Psychosocial Implications of Supportive Attitudes towards Intimate Partner Violence against Women throughout the Lifecycle

Abstract

Supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) normalize and promote these aggressive behaviors. As a result, more and more research is proposing the identification, analysis and intervention of these attitudes. However, the vast majority of this research focuses on students. The main objective of this paper is to analyze these supportive attitudes throughout the lifecycle. An opportunity sample of 200 Spanish participants, by age and sex fixed quotas, took part in this study. Attitudes were measured using the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and Violence, the Inventory of Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence and the Gender Violence Implicit Association Test, a personalized form of Implicit Association Test (IAT). The results show that explicitly measured supportive attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women differ between age groups, adopting a U-shape distribution: lower acceptance among middle-aged-adults and young-adults and higher acceptance among adolescents and older adults. However, when these attitudes were implicitly measured, the IPVAW rejection increased with age, which is a counter-intuitive result and inconsistent with previous theoretical evidence. In summary, these results support an age effect that differs according to the measure of attitudes used and highlight some difficulties related to based-on-reaction-time measures among older people. This suggests the need for further research on the topic, especially among the older population.

Street Sexual Harassment: Experiences and Attitudes among Young Spanish People

“…Regarding attitudes towards “piropos”, the results obtained indicate that, in general, the participants in this study demonstrated negative attitudes or rejection, which was particularly strong among women, towards these types of remarks. In fact, as expected, and as in the case of other forms of VAW [ 49 , 50 , 58 , 59 , 60 ], gender accounted for statistically significant differences, with women displaying much more negative attitudes towards “piropos”, interpreting them as a form of VAW. A general rejection of this form of VAW was observed by age, similar to what has been described in the literature for other forms of this violence among persons of a similar age [ 60 ], but no significant differences were observed regarding attitudes towards “piropos” between the two age groups compared.…”

How Can We Increase Neighbors' Intention to Report Intimate Partner Violence Against Women During the Pandemic?

“…In Europe, the largest review study (40 studies from 19 different countries) concluded that victim-blaming and sexist attitudes were still widespread and that specific violent behaviors were not only seen as tolerable but also inevitable ( Gracia & Lila, 2015 ). In Spain, 7% of the population considers IPVAW as inevitable and even acceptable in certain circumstances ( GDGV, 2014 ), and hard work with young people is still needed ( Sánchez-Prada et al, 2020 ). Regarding how various sociodemographic variables affect attitude configuration, results are inconsistent: Either there are no differences or those found show low variance.…”

Problem-Focused Coping Strategies Used by Victims of Gender Violence Across the Stages of Change

“…Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is public health and social problem with a high prevalence worldwide (Sánchez-Prada et al, 2020). It encompasses different forms of aggression including physical, psychological, and sexual violence and the use of coercive tactics such as threats and control.…”