Many young people and adolescents do not pay much attention to violence in their relationships; they tend to believe that it is a problem that exclusively affects adults. However, during courtship important etiological factors of gender violence that occurs in adult couples may appear.
Violence in relationships is a problem that affects all ages, races, social classes and religions. It is a social and health problem that, due to its high incidence, has currently produced significant social alarm both due to the seriousness of the events and the negativity of their consequences.
The concept of violence in adolescent relationships has been defined by various authors. International investigations use the term “dating aggression and/or dating violence”, in Spain, the most used term is violence in adolescent relationships either violence in dating relationships.
Defining this type of violence
Ryan Shorey, Gregory Stuart and Tara Cornelius define dating violence as those behaviors that involve physical, psychological or sexual aggression between the members of a couple during courtship Other authors highlight that it is violence that involves any attempt to dominate or control a person physically, psychologically and/or sexually, causing some type of damage.
Required reading: “The 30 signs of psychological abuse in a relationship”
From psychology, various authors try to explain the causes of this violence in couple relationships in adolescents. Although there are currently few studies that have theoretically addressed the origin and maintenance of violence in these couples, There is a certain tendency to explain it from classical theories on aggressiveness or linked to ideas about gender violence in adult couples.
Some of the most relevant theories and theoretical models, although not all, are presented below to shed some light on this problem.
Attachment Theory
John Bowlby (1969) proposes that people shape their relationship style based on the interactions and relationships they established during childhood with the main attachment figures (mother and father). These interactions influence both the onset and development of aggressive behavior
According to this theory, adolescents from homes in which they observed and/or suffered abuse show problems in regulating their emotions, low problem-solving skills and/or lower self-confidence, aspects that may also be due to above, would show greater probabilities of establishing conflictive relationships.
From this perspective, Aggression in adolescence would originate from negative experiences in childhood, such as aggressive behaviors in parents, child abuse, insecure attachment, etc., and at the same time would influence the occurrence of dysfunctional patterns in adulthood. However, we cannot ignore that personal experiences entail an individual elaboration process that would allow these patterns to be modified.
Going deeper: “The Attachment Theory and the bond between parents and children”
Social Learning Theory
Proposed by Albert Bandura in 1973 focused on the concepts of modeling and social learning, explains how learning in childhood occurs through imitation of what we observe
Aggressive behaviors in an adolescent couple’s relationship would be produced by learning them either through personal experience or by witnessing relationships in which violence exists. Therefore, People who experience or are exposed to violence will be more likely to engage in violent behavior compared to those who have not experienced or been exposed to it.
However, we must consider that each person carries out their own construction process based on their experience and is not limited exclusively to copying the conflict resolution strategies of their parents. Besides, Some studies have found that not all adolescents who have perpetrated or been victims of aggression in their partners, in their childhood they experienced or witnessed aggressive behavior in their homes, among their friends or with previous partners.
Feminist Perspective
Authors such as Lenore Walker (1989) explains that violence in couples has its origin in unequal social distribution based on gender, which produces greater power for men compared to women. According to this perspective, women are viewed as an object of control and domination by the patriarchal system through the principles of social learning theory, the sociocultural values of patriarchy and gender inequality, transmitted and learned at the individual level. Gender violence is violence whose purpose is to maintain control and/or dominance in an unequal relationship, in which both members have received different socialization.
This theoretical perspective has been adapted to violence in adolescent relationships, considering the multiple evidence of the influence that traditional belief systems exert on gender roles, both in the appearance and maintenance of violence. This adaptation explains and analyzes why the attacks that boys commit tend to be more serious, and analyze the possible differences between both genders, for example with respect to the consequences.
Proposed by George C. Homans (1961), indicates that people’s motivation lies in obtaining rewards and reducing or eliminating costs in their relationships Thus, a person’s behavior will vary depending on the amount and type of reward that he considers he will receive.
Therefore, Violence in relationships is used as a way to reduce costs, gaining greater control and power through aggression. The aggressor’s search for control would be related to the other’s reduction of the possible costs of relationships, uncertainty, not knowing what the other thinks, what he does, where he is, etc. Along these lines, the lower the reciprocity in a given interaction, the greater the probability of emotional behaviors based on anger or violence.
In turn, such behaviors will make the individual feel disadvantaged and increase the likelihood that the interaction will become more dangerous and violent. Thus, the main benefit of violence is obtaining dominance over another individual and the probabilities of a violent exchange ending increase when the costs of violent behavior are greater than the benefits it produces.
Cognitive-Behavioral Approach
Focuses the explanation of violence in couple relationships on cognitions and cognitive processes, highlighting that people seek consistency between their thoughts and between them and their behaviors The presence of cognitive distortions or inconsistencies between these will produce negative emotions that can lead to the appearance of violence.
However, the cognitive-behavioral approach has focused more on explaining the cognitive distortions that occur in aggressors. For example, in the same situation in which the partner is not present, the aggressor will show a greater tendency to think that his partner is not present. partner has not waited for you at home in order to annoy you or as a way of disrespecting you, which will produce negative emotions, while a person who is not an aggressor will think that this is because their partner will be busy or having fun and it will give you positive emotions and you will be happy about it.
Ecological Model
It was proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1987) and adapted by White (2009) to explain violence in couple relationships, becoming known as socio-ecological model. Explains violence in relationships through four levels that range from the most general to the most specific: social, community, interpersonal and individual. At each of the levels There are factors that increase or decrease the risk of violence perpetration or victimization
Thus, violent behaviors in a relationship would be located in this model at the individual level and would develop due to the previous influence of the other levels. This influence of the various levels comes from the traditional vision of division of power in society in favor of men, as in Feminist Theory.
Submits that Violent behaviors against the partner are influenced by beliefs at the social level (e.g. the distribution of work for men and women, sexual division of power), at the community level (such as the integration of gender-differentiated social relations embedded in schools, workplace, social institutions, etc.), at the interpersonal (such as the beliefs of both partners about what the relationship should be like), and at the individual level (for example, what the individual thinks about what is “right” or not in a relationship). Those behaviors that fail to meet such assumed expectations based on gender will increase the probabilities of violent behavior and will use these beliefs to justify the use of violence.
Conclusions
Currently there are various theories or perspectives, there has been some scientific progress in this field and new research has been interested in explaining violence in the romantic relationships of adolescents, reviewing traditional theories and those theories that focus on any type of violence. interpersonal.
However, despite recent scientific advances in this area, There are still many unknowns to be resolved that allow us to understand the individual factors as relational about the origin, causes and maintenance of dating violence. This advance would help adolescents both to identify if they suffer violence from their partner and to prevent its appearance, as well as to identify those factors that can cause gender violence in adult couples and begin its prevention from adolescence.
