Family Violence in America: Part 3

3 Descriptions of Family Violence

Most studies about domestic violence agree on the fact that violence is a learned response and that if a person experiences violence in her or his childhood, there is a high chance this person experiences violence in their adulthood as well. This includes not only learning how to act violently towards others but also learning that violent behavior can be used to resolve conflicts and is accepted as a means of communication even if one is the passive recipient of violence. All three interviewees had the impression that violence in the family is normal and that all families behave like that until they learned otherwise when they were older. In his essay A Conflict Theory of Family Violence, Witt writes that corporal punishment is the “introductory course of tomorrow’s abusers” and that siblings, as well as dating couples, practice their techniques on each other (295). Markowitz mentions the “cultural transmission” theory, which holds that attitudes are learned largely through exposure to violence (206). In his own study he finds that experiencing violence as a child is related to self-reported violence against children and spouses as an adult (Markowitz 214). Buzawa and Buzawa claim that the exposure to violence in the family increases the risk for aggression and antisocial behavior, rates of depression and suicide (68). This theoretical background is reflected in the first interview question. It was a lose expectation beforehand that the interviewees have experienced violence during their childhood. Again, my findings are not representative for this and neither is the sample, as it only consists of victims of family violence and not of perpetrators.

Most studies about domestic violence agree on the fact that violence is a learned response and that if a person experiences violence in her or his childhood, there is a high chance this person experiences violence in their adulthood as well.

Definitions of violence vary within the literature on family violence and domestic violence. In their article Violence in the Family Teichman and Teichman define violent behavior as an “expression of anger and frustration of one person against the other following inappropriate resource exchange” (133). This is based on the “frustration-aggression” hypothesis which suggests that frustration instigates aggression. “Dissatisfaction and frustration may be caused by specific patterns of decision-making, by inappropriate forms of resource exchange or by deprivation of one’s need for resources by his or her partner” (133). The oftentimes male spouse is likely to use aggression as a means of retaliation and the balance between the resources which has been disrupted. “Violence may serve as a social commodity; by acting violent or by withholding violence the actor may exert power over others” (134). Potential violent behavior is a source of power over other family members which shifts the resource-exchange pattern to the violent person’s behavior and establishes a new balance of resources. “The more resources a spouse controls, the more power he or she may exert on other family members” (138).

All three interviewees had the impression that violence in the family is normal and that all families behave like that until they learned otherwise when they were older.

In his article Soziologie der Gewalt Trutz von Trotha, on the contrary, suggests that it is not important to find fixed concepts and definitions for violence, but rather a thick description (“dichte Beschreibung”) (20). He argues that “[d]er Schlüssel zur Gewalt ist in den Formen der Gewalt selbst zu finden” (20). According to Trotha, it is helpful to analyze violence as it is practiced in the individual cases, this starts with violent acting. At the core of understanding violence lies what the violence or violent act itself is expressing, enables and sets loose. The author describes violence as a process which can be a highly dynamical event. He proposes that in order to analyze violence, one should ask for the type of violence occurring and what kind of social relation results in the violence. Additionally, Buzawa and Buzawa point out that violence, which is defined by victims themselves, can give context-specific definitions that can have an important bearing on how domestic violence is used, perceived, reported and rationalized (63). In the course of the interview I have asked the interviewees to describe violent situations in which they were involved in order to come close to a thick description as proposed by Trotha.Miss the first part of @b-flat's research? Read Part 1 and Part 2.