be subjected to such cases
Stress is another component that can lead to domestic violence. Family situations like lack of finances create increased pressure for couples due increased tension. Stress and aggression reinforce each other at the biological level where a vicious cycle is demonstrated by bringing out the worst in people (Susmitha, 2016). When responding to stressful pressures within the domestic set up, some couples resort violence as way of managing their stress. Stressed people are likely to respond violently since their levels of resistance are low Rakovec-Felser (2014) suggests that couples in poverty are more likely to experience domestic violence due to the pressures of life. A man who fails to provide for the family is forced to submit to the wife while the wife takes total control to the point of abusing the husband. Since the man has failed to provide, then it means that he has failed the idea of successful manhood which leads to lost honour and respect.
The social cycle theory can be used to explain domestic abuse in the context of relationships where it states that abusive incidences are repeated every time now and then. Partners who stay long in abusive relationships developed the pattern of learned helplessness which makes them feel like there is nothing that can be done to changes the situation. The behaviour is more worse if the abused is a male since the society has higher expectations on males. However, Usta & Taleb (2014) adds that relationships with reporting cases of violent are difficult to manage because they are characterised with patterns of abuse and apology. The partners live with the notion that the pattern of abuse will never repeat again due to partner apologies. The cycle of abuse goes through four stages of tension building, incident, reconciliation and calm. After the aggressor has reconciled and gone to the calm stage, the agressed party believes that the perpetrator will not repeat the violence due to the promise of changed behaviour. However, these cycle as repeated since the individual regresses back to the tension building which leads to violent outbursts. Such individuals are characterised with low resistance levels of stress that make them burst out when the stress has piled up. Therefore, such individuals have challenges managing their stress levels since they burst out when the stress has reached certain levels.
Stress and Domestic Violence
Henry (2005) suggests that the internet provides users with a wide ray of information to search through. This allows the reader to use key words to search the internet and acquire the required information. In this research I started by searching the internet to find articles that had similar information to what I was looking to assist in narrowing down the search. This lead me to the National Center for Biotechnology Information that has peer reviewed articles in different topics. To narrow down the search and get clearer results I searched the term domestic violence in the search area which gave me a list of several articles that I analyzed and picked the most recent that met the requirements of the topic. The exclusion inclusion criteria was the year of publication which was not supposed more than two years old and was to cover any of the three concepts discussed above.
Nguyen, Karney, & Bradbury (2017) did a longitudinal study of 414 couples from low-income neighbourhoods to determine the relationship between abuse history and communication patterns between couples. Since communication is a key element in any relationship, it means that the inability of couples to communicate in a relationship creates higher chances of domestic violence. The researchers used a survey design to identify issues within the research problem. Due to the nature of the study there was no hypothesis but rather the independent variabe for the study was childhood abuse while the dependent variales were marital outcomes and partner characteristics. Nguyen, Karney, & Bradbury (2017) argues that children socialised in an abusive background tend to believe that violence is the best way of sorting conflicts and others issues within the relationship. Dargis & Koenigs (2018), suggest that childhood experiences of domestic violence and abuse set in motion psychological and biological changes that unfold when children reach adolescence and later into adulthood. These factors lead to social mistrust and mood related changes which lead to poor relationships and the inability of such people to communicate well in their future relationships. In turn this leads to instances of violence and any behaviour that the child displays in adulthood.
From the vulnerability, stress and adaptation model, relationships work well when partners respond to each others vulnerabilities. However, partners who have varying backgrounds like those from abusive backgrounds and non-abusive backgrounds can be challenging to satisfy each other in the marital relationship. This is due to communication challenges that they experience with each other which later leads to incidences of violence. Nguyen, Karney, & Bradbury (2017) suggests that although communication is an issue in relationships, changing communication patterns in couples can be less fruitful but rather it is important to acknowledge unique histories and experiences of partners in determining the best way to solve domestic violence issues.
The Social Cycle Theory and Domestic Violence
Scholars have attempted to analyze the issue of domestic violence and the factors that revolve around it. The article Nguyen, Karney, & Bradbury (2017) can be helpful in determining methods that can be used to reduce domestic violence through reducing the build up of tension thus controlling instances of domestic violence. From the perspective of the article to understand the vulnerabilities of each other in a relationship is the best way for mitigating tension in relationships. Since violence does not erupt spontaneously, but rather builds up in the individual before outbursts, it means that the ability of couples to manage the tensions that build up can be helpful in mitigating domestic violence (Zaher, Keogh, & Ratnapalan, 2014). By studying the background of individuals the researcher proposes a way of identifying the challenges that make individuals display certain behaviours within their adulthood.
On the other, hand to understand of individual backgrounds is helpful in determining the best approach for handling marital issues. The individual background is important in developing mitigation mechanisms for handling domestic violence relationships. The findings can be helpful in developing interventions for victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. Differences in socialization can play a major role in the development of poor communication and relationship patterns. Colquitt & George (2011) suggests that a good research topic needs to offer a grand challenge where its findings can be replicated or used in future research. The article suggests that childhood experiences have lasting and broader effects on the future development of children when they grow into adulthood.
The best way to deal with domestic violence is empowerment of couples to increase communication between them. Through advocacy and awareness, the society can be made to develop the culture of non-violence by developing better conflict resolution mechanisms. This allows the community to understand the impact of domestic violence thus allowing people to understand the need to prevent violence against men, women and even children (Murthy, Ganesh, Srivirajarani, & Madhusudan, 2004). Another way is the enforcement of proper legal mechanisms to allow those affected to seek legal redress. In most cases, men have been treated badly as compared to women when they seek intervention against domestic violence. Since the society believes that women cannot batter men, then this makes it difficult for most men to seek support from the police system.
To prevent domestic violence from happening in future, Kumari, et al. (2009) present four principles of intervention can be applied. The first principle is prevention used to ensure that the incidences are not repeated. The second principle is protection which focusses on empowering men and women to develop strategies of protecting themselves against violent partners. The third principle is early intervention by ensuring that the community understands how to respond to such situations. Lastly, rebuilding the lives of victims seeks to ensure that those who had been affected before can regain their lives back. By applying the four principles, it becomes easy to control and mitigate domestic violence related cases.
References
Colquitt, J., & George, G. (2011). From the editor publishing in amj—Part 1: Topic Choice. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3), 432-435.
Dargis, M., & Koenigs, M. (2018). Witnessing domestic violence during childhood is associated with psychopathic traits in adult male criminal offenders. Law & Human Behaviour, 41(2), 173-179.
Henry, L. A. (2005). Information Search Strategies on the Internet: A Critical Component of New Literacies. Webology, 2(1).
Kumari, S., Priyamvada, R., Chaudhury, S., Singh, A., Verma, A., & Prakash, J. (2009). Possible psychosocial strategies for controlling violence against women. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 18(2), 132–134.
Murthy, M., Ganesh, P., Srivirajarani, J., & M. R. (2004). Proximate determinants of domestic violence: An exploratory study on role of menstrual problems and life style of men. Demography India, 33(1), 85-105.
Nguyen, T. P., Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2017). Childhood Abuse and Later Marital Outcomes: Do Partner Characteristics Moderate the Association? Journal of Family Psychology, 31(1), 82-92.
Rakovec-Felser, Z. (2014). Domestic Violence and Abuse in Intimate Relationship from Public Health Perspective. Health Psychology Research, 2(3).
Susmitha, B. (2016). Domestic Violence: Causes, Impact and Remedial Measures. Social Change, 10(1).
Usta, J., & Taleb, R. (2014). Addressing domestic violence in primary care: what the physician needs to know. Libyan Journal of Medicine, 9(10).
Young, C. (2018, February 22). When wives beat their husbands, no one wants to believe it. Los Angeles Times.
Zaher, E., Keogh, K., & Ratnapalan, S. (2014). Effect of domestic violence training. Canadian Family Physician, 60(7), 618-624.
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