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Sexual assault and dating violence among adolescents is a critical matter with potential life threatening consequences. Adolescence is a difficult stage in which personal choices (whether good or bad) can determine future lifetime successes or failures. This problem is of great concern to parents, educators and the community at-large in the United States. Among high school youth nationwide, approximately 9% of students reported that they have been forced to have sexual intercourse (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2004). Serious dating violence occurs in 1.6% of adolescent relationships...roughly 400,000 adolescents (Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2008). Spurred by this information, a variety of programs have been developed to provide adolescents with the information and skills necessary to limit the occurrence of relationship violence. Evaluation of these programs is not mandatory and often prevention programs fail to impact students because of problems with implementation and retention of students. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate one such program, Project Awareness, a comprehensive, educational approach focusing on middle-school students. Sixty-six middle school students participated in the Project Awareness program and were administered pre- and post-program measures to examine differences in sexual assault and dating violence knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Participating in the program proved to impact female students more than males. Females gained both more knowledge about rape myths and demonstrated greater attitude change about sexual assault. Programs about sexually-related violence should be implemented in schools before high school, be conducted in single-sex classes and must be evaluated for effectiveness. / Educational Psychology

Social science research has consistently revealed that dating violence victims differ in their use of violence against their dating partners. Some victims use violence in mutually violent dating relationships while other victims remain nonviolent in unilaterally violent dating relationships. The present study sought to understand how mutually violent victims, unilateral victims and women in nonviolent relationships differ in their use of conflict resolution resources. Findings indicated that mutually violent victims used more direct and confrontational resources when resolving conflict with their partners than did women in nonviolent dating relationships. However, there were no differences between the mutually violent victims and the unilateral victims, nor between unilateral victims and women in nonviolent relationships. Although conflict resolution resources did not discriminate between mutually violent victims and unilateral victims, broader contextual and systemic factors may contribute to the likelihood that a victim will or will not use violence when resolving violent conflict in her dating relationship. Future research should examine the contextual and systemic factors that may lead to the use of mutual violence by victims in dating relationships. / Master of Science

Dating violence (DV) among young adults, specifically in college settings, is a serious issue with potential severe repercussions – both physically and psychologically – for victims of DV (DV victimization), and even financially on societal institutions as a whole. Exposure to parental intimate partner violence (IPV) has been associated with DV in young adults. Such violent behaviors appear to be associated with a recurrent pattern of aggressive thought processes, content, and arousing emotions. This study investigated the mediating effects of explicit socio-cognitive processes, through the reformulated social information processing (SIP) model, and implicit cognitive processes for exposure to parental IPV on DV perpetration and victimization, as well as the moderating effects of identification with parental figures and emotional arousal for exposure to parental IPV on predicting DV perpetration and victimization. 85 college students (men n = 23, M age = 22.29) were recruited for the study and results revealed that exposure to father-to-mother IPV predicted DV victimization, and that the interaction between exposure to father-to-mother IPV and identification with maternal figure predicted DV victimization. Conversely, identification with a parental figure negatively predicted DV victimization. The results revealed that SIP processes did not mediate the relationship for exposure to parental IPV on DV perpetration, however, SIP process of aggressive responding was positively associated with exposure to father-to-mother IPV and DV perpetration. Next, interaction of exposure to mother-to-father IPV and positive affective arousal is associated with less severe SIP hostile attributions and less positive evaluations of aggression responses. Finally, implicit cognition did not mediate exposure to parental IPV and DV perpetration.

Since the issue of dating violence emerged onto the research agenda in the 1980s, researchers have focused upon measuring the prevalence of physical violence occurring in young people’s intimate relationships, using quantitative methods. Surveys, which have limited young people’s reporting to stating whether or not they have perpetrated or sustained any of a fixed range of predetermined violent acts, have formed the dominant methodological approach. In the main, dating violence studies have focused on researching university students in the United States of America, and young people not attending American universities are an under-researched population in the dating violence literature. The dearth of qualitative approaches to past studies of dating violence has meant that young people’s own accounts of their experiences, attitudes and perceptions of dating violence and abuse have been afforded minimal focus. Feminist theoretical approaches to dating violence research are now emerging, contributing a valuable gendered analysis of the issues. Through qualitative interviews with forty five young people aged 16-21 (23 men and 22 women), recruited primarily from a Further Education college and an organisation working with young people not in education, employment or training, this thesis explores young people’s attitudes, perceptions and experiences of violence and abuse in intimate dating relationships, through a feminist theoretical lens. The study is couched in a rich body of feminist empirical and theoretical literature, which conceptualises intimate partner violence as primarily an issue of men’s violence against women, perpetrated with the rationale of maintaining power and control. The impact that popular theoretical discourses of gender equality and female empowerment may have upon young people’s capacity to acknowledge ongoing gender inequalities is also considered in this thesis. The findings of the current research indicate that young people’s dating relationships (and experiences of heterosexuality in general) reflect ongoing gender inequalities which are influenced to a great extent by patriarchal modes of power and control. The accounts of young men and women in this study established dating relationships as sites of imbalanced gender power, with many modes of men’s power control, surveillance and monitoring of their girlfriends described as ‘normal’ and acceptable. There was a widespread perception among the participants that dating violence is an issue of ‘mutual combat’ where women are just as likely as men to be perpetrators, even though their experiences of dating violence largely reflected the pattern of female victims and male perpetrators. In regard to violence against women by men, many of the participants perceived men’s violence to be understandable in the face of women’s provocation, particularly in cases where women are perceived to be ‘cheating’. For a significant minority of young people, intimate relationships are sites of violence and abuse, with women disproportionately the victims. The findings from this study indicate a lack of awareness of the avenues of support that can be accessed by young people experiencing dating violence and abuse. The findings also highlight a requirement for direct educative strategies to challenge some young people’s support for men’s violence against women.

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Bakgrund: Våld i nära relationer är ett stort folkhälsoproblem världen över. Studier visar idag att våld inom nära relationer är mest förekommande bland ungdomar (13-24 år). I Sverige har relativt lite forskning gjort specifikt på ungdomars våldsutövande och utsatthet. En viktig del inför framtida studier och våldspreventionsprogram är att skapa en förståelse för svenska ungdomars uppfattning om våld i nära relationer.  Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka unga tonåringars uppfattning och förståelse av våldshandlingar, nära relationer mellan ungdomar, och ansvar för våld i nära relationer. Metod: Datainsamling skedde genom tre separata fokusgruppsintervjuer (n=13). Intervjuerna var semistrukturerade och utgick från en studiespecifik intervjuguide. Resultat: Enligt informanterna har ungdomar ofta inofficiella romantiska relationer. De uppvisade stor kunskap om kontrollerande våld, men nämnde inte sexuellt våld som en våldsform. De uttryckte sympati för individer som utsätts för våld, och tog uttryckligt avstånd från våldsutövande. De framhävde även vikten av att respektera den våldsutsatta ungdomens autonomi. Trots deras initiala avståndstagande från våldsutövande uppvisade informanterna ofta en ambivalens och tenderade även att skambelägga den våldsutsatta när våldet kontextualiserats. Slutsats: Våldspreventionsprogram bör fokusera på att utbilda svenska ungdomar om samtliga våldsformer, och poängtera att våldshandlingar är oacceptabla oberoende situation eller intention. Vuxna som möter ungdomar som upplevt våld bör stödja ungdomen i att lämna relationen och visa respekt för att ungdomars nära relationer kan se annorlunda än vuxnas. / Background: Inter partner violence is a significant public health concern globally. Recent studies show that inter partner violence is most prevalent among adolescents (13-24 years). In Sweden, the research on the subject is somewhat limited. An important focus for future studies is to create an understanding of Swedish adolescents' perception of inter partner violence.  Aim: The study examined adolescents’ perception and understanding of romantic partnership between adolescents, violent behaviour and responsibility for inter partner violence. Method: Data collection took place through three separate focus group interviews (n = 13). The interviews were semi-structured and were based on a study-specific interview guide.  Results: According to the informants, adolescents often have unofficial romantic relationships. They showed great knowledge of coercion, but never mentioned sexual violence as a type of violence. They expressed sympathy for victims of inter partner violence, and emphasised the importance of respecting the autonomy of adolescents exposed to violence. Despite their initial disapproval of perpetration of violence, the informants often showed ambivalence and victim blaming tendencies when the violence was contextualised. Conclusion: Violence prevention programs should focus on educating Swedish adolescents about all types of violence, and emphasise that all acts of violence are unacceptable regardless of situation and/or intention. Adults who interact with adolescents who have experienced dating violence should be emotionally supportive and be understanding of the fact that adolescents' significant relationships may look different than adults’.

The effects of childhood exposure to parental intimate partner violence (EPIPV) on dating violence (DV) were examined through two layers of mediations. Based on attachment theory, individuals who are exposed to parental intimate partner violence are less likely to experience secure parent-child attachment, which in turn transfers to insecure adult attachment that is prone to perceive significant others as less trustworthy and less reliable as well as higher likelihood of over-reacting and/or staying in an unhealthy relationship. In the second layer of mediation, insecure adult attachment would lead to biased SIP which in turn, would result in an increase of DV. A total of 327 university students participated in the study by voluntarily completing the research questionnaires. Among them, 253 reported having experienced mild to severe DV and were included in the final data set. The data analyses procedures included examinations of the measurement models and structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses. Findings from the final models best supported by the data indicated that EPIPV predicted both dating violence perpetration and victimization and that EPIPV predicted adult attachment anxiety and avoidance, both of which are consistent with existing literature. However, findings revealed that EPIPV did not predict SIP and SIP was not predictive of DV perpetration. In addition, neither adult attachment anxiety nor attachment avoidance was predictive of DV perpetration and victimization. For DV victimization SEM model, adult attachment anxiety predicted SIP, however, SIP did not predict DV victimization. Findings are discussed based on DV literature and attachment theory. Limitations, clinical implications, and future research directions are also outlined.

Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / An individual’s desire to marry and ideal age of marriage, two elements of the marital horizon theory, are examined in relation to dating violence perpetration, both physical assault and psychological aggression, in the present study using a sample of 611 college students from a large Midwestern university. Looking at the possible predictive power that the marital horizon variables might have on dating violence perpetration, above and beyond other known predictors of dating violence, could reveal an important area of investigation in both the emerging adulthood literature and the dating violence literature. Results indicate that victimization of dating violence accounted for the vast majority of the variance in perpetration of dating violence. Desire to marry emerged as a significant predictor of women’s perpetration of psychological aggression only when the victimization variables were excluded from the regression equation.