Psychological abuse between parents: Associations with child maltreatment from a population-based sample☆
Introduction
Psychological abuse has been referred to as “coercive or aversive acts intended to produce emotional harm or threat of harm. In contrast to physical abuse, these coercive behaviors are not directed toward the target's bodily integrity, but are instead directed at the recipient's sense of self” (Murphy & Cascardi, 1999, p. 202). In other words, psychological abuse is often intended to diminish another person's self-esteem and mental well-being (O’Leary, 1999). Partner psychological abuse is an important form of abuse because many women report that it is harmful to their well-being or worse than physical abuse they suffer (Follingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990; Tolman & Bhosley, 1991). Psychologically abused women has been shown to have lower self-efficacy scores, higher depression scores, lower self-esteem scores, and increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorders than non-abused women (Ovara, McLeod, & Sharpe, 1996; Street & Arias, 2001). In one study of college women, being psychological abused by partners was predictive of illegal drug use, negative health perceptions, and cognitive impairment even after controlling for physical violence victimization (Straight, Harper, & Arias, 2003). Female victims of partner psychological aggression were also more likely than others to report physical health problems such as arthritis, chronic pain, migraine, sexually transmitted disease, and stomach ulcers, after the effect of partner physical violence were adjusted in the data (Coker, Smith, Bethee, King, & McKeown, 2000; Street & Arias, 2001). Past research had demonstrated that partner psychological aggression often predicted later physical aggression in an intimate relationship (Murphy & O’Leary, 1989; O’Leary, 1999).
Partner psychological abuse is not only deleterious to the health and well-being of adult victims, it also has implications for the development of the children living in the same households. Population data on the average number of children per household indicated that over half of female domestic violence victims lived in households with children under the age of 12 (U.S. Department of Justice, 1998). According to family systems theory, negative affect—facial or behavioral expressions which appear angry, unhappy or disturbed—in one family relationship can spread to other family relationships (Margolin & Gordis, 2003). It had been postulated that abusive parents had more unrealistic and rigid expectations for children, and that they perceived their children's behavior more negatively than do outside observers (Slep & O’Leary, 2001). Often time, these parents attributed hostile intent to their children's behavior, and easily became angered which might lead to coercive parenting styles or abuse of their children (Slep & O’Leary, 2001). In addition, children could be harmed indirectly via the stress in the home and parents’ compromised ability to provide care (Dubowitz et al., 2001). In one study, Margolin and Gordis (2003) indicated that the combination of financial and parenting stress potentiated the association between marital aggression and abusive parenting behaviors. Past research had also suggested that exposure to negative forms of marital conflict was linked with children's aggressiveness, emotional distress, and risk of adjustment problems (Davies & Cummings, 1998).
Co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment had been widely documented. The average co-occurrence rate for intimate partner violence and physical child abuse was estimated to be about 40% (for complete review see Appel & Holden, 1998). However, research examining the impact of domestic violence on child outcomes had mostly focused on partner physical violence victimization, ignoring the potential detrimental effects of partner psychological abuse on their children (Cox, Kotch, & Everson, 2003; Dubowitz et al., 2001; McGuigan & Pratt, 2001; McGuigan, Vuchinich, & Pratt, 2000; Ross, 1996). In addition, previous studies on the impact of partner psychological abuse has primarily focused on perpetration by men in relationships, ignoring perpetration by women (Hines & Malley-Morrison, 2001) Psychological abuse has been shown to be equally or more prevalent among women relative to men in dating and community samples (Hines & Saudino, 2003; Magdol, Moffitt, & Caspi, 1997).
Prior studies were also limited by either only focusing on child physical abuse, or not specifying if the child maltreatment was sexual, physical, emotional, or neglect (Edleson, 1999). Besides child physical abuse, it is important to study psychological child abuse and neglect. Psychological child abuse refers to acts such as ridiculing a child, threatening to harm a child, and other emotional abuse (McGuigan & Pratt, 2001). Psychological child abuse may not cause immediate physical harm to the child but may have long-term mental health consequences that are just as damaging as physical abuse or neglect (Egeland & Erickson, 1987; Hart & Brassard, 1987). Child neglect is another important type of child maltreatment that received little attention in the child maltreatment research. Child neglect includes lack of supervision, medical neglect, failure to provide food or clothing, inadequate shelter, desertion, abandonment, and other physical neglect (McGuigan & Pratt, 2001). Child neglect is the most frequently occurring type of child maltreatment (Department of Health and Human Services, 1988). Nevertheless, few past studies have examined the association between intimate partner violence and the risk of child neglect (Hartley, 2002).
Given the potential relationships between adult victims’ psychological adjustment and their parenting and, subsequently, their children's adjustment, it is important to examine the impact of partner psychological abuse on children. Despite the evidence of the potential harm associated with partner psychological aggression, research in this area remains sparse. Findings from existing studies on co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment had limited generalizability by using convenience samples drawn from existing child protection or hospital case records which likely represent only those most extreme cases of reported child maltreatment (Edleson, 1999). Similarly, using battered women sample from shelters may only account for segment of the population of battered women and most likely represent a group of women that lack sufficient alternative safety resources and thus turn to a shelter for support (Edleson, 1999). More representative samples are needed to draw stronger conclusions about the co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment risk. Other limitations of existing literature included not being specific about the type of adult abuse that was occurring, or who was maltreating the child—whether it was by the child's mother, father/father-figure, or both parents (Edleson, 1999).
This study aimed to address a gap in the existing literature of the co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment. A population-based sample was used to examine the association between partner psychological abuse and three types of child maltreatment risk (i.e. physical, psychological child abuses, and neglect). We hypothesized that presence of partner psychological abuse between parents increased the likelihood of child maltreatment.
Section snippets
Study sample
Data for this analysis were derived from the Carolina Safe Study, conducted from June to December of 2002 (Theodore et al., 2005). This cross-sectional, anonymous telephone survey involved a probability sample of North and South Carolina mothers, aged 18 and older who were living with a child under the age of 18 years (n = 1,435). This survey was designed to assess the rates and correlates of child maltreatment. The present study only used data from mothers who reported living with a husband or
Results
The characteristics of the study participants were presented in Table 1. A total of 1,149 women were included in this analysis (574 from North Carolina and 575 from South Carolina). The mean age of the women's children was approximately 9 years in both states. Boys and girls were fairly equally represented among the women's children. The vast majority of the respondents were the biological mothers of the referent child. Over 50% of the mothers interviewed had achieved some college level
Discussion
Our study showed that partner psychological aggression in families was common. Forty five percent of women reported occurrence of once ore more of psychological aggression in their intimate relationships that include insulting, belittling, demeaning, or threatening acts in the previous 12 months before the interview. Consistent with existing literature, women were found twice as often as men to psychologically or physically abuse their children. This may be attributed to the fact that in the
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This project was generously supported by The Duke Endowment, Inc., Charlotte, NC. The conclusions and opinions expressed in the manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of The Duke Endowment, its officers, or members of the Board of Directors.