Domestic Violence: A Brief Description

Based on an international landmark study by the World-Health Organization (WHO, 2006; Garcia-Moreno et al., 2006), domestic violence in Thailand ranks high in the categories of sexual violence and combined sexual and physical violence, with higher prevalence in rural areas (Garcia-Moreno et al., p. 1265). A survey by Mahidol University’s National Institute for Child and Family Development in 2012 reported a sharp increase in domestic abuse encompassing 30.8 % of all Thai households. Divorce-rates in Thailand increased correspondingly from 10.8 percent in 2009 to 33 percent in 2012 (DW, 2013).

Best-fit Theories

Socio-cultural norms and upbringing appear to serve as priming factors predisposing to future domestic violence. Thai men are encouraged from adolescence to go out and ‘have fun’, (Thai: ‘bai tiao’) which includes visitations of commercial sex workers and drinking with peers, maladaptive behavioral patterns supportive of poor self-control that usually continue into adulthood. Young women are obliged to stay at home and take care of the family. Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1983, 2001) at first glance fits this process best. Men learn to socially disconnect from family responsibility while women are dehumanized to primarily facilitate men’s sexual needs. Thai wives who follow such gender traditionalism and who are economically dependent on their husbands are at significantly greater risk of domestic violence (Xiaohe & Sirisunyaluck, 2011). Frustration-aggression (Berkowitz, 1969) and subsequent anger develops when the lower socio-economic status of Thai men, combined with lower education, leads to stress or failure in fulfilling their role for family and marriage (Hoffman et. al, 1994; Gelles, 1974). The frustration is based on the cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) of dominant males experiencing self-esteem threat, low prestige, low status, inadequacy (Gelles & Straus, 1988) and relative deprivation (Myers & Twenge, 2013, p.360-362). Triggers and cues for violence are typically verbal confrontations by women voicing out their unhappiness and men demanding role compliance (Hoffman, p.141).

Facilitating factors are wide-spread alcoholism to unleash aggression (Assanangkornchai et al., 2010; Srisurapanont et al., 2011; Myers & Twenge, p.358), infidelity, gambling and financial debt (The Nation, 2013) as well as societal trends such as the reduction of of three-generation families to nuclear families (Hoffman, p.143). Thai TV-shows frequently demonstrate the beating and slapping of women as socially acceptable behavior, desensitizing audiences (Myers & Twenge, p.377) fitting with script theory as a subset of social learning theory (Anderson & Bushman, 2002, p.31). Thai children exposed to domestic violence likewise internalize domestic conflict as available violent scripts (Kerley et al., 2002). Such internalized schemata tend to play out later in life such as, for example, in high school (Sherer & Sherer, 2014).

A Real-Life Scenario

The problem of domestic violence shall be illustrated with a real-life story to model a typical context before discussing theory. Journalists of the German ‘Deutsche Welle’ interviewed Jaded Chouwilai, director of the Thai human rights group ‘Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation’, who recollects the following case:

‘A woman named Suphaksorn turned to Jaded’s Foundation for support after being abused by her former boyfriend. She told DW that her ex-boyfriend got married to another woman and when she wanted to end their relationship, the guy became aggressive. “He brought a gun to my office and threatened to kill me if I didn’t behave normally,” Suphaksorn said. “After that, things turn abusive – he would smack me and bang my head against the wall, against the bed. He also tried to stab me,” she added.’ (DW, 2013)

Thai men are brought up with a cognitive belief, in form of a belief of entitlement, that they can have relationships with multiple women but women are supposed to stay faithful to the same man and under no circumstances can have relationships with other men. If such violation of the belief occurs, even hypothetically, extreme jealousy and rage is unleashed. Needless to say that such belief is bound to fail when meeting social reality.

In terms of Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance  (1957) his version of the ‘Belief Disconfirmation Paradigm’ (Festinger, 1956) would be most adequate to frame the implications of such a belief, this is when people are confronted with external information opposing their most salient beliefs. The man’s girlfriend protesting (questioning his belief) while he has already married another woman is such information creating non-congruence threatening belief disconfirmation. In this case the threat of belief disconfirmation is justified by acts of violence, equally based on the belief of absolute entitlement (‘I am allowed to punish any women for their wrongdoing’).

Men’s frustration and subsequent anger of not being able to provide well for his wife and children, especially in impoverished rural areas, could be interpreted by frustration-aggression hypothesis (Berkowitz, 1969) as a variation of cognitive dissonance theory. The self-belief of being a strong partner and husband is challenged by social reality, disrupting cognitive contingency (Festinger, 1957) and causing tension which is released by aggressive and violent behavior. According to Festinger, cognitive dissonance is most powerful when it involves self-image. The interpretation fits with findings of Schumacher et al. (2004), linking behavioral- and attitude change from typical- to violent behavior when paired with verbal conflict and jealousy (Schumacher & Slep, 2004). A more specific hypothesis has been suggested by Koolen and colleagues (2012). The authors write that “Overall, the findings suggest that proactive aggression is predicted by egocentric and disagreeable tendencies, whereas reactive aggression is predicted by poor self-regulation and the misattribution of blame to others.” (Koolen et al., 2012, p. 786). This means that proactive aggression appears more based on personality traits while reactive aggression is more grounded on poor self-regulation.

This differentiation helps to suggest different types of interventions. For addressing poor self-control interventions based on reality therapy, problem-solving and multi-modal frameworks , especially in community settings, have proven to be the most promising approaches (McGuire, 2008, p.2588). The reduction of cognitive dissonance by women avoiding, trivializing and downplaying the seriousness of their partner’s violent acts (Zaitman, 1999) to restore cognitive harmony would be a further example (‘No marriage is perfect’, ‘He did not mean this intentionally’, ‘We still can still make this work’, ‘Maybe it is my fault’ etc.). On a social level the public justification of intimate partner violence could be interpreted in a similar light (Waltermaurer, 2012).

Critique

As demonstrated, not a single theory fully explains the interplay of multiple processes leading to aggression and domestic violence against women, supporting the general aggression model (GAM) proposed by Anderson and Bushman (2002). According to GAM, inputs are dominant social roles of men (person variable) into a situation where traditional gender role expectations cannot be met. Routes are affect and arousal due to poor-self control with little cognitive moderating effect. Outcomes are subsequently impulsive actions that serve as a template for future violent social encounters and habitual behavioral cycles (Anderson & Bushman, p.34). Legal provisions cement the freedom of perpetrators from legal prosecution (ChiangmaiNews, 2013), supporting aggression as institutionalized oppression (Romanow, 2012).

 

References

Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 27–51.

Assanangkornchai, S., Sam-Angsri, N., Rerngpongpan, S., & Lertnakorn, A. (2010). Patterns of alcohol consumption in the Thai population: Results of the National Household Survey of 2007. Alcohol And Alcoholism, 45(3), 278-285. doi:10.1093/alcalc/agq018

Berkowitz, L. (1969). The frustration-aggression hypothesis revisited, in: Berokowitz (ed.), Roots of aggression, New York: Atherton Press,

ChiangmaiNews (2013)Retrieved from:  http://www.chiangmainews.com/ecmn/viewfa.php?id=3756

DW. (2013, April, 5). Violence against Thai women escalating. Retrieved from: http://www.dw.de/violence-against-thai-women-escalating/a-17273095

Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. California: Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L., Riecken, H.W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Garcia-Moreno, C., Jansen, H., Ellsberg, M., Heise, L., & Watts, C. (2006). Prevalence of intimate partner violence: findings from the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence. Lancet, 368(9543), 1260-1269. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69523-8

Gelles,R . J., & Straus,M . A. (1988). Intimate violence: The causes and consequences of abuse in the American family. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Gelles, R. J. (1974). The violent home. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Hoffman, K. L., Demo, D. H., & Edwards, J. N. (1994). Physical Wife Abuse in a Non-Western society: An Integrated Theoretical Approach. Journal Of Marriage & Family, 56(1), 131-146.

Jirapramukpitak, T., Prince, M., & Harpham, T. (2005). The experience of abuse and mental health in the young Thai population. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40(12), 955-963. doi:10.1007/s00127-005-0983-1

Kerley, K. R., Xu, X., Sirisunyaluck, B., & Alley, J. M. (2010). Exposure to Family Violence in Childhood and Intimate Partner Perpetration or Victimization in Adulthood: Exploring Intergenerational Transmission in Urban Thailand. Journal Of Family Violence, 25(3), 337-347.

Koolen, S., Poorthuis, A., & Aken, M. (2012). Cognitive Distortions and Self-Regulatory Personality Traits Associated with Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Early Adolescence. Cognitive Therapy & Research, 36(6), 776-787. doi:10.1007/s10608-011-9407-6

McGuire, J. (2008). A review of effective interventions for reducing aggression and violence.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363(1503), 2577–2597.

Myers, D. G., & Twenge, J. M. (2013). Social psychology (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Romanow, L. (2012). The Women of Thailand. Global Majority E-Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1 (June 2012), pp. 44-60 [e-journal]. Retrieved from: https://www.american.edu/cas/economics/ejournal/upload/Global_Majority_e_Journal_3_1_Romanow.pdf

Schumacher, J., & Slep, A. (2004). Attitudes and dating aggression: A cognitive dissonance approach. Prevention Science, 5(4), 231-243. doi:10.1023/B:PREV.0000045357.19100.77

Sherer, P., & Sherer, M. (2014). Witnessing violence among high school students in Thailand. International Journal Of Offender Therapy And Comparative Criminology, 58(5), 567-589. doi:10.1177/0306624X13479565

Srisurapanont, M., Kittiratanapaiboon, P., Likhitsathian, S., Kongsuk, T., Suttajit, S., & Junsirimongkol, B. (n.d). Patterns of alcohol dependence in Thai drinkers: A differential item functioning analysis of gender and age bias. Addictive Behaviors, 37(2), 173-178.

The Nation (2013, June 21). Divorce, domestic abuse on the rise in Thailand. Retrieved from: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Divorce-domestic-abuse-on-the-rise-in-Thailand-30208767.html

Waltermaurer, E. (2012). Public Justification of Intimate Partner Violence: A Review of the Literature. Trauma Violence & Abuse, 13(3), 167-175.

World Health Organization (2006). WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/

Xiaohe, X., Kerley, K. R., & Sirisunyaluck, B. (2011). Understanding Gender and Domestic Violence From a Sample of Married Women in Urban Thailand. Journal Of Family Issues, 32(6), 791-819. doi:10.1177/0192513X10386306

Zaitman, D. (1999, September). Cognitive dissonance in female victims of domestic violence. Dissertation Abstracts International, 60, 1353.