576 Aggression, Violence, Evil, and Peace
attitudes that favor military power and the repression of dis-
sent (see M. Maccoby, 1972).
Family Violence
Although there are obvious differences between child abuse
and domestic violence, it seems important to relate these
two types of violence to each other and to the rather ne-
glected topic of sibling abuse. For example, Patterson (1982)
showed that the families of antisocial and abused children
fail to provide consistent and effective discipline when chil-
dren are aggressive, fail to monitor their whereabouts, and
do not provide positive reinforcement for prosocial skills. He
suggested that in such families, a problem child learns to be
aggressive by attacking and dominating siblings, and a sam-
ple of such children shows that they attack siblings at almost
10 times the normal rate, as well as being involved in hitting
their fathers and mothers and being hit by them (Patterson,
1986).
One often thinks of child abuse as involving physical or
sexual abuse. However, by far the most prevalent form of
abuse involves neglect. Thus, Sedlak (1990) reported an inci-
dence rate of 14.6 per 1,000 as contrasted with rates of 4.9 for
physical abuse and 2.1 for sexual abuse. Parental neglect usu-
ally occurs in situations of low family income and education
and often where there is a high level of stress and a lack of so-
cial support (Garbarino, 1991). In such situations there is
probably less parental maturity, less knowledge about child
development, and a greater degree of attachment distur-
bances. Further, mothers (and one presumes fathers) may be
quite depressed, and this may contribute to the neglect of
children (see Pianta, Egeland, & Erickson, 1989). Poverty
and the lack of social support also appear to be a factor in
both physical and sexual abuse.
Azar (1991) pointed out that in order to understand fully
how abuse occurs we must look at the interpersonal dynam-
ics that occur within the social context. Her investigations of
abusive mothers reveal that they often misperceive a child’s
behavior. If a 3-year-old spills a glass of milk, the mother
may perceive willful disobedience and may lack the skills to
cope with what she perceives as a challenge to her authority.
Learned patterns of aggression that occur in a situation per-
ceived as a struggle for dominance may account for a good
deal of physical abuse. In any case, in their review of theories
of child abuse, Azar, Povilaitis, Lauretti, and Pouquette
(1998) argued that the best way to understand child abuse is
to focus on how a parent interacts with a child in a social sit-
uation that is influenced by both societal and cultural factors.
The interaction will be influenced by a child who may be
more or less pleasing and difficult and by a mother who may
have more or less parental and social skills, impulse control,
and ability to manage stress. And the interaction occurs in a
context that may or may not provide helpful or aggressive
models, be stressful, or lend social support. To some extent
this overall model for understanding may also be applicable
to sexual abuse. However, sexual abuse seems less dependent
on societal stress and more on personality factors such as
high familial dependence, psychopathy, or pedophilic ten-
dencies (Rist, 1979), or, more generally, as having its origin
within perpetrators rather than in the interaction between per-
petrator and victim (Haugaard, 1988).
Domestic abuse in the sense of partner abuse is often
attributed to male batterers, and the U.S. Department of Justice
(1995) reported about twice as many wives and girlfriends
killed by husbands and boyfriends as the converse
(1,500:700). However, a telephone survey of 6,000 married or
cohabiting couples found that as many females as males ap-
peared to be involved in partner violence (Straus & Gelles,
1990). In many cases of extreme violence the superior physi-
cal strength of the males was offset by the more frequent use of
weapons by females. In a similar vein, surveys of lesbian cou-
ples have found as much or more violence as in heterosexual
couples (Waldner-Haugrud, Gratch, & Magruder, 1997).
Regardless of the degree to which violence in perpetrated
by males, it seems important to distinguish between differ-
ent sorts of perpetrators. Holtzworth-Munroe (2000) distin-
guished between three groups of men involved in marital
violence: Those who become violent within the family only
as a result of an inability to manage conflict escalation; those
who have difficulty with trust issues and become overly de-
pendent on their wives, resorting to violence when their
needs are not met; and those who are antisocial and violent in
all relationships. Clearly, the management of domestic abuse
in each of these cases requires quite different strategies. In
some cases couples therapy seems appropriate, but in others
it would simply prolong abuse. In some cases separation of-
fers a solution. However, Hart (1992) reported that about
75% of emergency room visits and calls to law enforcement,
and 50% of the homicides, occur after separation.
Intervention programs attempting to teach men anger
management and conflict resolution skills in small groups
typically report a 53% to 83% success rate (Edleson, 1996).
Although these rates are encouraging, the lower percentages
occur when there is a longer follow-up time and when suc-
cess is based on the reports of the victims or on arrest rates.
Further, the rates are based on men who complete the pro-
grams (which last from 10 to 36 sessions) and appear to
ignore differences in different types of abusers. In one eval-
uation, of about 500 men who contacted the program, only
283 attended the first session, and only 153 completed the