Sheila Adams

Women and Relationship Violence: Understanding Women Who Use Defensive and Aggressive Actions in the Context of a Volatile Situation Sheila Adams

The purpose of the study was to determine, using inter-rater reliability to evaluate projective (vignettes) and typical responses (real situations), if women used physical violence aggressively or non-aggressively and to examine behavioral and psychological characteristics specific to each group. Aggressive violence was conceptualized as violence that is used when there is no indication that violent behaviors are defensive in nature. The results of the study revealed that most of the women indicated, through their projective responses, that violence toward an intimate partner was often aggressive. A relationship was established between projective responses and typical responses for the women in the aggressive and non- aggressive groups, suggesting that projective responses did not differ from how the women would generally use violence in their relationship toward an intimate partner. For example, if a woman was categorized as using aggressive violence in response to the vignettes, it was more likely that her typical responses were categorized as aggressive as well. As a result, violent actions were viewed as aggressive most of the time.