The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether attributions about an incident of spouse abuse would be altered by whether the abuser was drunk at the time of the abuse and the severity of the physical beating. Many researchers have suggested that drunken individuals are held less responsible for inappropriate or deviant behavior because of alcohol's disinhibiting effects. In addition, previous studies have found that attributions of responsibility increase with the seriousness of the act's consequences. College undergraduates were asked to read one of nine scenarios depicting an episode of spouse abuse. These scenarios varied on the basis of three conditions of antecedent behavior (drinking, under work stress and no information), and three levels of violence severity. Subjects then completed attributional measures identifying level of responsibility and prediction of reoccurrence, as well as making determinations of recommended social and legal consequences. The results indicated that drunken abusers were held more responsible for their aggressive behavior than sober ones, although subjects believed that the abuse was less likely to reoccur and made no distinctions in recommended legal and social consequences. Increased severity of the abuse resulted in greater attributions of responsibility and predictions of reoccurrence, as well as stronger social and legal consequences. A second study used the same procedures with a sample of women in spouse abuse shelters. The shelter sample also recommended stronger legal measures in the more severe violence situations, but made no attributional distinctions. The relevance of these results to the role of alcohol as a disinhibitor was discussed, as well as recommendations for further research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-10, Section: B, page: 3238. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75192 |
| Contributors | BARNES, PAUL DONALD., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 98 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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