Most studies testing the cycle of
violence hypothesis use one of two basic research designs. The first design is used with
adult or adolescent respondents and is usually retrospective in nature. The respondent's
current level of violence is considered in conjunction with information about marital
violence and/or child abuse perpetrated by the respondent's parents. The second design
involves assessing adult respondents' current level of violence and relating it to their
school-aged children's concurrent adjustment. Although research using the latter design
does not test the intergenerational hypothesis directly, studies of children are valuable
given the evidence that aggressive children can remain aggressive into adulthood (Eron,
Huesmann & Zelli, 1991; Farrington, 1991). A number of mechanisms by which
viewing/experiencing violence may lead to later violence have been proposed (Jaffe, Hurley
& Wolfe, 1990). Social learning theorists would suggest that violence in the family
may directly affect behaviour given that parents are potent models which children are
likely to imitate. An indirect effect on behaviour may also occur via the impact of family
violence on attitudes regarding the appropriateness of violence. From an attachment
perspective, violence disrupts the internal working model that is developed through
interaction with parent; this distorted model of relationships is in turn carried forward
as the prototype for future relationships (Sroufe & Fleeson, 1986).
Much of the research addressing the
impact of family violence on children has been conducted with agency-identified samples,
i.e., children and their mothers are recruited from battered women's shelters or from
child protection agencies (Jaffe, Hurley & Wolfe, 1990). For example, a recent study
of the long-range effects of witnessing marital violence compared current and former child
residents of a battered women's shelter with a non-violent control group (Wolfe, Zak,
Wilson, & Jaffe, 1986). The battered mothers were asked to report on their children's
aggression using the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1981), a
measure designed to identify children who exhibit behaviour problems serious enough to
warrant clinical intervention. Former residents had not been exposed to marital violence
for at least 6 months while the current resident group had been exposed within the last 6
weeks. According to the mothers' reports, there were no significant behavioural
differences between children who had witnessed violence (either in the recent or more
distant past) and children who had not.
However, it would be inappropriate to
interpret these findings as proof that there are no long-term effects associated with
witnessing violence. The sample used in the study was quite unusual in that the comparison
group of children scored an average of one standard deviation above the norm on the Child
Behaviour Checklist2. Scores as high as these are surprising for a control
group, especially given the clinical nature of this instrument. This aberration may have
obscured group differences, leading to the determination that there are few differences
between witnesses and non-witnesses when such a conclusion may actually be erroneous.
Although children in this group were not significantly different from the other two groups
with regard to behavioural problems exhibited, it is quite possible that they would differ
in other important ways. The Child Witness to Violence Interview (Jaffe, Wilson, &
Wolfe, 1988) was designed to assess reactions that are not considered in standard measures
of adjustment like the CBCL. Studies conducted using this interview indicate that children
exposed to wife battering are significantly more likely to condone violence as a means of
resolving conflict in interpersonal relationships in addition to feeling responsible for
the violence and possessing inadequate safety skills to deal with a violent event (Jaffe
et al., 1988).
2A similar finding was reported in Christopoulos, Cohn,
Shaw, Joyce, Sullivan-Hanson, Kraft & Emery (1987), i.e., elevated externalizing
scores were found in a community sample of boys.
Davis & Carlson (1987) also looked
at the effects of witnessing violence among 66 children residing in a battered women's
shelter. The sample ranged in age from 4 to 11 years. It was assumed that by virtue of
their coming to the shelter, they had all witnessed marital violence. Half of these
children were also known to be victims of abuse as they had been involved with local child
protective services. A comparison of witnesses to victim/witnesses using the Child
Behaviour Checklist showed higher levels of aggression by the second group, as reflected
in the proportion of children whose scores were in the clinical range (24% of witnesses
and 47% of victim/witnesses). Gender and age were also significantly related to the
aggression factor, with school-aged girls and pre-school boys having the highest mean
scores and the highest proportion of children scoring in the clinical range (greater than
50% in both groups). However, there were no analyses involving both gender and
abuse status so it is unclear what proportion of aggressive boys and girls had solely
witnessed violence and what proportion had also been victimized. This failure to make
clear distinctions among children with respect to witness and victim status is a frequent
occurrence - in the Wolfe et al. (1986) study described earlier, the authors failed to
specify whether any of the children had been abused themselves. Fantuzzo & Lindquist
(1989) examined the literature on child witnesses of marital violence and found that the
presence of child abuse was not even assessed in 75% of the articles reviewed. This
finding is somewhat surprising given the fact that those children who have witnessed their
mother being beaten have often themselves experienced direct physical assaults by parents
(Walker, 1984; Bowker et al., 1988).
Another drawback associated with Davis
& Carlson's study is the reliance on mothers to provide information about their
children's aggressive behaviour. Studies have shown that the presence of marital discord
and abuse in the family can bias parents' descriptions of their children's behaviour
(Hughes & Barad, 1982). Nevertheless, the mother is often the sole source of
information in many studies of children's reactions to family violence. Recognizing this
limitation, Dodge, Bates & Pettit (1990) utilized a variety of methods to assess
aggressive behaviour in their sample of 309 kindergarten children. Teachers were asked to
rate children on the school version of the Child Behaviour Checklist while peers made
nominations regarding which children tended to start fights, get angry and be mean toward
others. Direct observations of the children's behaviour were also made. Abuse status in
this study was determined from an interview with mothers regarding disciplinary practices
and deliberate physical harm done to the child. Based on the mothers' responses, the
researchers subjectively determined the probability that any particular child had been
physically abused. This procedure resulted in 15% of the sample being classified as
"harmed." On average, these children were rated by teachers and peers as
significantly more aggressive than comparison children. Group differences with respect to
direct observations of aggressive behaviour failed to reach statistical significance
although the rate at which aggressive acts were committed was 30% higher for the harmed
children. The main effect of child's abuse status on aggressive behaviour remained
significant even when other variables, including severity of marital conflict as rated by
interviewer, were statistically controlled.
The results of these three studies are
not directly comparable since the first contrasted witnesses with controls, the second
compared victim/witnesses with victims and the third compared victims to non-abused
children. Such lack of consistency in group composition is not uncommon in studies of
family violence sequelae. A study by Hughes (1988) was slightly better in that it included
children from three of the four possible groups: children who had witnessed marital
violence (n=40), children who had been abused and had also witnessed violence (n=55) and
children from non-violent families (n=83). Hughes found a significant interaction between
age and abuse status with respect to the number of externalizing problems reported by
mothers on the Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory (Eyberg & Ross, 1978). Abused/witness
children in the preschooler and primary school age groups displayed significantly more
problems than witness and comparison children. It appears that children who receive a
"double dose" of family violence, i.e., they witness violence between their
parents and they also experience child abuse, show the greatest tendency to display
aggressive behaviour. This relationship appears to make intuitive sense; it has been
uncovered in subsequent child research by the same investigator (Hughes, Parkinson &
Vargo, 1989) and it emerges again in research addressing adult witness/victims' tendencies
toward marital violence (Kalmuss, 1984).
Given the considerable amount of
overlap between the witness and victim groups, it seems inadequate to look at the impact
of either form of family violence alone. The results would likely reflect the confounding
of the variables and not the unique effect of either type of violence. In an attempt to
address this issue, both marital aggression and child abuse were traced across
three generations in 181 families (Doumas, Margolin & John, 1994). Current family
functioning was assessed via a number of standardized questionnaires completed by parents,
including the Domestic Conflict Index (Margolin, Burman, John & O'Brien, 1990; cited
in Doumas et al., 1994), the Child Hostility Inventory (Kazdin, Rodgers, Colbus &
Siegel, 1987) and the Child Behaviour Checklist. Unfortunately, child abuse currently
occurring was not recorded. Only the potential for child abuse was assessed using a
paper and pencil survey presumed to measure abusive disciplining style3 (Child
Abuse Potential Inventory; Milner, 1986). Doumas and her associates found that elevated
scores by parents on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory predicted aggressive behaviour in
boys but not in girls. Unexpectedly, marital violence between parents was not
significantly related to boys' or girls' aggression. The findings of this study are
consistent with other research showing a stronger link between problem externalizing
behaviours and exposure to family violence for boys (Jaffe, Wolfe, Wilson & Zak, 1985,
1986; Hughes & Barad, 1983; Hurley & Jaffe, 1990).
3The problems encountered when attempting to infer
behavioural tendencies from attitudinal measures will be described in a later section.
Hughes (1986) found that among
children residing in shelters, the effects of viewing violence depended on such variables
as the child's gender and abuse/victim status, as well as the child's age, mother's mental
health functioning, and amount of violence observed. Comparisons between children who have
observed marital violence and those who have not show that serious behaviour and emotional
problems are 17 times more frequent among boys who witness violence and 10 times more
frequent among female witnesses (Myers Avis, 1992). Male victims/observers are thought by
some to be at greater risk for becoming violent. In fact, one researcher declared that
"male children over the age of 12 are frequently, as a matter of policy, not allowed
to stay in shelters for battered women because of the aggressive and violent behaviours,
they have learned at home" (Hofford, 1991; p. 13). The issue of gender-linked
differences in violent behaviour win be raised again with adolescent and adult samples
given that Miller & Challas (1981; cited in Saunders, 1994) found that among those who
had been abused in childhood, men were almost twice as likely as women to be rated at high
risk for becoming abusive parents.
In summary, the studies described in
this section lead us to the same conclusion that Widom (1989b) came to when she surveyed
the research linking child victimization to later aggression: abused children seem to
display more aggressive behaviour than comparison children. For some children, witnessing
marital violence is as detrimental to healthy adjustment as experiencing physical abuse
(Jaffe, Wolfe & Wilson, 1990; Widom, 1989b). Generally though, being abused seems to
lead to more severe behavioural outcomes than does witnessing violence, while the
experience of both forms of violence represents the most potent predictor of
aggression (Cooper, 1992). However, many of the research design flaws pointed out by Widom
five years ago are present in investigations currently being conducted. Studies often
involve convenience or opportunity samples of mothers and children recruited from women's
shelters or social service agencies. Many investigators rely solely on descriptions of
children's behaviour given by mothers who are themselves experiencing abuse, a practice
which may detract from the validity of the findings. Moreover, the time between admission
to the shelter/service agency and laboratory testing is often quite short. It is possible
that some of the behavioural differences detected after admission are actually reflective
of difficulties in adjusting to the shelter. The upcoming sections of the report address
the issue of whether violent behaviour by family violence victims/witnesses persists
beyond an initial adjustment phase and into adolescence and adulthood.
