Nature Vs. Nurture And Domestic Violence

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Introduction Nature versus nurture is the most recognized controversy throughout the history of psychology. Godbout, Dutton, Lussier & Sabourin (2009) found that families that involve in domestic violence tends to negatively affect the children and their growth into adulthood. These negative influences may cause future marital distress or unhealthy relationships between family members. Marital distress has shown concurrent correlations with levels of violence within the family. The level of violence can also be “associated with negative outcomes such as psychological distress, financial costs, physical injuries and death” (Godbout, Dutton, Lussier & Sabourin, 2009). Studies have found that an increase in the level of violence …show more content…

When compared to individuals who are dissatisfied or upset about the relationship they are in, individuals subjected to abuse during childhood were more likely to become domestically violent in their relationship. The most problematic relationships tend to involve a history of domestic violence with males, who witnessed or experienced violence as a child. They are more likely to become domestically violent compared to those who were not exposed to it early on. In fact, the common factor among all those couples was the exposure to childhood violence. A child is most commonly first exposed to violence within the family, whether it is seeing domestic violence, or the parent being violent towards the child. This can cause fear towards the child’s role model, as they could end up fearing for their own safety. Furthermore, there will be a lack of communication between the family members, so the child might have trouble getting their needs met at a basic level. Aside from just developing problems surrounding domestic violence, those who were exposed to violence early on often develop other problems such as becoming unable to be as social as others, or the lack of empathy for others. Result …show more content…

Some of the participants have been with their partners for about 7 years. At the time of the study, 47.5% of the experimental group didn’t have any kids and 52.2% either had one or more kids. Education wise, women averaged out with 14.9 years of education while men had an average around 14.3 years. The annual income for women participants was $26,811, as for men it was $38,126. The study took part in Quebec, Canada with two types of methods. Procedure The first group of participants started off with a survey of 600 random couples by calling them on the phone with random phone numbers. Within the 600 people called, only 553 of the participants completed the questions. In the second group, participants were asked to take part in a study by using different types of media such as radio, TV, etc. Only 91 people finished and returned the questions. When the study was ready to be sent out they made sure to have confidentiality by mailing the methods in separate envelopes containing the questions. The participants were notified beforehand that it was a study focused on “various dimensions associated with close relationships” (Godbout, Dutton, Lussier & Sabourin, 2009), instructing the participants that they could not discuss their answer with their partner and that it must be done

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