Committee Chair

Eigenberg, Helen

Committee Member

Garland, Tammy; Bumphus, Vic

Department

Dept. of Criminal Justice and Legal Assistant Studies

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

There is an abundant amount of literature dedicated to examining perceptions of domestic violence. Despite the substantial amount of literature, few studies have focused on attitudes toward domestic violence in dating relationships. This study uses a large convenience sample of college students to investigate how college students assign responsibility when presented with two domestic violence scenarios that vary contextually. One scenario depicts a conventional male on female case of intimate partner violence while the other is a more ambiguous scenario involving behaviors that could be construed as “mutual violence.” Bivariate and multivariate analyses were employed to analyze the effects of various variables on perceptions of blame with regard to individuals in each scenario. Overwhelmingly, participants were more inclined to blame the males in both scenarios with the male in the stereotypical scenario being the most likely to be blamed. However, several variables effected individual perceptions of blame with regard to the female victims. Most notably, attitudes toward women and sex had significant impacts on whether or not participants blamed the female victims for their own victimization. Attitudes toward women proved to have a more influential effect even when controlling for an individual’s justifications of violence.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2010

Subject

Dating violence

Discipline

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

viii, 74 leaves

Language

English

Rights

https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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