College Women's Stay/Leave Decisions in Sexually Violent Relationships: A Prospective Analysis
Year: 2007
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Despite growing evidence suggesting that many college women remain in sexually abusive relationships, there is a dearth of research assessing what factors contribute to this phenomenon.Thus, the purpose of the current study was to explore this gap in the literature utilizing theories specified in the dating and marital violence literature.Participants at Time 1 included 305 women in heterosexual dating relationships of at least one month, 70 (23%) of whom were in relationships characterized by sexual aggression.Results suggested that women in sexually abusive relationships differed from women in non-sexually abusive relationships on a number of variables, including secure attachment, avoidance coping, hypergender ideology, trauma symptomatology, relationship commitment, relationship satisfaction, quality of alternatives, thoughts about ending the relationship, previous childhood and adolescent victimization, and cooccurring physical and verbal abuse.Regression analyses suggested that decreased satisfaction, decreased commitment, the absence of childhood physical abuse, and the presence of co-occurring verbal abuse all uniquely predicted sexually abused women's Time 1 thoughts about ending the relationship, whereas decreased satisfaction and decreased commitment predicted non-sexually abused women's Time 1 thoughts about ending the relationship.Results from the prospective regression analyses suggested that
Author: Katie M. Edwards
Institution: Ohio University
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2250087339