Violence in College Students' Dating Relationships¹

Abstract

In a survey of 504 college students examining predictors of violence in heterosexual relationships, over half of both men and women had committed at least one physically violent act, and men more often than women reported having been the victims of such acts. Most respondents who reported some experience with violence had both committed and received it, were involved in relatively few different types of violence, and first experienced violence when a relationship had moved beyond the casual dating stage. Modest associations between physical violence and sexual aggression were uncovered. In a series of discriminant analyses, men who abused their partners were not readily distinguished from men who did not, but tended to be young, low in family income, traditional in attitudes toward women, abused as children, currently living with a woman, and from Appalachian areas. Women who abused were more readily discriminated and scored low in social desirability, were abused as children, and were from non-Appalachian areas. Men who were abused were likely to be living with a woman and tended to be low in family income; similarly, cohabitation was related among women to being a target of violence, as were having been abused as a child and scoring low in social desirability. Findings are related to those of other studies of dating abuse, as well as to the family violence and aggression literatures.

Interpersonal Mistreatment in the Workplace: The Interface and Impact of General Incivility and Sexual Harassment.

“…In the workplace, sexual harassment is one means by which perpetrators exert their power to acquire desired outcomes or resources (e.g., Cleveland & Kerst, 1993;Thacker & Ferris, 1991). Similarly, several studies have shown that men who are sexually aggressive also tend to be aggressive nonsexually (e.g., Lim & Howard, 1998;Sigelman, Berry, & Wiles, 1984), and they cognitively connect sexuality and social dominance (Pryor, Lavite, & Stoller, 1993). From the target's perspective, women who have experienced unwanted sexual attention and coercion in the workplace have typically also endured general disparagement toward their gender (Fitzgerald et al, 1988(Fitzgerald et al, , 1995Schneider, Swan, & Fitzgerald, 1997).…”

Prevalence and Correlates of Physical Assault on Dating Partners

“…Ryan [25] reported that men experience higher rates of victimization and women inflict more physical aggression on their partners. Some researchers have found no marked gender difference in the frequency of violence [26,27] and that courtship violence was usually mutual [4,28,29]. In the debate over the equivalence of gender violence, some researchers investigated the motivation and effect of violence.…”

Undergraduates’ Attitudes toward Dating Violence: Its Relationship with Sexism and Narcissism

“…Men with a higher level of dating violence acceptance were found to have higher sexist attitudes (Ryan, 1995;Sigelman, Berry &Wiles, 1984). In their studies conducted in Turkey and Brazil, Glick and his colleagues (2002) found a relationship between protective and hostile sexism and attitudes towards justification of violence against the partner.…”