UMaine Study of Attitudes Explores Domestic
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3571
ORONO — A researcher and lecturer in the University of Maine’s School of Social Work wonders if people are less affected by reports of domestic violence if they believe in social “myths” that tend to excuse violent behavior.
Will a person, for instance, be more inclined to excuse domestic violence if he or she thinks a slap in the face isn’t such a crime against a spouse who continues to nag after being asked to stop?
John “Jay” Peters, a child welfare specialist studying attitudes toward domestic violence, suspects people who are willing to excuse domestic violence are more likely to become batterers themselves. His research should help establish an assessment method that can be used in prevention or treatment programs, to determine a person’s propensity toward assaulting a loved one, Peters says. The information also might help prevent abuse before it happens.
While it may seem obvious that people who blame the victim for domestic abuse might be more likely to engage in violent behavior themselves, it has never been studied and established, so far as Peters knows.
“When you talk with people who work with domestic violence,” Peters says, “everybody talks about domestic violence myths. The reason people think the myths are important is because the myths really say ‘This is not really a problem. She deserved it. She asked for it, and it’s no big deal.'”
Peters, along with other authorities in the field of abuse, call those excuses “myths.” They say that there is no excuse for domestic violence.
When violence at home is trivialized or excused for any number of reasons, it “makes it an individual problem, not a social problem,” he says. “The endorsement of these myths makes it harder to raise money for battered women’s programs and to raise money to help battered women.”
Peters, who also consults for the Maine Department of Human Services Bureau of Child and Family Services, says some of the most common myths include: “Women ask for it,” or “he was set up,” “it was a one-time thing,” or “he was abused as a child, so it’s no big deal.”
Relying on statistics about serious assaults, Peters assumes men batter women more often than the other way around.
“Women may slap or push their partners as often as men, but domestic violence is really about a pattern of coercive control,” says Peters, “and that is most often done by men.”
Furthermore, he says, “We assume that men who believe these myths are more likely to batter women. We need to find that out right away.”
Peters began his research in January, sending out 4,000 requests to faculty, staff and students connected through the University of Maine’s FirstClass email network, seeking participants who would fill out a web page attitude survey.
Peters will extrapolate the questions and answers in an attempt to draw objective conclusions that can be considered scientifically reliable.
The survey asked for responders’ feelings of self-confidence, self-worth, trust of others and sexual stereotyping after they read one of three short newspaper articles about crime, violence or assault. The survey also probed responders for attitudes about their relationships, aggressive behavior, fear, personal security, domestic violence and what people consider appropriate or inappropriate behavior for a single man or single woman.
He wants to explore the connection between belief in domestic violence myths and responders’ degree of abhorrence, acceptance or even participation in domestic assault. That connection, he hopes, will provide new insights into treatment programs for batterers.
“The hypothesis is that women who do not endorse these myths are going to be more negatively affected by the news report related to domestic violence than women who endorse the myths,” he says. Similarly, he believes, men who reject domestic violence myths are more likely to be affected negatively than men who believe women can “ask for it.”
In fact, he adds, a British study on rape already has shown that men with a proclivity toward rape or a sense of sexual superiority over women, likely will feel empowered or affirmed in their beliefs when they reads about a rape case.
Such feelings, Peters suspects, allow men to be “protected” from feeling bad about harboring such thoughts or about what other men are doing, and they can give women a false sense of security by adopting an “It can’t happen to me” approach.
Fueling such beliefs, Peters says, is the fact that domestic violence cuts across social and financial strata, and often victims and abusers love one another. They can tend to blame themselves for an outbreak of violence, or they can hold to the hope that it will not become a pattern.
Peters hopes his survey also will help tell whether women who subscribe to domestic violence myths have low self-esteem, as is the frequently the case with victims of crime.
The time frame for completing the study depends upon the time needed to interpret the information he is receiving, Peters says. He can be reached for more information at (207) 581-2355 or by email at jpeters@maine.edu.