Citation

Aguilar RJ, Nightingale NN. J. Fam. Violence 1994; 9(1): 35-45.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, 82071 Laramie, Wyoming

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF01531967

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examined the self-esteem of 48 women who were identified as battered and compared them to a group of 48 nonbattered women. As expected, the group of battered women experienced lower self-esteem than the nonbattered women. Four clusters of battering experiences were also identified: Physical Abuse, Emotional/Controlling Abuse, Sexual/Emotional Abuse, and Miscellaneous Abuse. Analyses indicated that Emotional/Controlling abuse was the only abuse cluster that was significantly related to lower self-esteem. The findings suggest that abuse that is controlling in nature might play a significant role in the feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness noted in battered women and may contribute to the difficulty that some battered women have in terminating their abusive relationships.