Thesis (M.S. in Psych.)--School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by Fredda Blanchard-Fields. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-70).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-159).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-151).

The purpose of this preliminary and exploratory research project was to identify possible links between insecure male attachment patterns and wife assault. Attachment theory suggests that the quality of early interpersonal relationships has a profound effect on the psychological, emotional and social development of the individual. Insecure attachment has been found to be associated with a number of relationship problems and these interpersonal problems have also been identified with men who assault their wives. Based on this similarity, the insecure attachment paradigm may offer a useful theoretical orientation for understanding the conflict behaviours of men who assault their wives. The sample of fifty adult men who had assaulted their female partners was drawn from two therapy groups. In this preliminary and exploratory study, a number of measures were used to assess each man's mental representation of childhood attachment and his adult intimate attachment patterns, intimate conflict tactics and interpersonal jealousy and anger problems. The associations between insecure preoccupied, dismissing, and fearful attachment pattern ratings and male conflict tactic and relationship problems were then analyzed. The findings indicated that men who assault their wives had a high proportion of insecure adult intimate attachment patterns. These assaultive men were also found to be predominantly insecure in both their mental representations of childhood attachment and adult intimate attachment pattern ratings, with the greatest continuity occurring with the insecure preoccupied and fearful pattern ratings. Three patterns of relationship problems corresponding to the three insecure adult intimate attachment pattern rating were found. Preoccupied attachment pattern ratings were positively correlated with interpersonal jealousy scores and the reported use of the reasoning, verbal/symbolic abuse, physical abuse and severe physical abuse conflict tactics. Dismissing attachment pattern ratings were positively correlated with interpersonal anger scores and negatively correlated with the reasoning, verbal, physical and severe physical abuse conflict tactics. Fearful attachment pattern ratings were similar to the dismissing pattern in the positive correlation with interpersonal anger scores. The importance of considering insecure adult intimate attachment pattern ratings when providing group therapy to men who assault their wives was considered. Men with high insecure dismissing adult intimate attachment pattern ratings seem to require a distinctly different therapeutic approach than those with high insecure preoccupied adult intimate attachment pattern ratings and ideas in this regard are discussed.

Although growing evidence suggests that relational victimization is harmful to children as it occurs and shortly after, less is known about the potential long-term effects. The present study develops and validates a retrospective measure of childhood relational victimization experiences. A model is tested of the relations between childhood relational victimization experiences and early parental attachment quality on early adult psychological and social adjustment factors such as peer attachment quality, loneliness, and social anxiety, as mediated by rejection sensitivity. It has been proposed that early parental attachment quality, mediated by rejection sensitivity, may largely impact adult functioning (Downey, Khouri, & Feldman, 1997), but childhood relational victimization may also affect this psychosocial functioning. The Retrospective Relational Victimization Questionnaire (RRVQ) was developed and validated for this study to measure past relational victimization experiences. The primary study used structural equation modeling to assess a primary model of how both childhood parental attachment quality and relational victimization contribute to the experience of rejection sensitivity and in turn affects early adult functioning. A comparison is made with an alternative model which included only early parental attachment as a predictor of early adult adjustment. The RRVQ was found to be a reliable and valid measure of college students’ retrospectively recalled childhood relational victimization experiences. Neither the primary nor the alternative model was found to be well-fitting; however, additional exploratory results suggest that both early parental attachment and relational victimization experiences are significantly associated with current rejection sensitivity, while early relational victimization is somewhat more associated with current adult peer attachment, loneliness, and social anxiety than is early parental attachment. Educational, clinical, and research implications are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Previous research on peer victimization and aggression has provided some insight into the development and maintenance of physical aggression, but less is known about the processes involved in relational aggression. This short-term longitudinal study examined the direct association between relational victimization and relational aggression over a: five-month period, and proposed that hostile attributional bias for relational provocations was one mechanism linking relational victimization and relational aggression. Gender differences in the levels of relational victimization and aggression, hostile attributions, and physical victimization and aggression were explored. Participants included 140 elementary school children in grades four and five. Relational victimization and relational aggression were assessed from children's self-reports of how often they experienced relational victimization and how often they demonstrated relationally aggressive behaviors toward others respectively. Hostile intent attributions were measured from children's responses to five hypothetical peer provocation situations that depicted relational provocations (e.g., the child looks for a friend because they have an important secret to share with them, but finds that their friend is already playing with someone else that the child does not like very much). Concurrent and longitudinal findings revealed that more relationally victimized children were also more relationally aggressive toward their peers. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that hostile attributions partially mediated the association between relational victimization and relational aggression concurrently, but the mediating effect was not stable over time. Boys reported significantly higher levels of physical victimization. physical aggression, and relational aggression than girls. No significant gender differences for relational victimization or hostile attributions were revealed. Implications for the development of prevention programs are discussed.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-106).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-195).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Tex., 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-111).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-105). Also available on the Internet.