Citation

Murrell AR, Merwin RM, Christoff KA, Henning KR. Behav. Soc. Issues 2005; 14(2): 128-133.

Affiliation

University of North Texas; University of Mississippi; Portland State University USA. (amurrell@unt.edu)

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, The Authors, Publisher Behaviorists for Social Responsibility)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Studies have demonstrated that witnessing inter-parental violence as a child is related to a number of negative outcomes, including violent and aggressive behavior as an adult (Fantuzzo, DePaola, Lambert, and Martino, 1991; Graham-Bermann and Levendosky, 1998; Straus, Gelles, aand Steinmetz, 1980). Some investigators have purported that observational learning is responsible for this perpetuation of violent behavior in families (Grych and Fincham, 1990; Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart, 1994). However, existing data is far from conclusive. This short study was designed to address some of the discrepancies. The researchers chose to examine a specific occurrence, weapon use, due to the severity of the behavior. A main intent of this study was to raise questions about the extensive use of weapons in violent families. Participants were 362 male domestic violence offenders court-ordered to undergo assessment of the likelihood of recidivism. Selected items from the Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, 1979) were used to assess childhood witnessing and adult engagement in a target violent behavior. A chi-square was performed to examine the relationship between childhood witnessing of a parent's threat or use of a weapon in a domestic violence incident and adulthood threat or use of a weapon against an intimate partner. The relationship was significant. Men who reported witnessing threat or use of a weapon in parental violence were more likely than not to have threatened to use or have actually used a weapon against an intimate partner. Findings also indicate that most men who committed weapon offenses did not report witnessing such in childhood. This raises interesting questions about other factors that may relate to weapon use.

Language: en