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2 J. Fam. Violence 1 (1987)

handle is hein.journals/jfamv2 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1987

Psychosocial Factors Related to Wife Abuse
Bonnie Yegidis Lewis1
This paper reports the results of a comparative study of wife abuse. Factors
that distinguished 94 physically abused women from a comparison group
of 110 women were sought. The groups were matched on number of years
married or cohabiting and socioeconomic status. Evidence was found that
further supports a learning theory explanation of wife abuse. The study also
found that wife abuse is no more likely to be displayed by blacks than by
whites when the variable of social class is controlled.
KEY WORDS: wife abuse; spouse abuse; domestic violence; family violence.
INTRODUCTION
The development of knowledge about wife abuse has evolved during
the last 15-20 years, and has taken a rather traditional research path. Early
studies were exploratory in nature, estimating the incidence and prevalence
of marital violence (Levinger, 1966; Wolfgang, 1958) or presenting case
analyses of wife abusers (Schultz, 1960; Snell et al., 1964). In the 1970s, the
focus of marital violence research was largely on identifying psychological
and sociological correlates of abuse, such as income insufficiency, drug or
alcohol abuse, personal stress experienced, and the effects of learning on shap-
ing abusive behavior. Social work researchers constructed typologies of
abusers and suggested treatment strategies. For two excellent reviews of the
literature on the manifestation and treatment of wife abuse, Galles (1980)
and Hilbermann (1980) might be examined. Recently, the focus of research
'Department of Social Work, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620.
0885-7482/87/0300-0001$05.00/0 © 1987 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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