Abstract

MARQUES, Tânia Mendonça  and  COLETA, Marilia Ferreira Dela. Causal attribution and reactions of women who have experienced episodes of marital violence. Temas psicol. [online]. 2010, vol.18, n.1, pp.205-218. ISSN 1413-389X.

Causal attributions for the first and the last violent episodes were evaluated in a sample of 71 women who went to a unit of the Women's Police Station to press charges against their partners. Jealousy, anger, aggressiveness, alcohol abuse, and suspicion were the most frequent perceived causes to explain the aggressions. The attributional model of action, proposed by Weiner, was employed to analyze the data. Causal attributions were classified by women as being internal for the first and the last aggression, and were characterized as unstable and controllable for the first and stable and uncontrollable for the last. Women who reported stable internal causes to the last partner's violent act, tended to blame him more, to perceive more intention of harm, to have more negative feelings towards the partner, more expectancies that the situation would be worse if they remained in the relationship, and positive expectancies if they left, and to present intention of ending the relationships. Furthermore, they had gone to the Police Station to register the occurrence, which did not occur when they suffered the first aggression act. Results offer support to social-psychological models which assume that attributions are related to behaviors, particularly in regards to the model proposed in this study.

Keywords : Violence Against Woman; Causal Attribution; Marital Relationship.

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