Citation

Ragg DM. J. Fam. Violence 1999; 14(3): 315-329.

Affiliation

Department of Social Work, Eastern Michigan University, 419B King Hall, Ypsilanti, Michigan, 48197

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1023/A:1022870501645

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

While professionals working in the field of domestic violence have gleaned much information about the prevalence and scope of spouse abuse, there is still a need for information on contributing variables in men who assault their female partners. Constructs emerging from the self-concept literature provide some promise for understanding personality attributes that can help explain why some men assault their partners and others do not. There are two constructs in particular that seem to help explain volatile reactions in relationships. The first construct is negative self-concept associated with rela-tionship role performance. The second construct is the unstable self-concep-tion. This study examines the role of self-concept in discriminating men who assault their female partners from their nonbattering peers. Using a sample of 272 men matched on educational achievement, this study uses negative self concept and unstable self concept to predict known wife assaulters from their non-assaultive peers. Findings of a logistic regression analysis indicate that each construct is able to accurately predict violent and nonviolent groups with about 77% accuracy.
domestic violence - self-concept - violence - violent men.