Honors Projects

Abstract

Intimate partner violence has been shown to have serious mental, physical, and emotional consequences for both men and women. Past research has considered low self-esteem as a risk factor, outcome, and moderator of abuse; however, less is known about whether self-esteem influences abuse perception. This study sought to examine the relationships between self-esteem, gender, and type of abuse in college students’ perceptions of abuse. The sample consisted of 207 undergraduate students (140 female, 64 male, and 3 preferred not to answer) between the age of 18-23 years (M= 19.7, SD= 2.4). The procedure included an Abusive Scenarios Survey, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and a personal and demographic history survey. Participants perceived situations as more abusive when the abuser was male (M= 7.1; SD= 1.4) than when it was female (M= 6.8, SD= 1.5, t(206)= 7.78, p<.05). Participants rated physical (M= 8.3, SD= 1.5) abuse as more abusive than sexual, verbal, emotional, and economic abuse (respectively M= 7.2, 6.5, 6.8, 5.8, SD= 1.7, 1.7, 1.7, 1.6, t(206)= 12.61, 19.24, 16.08, 24.25, p<.05). There was no significant correlation between level of self-esteem and perception of abuse. These results have implications for working with survivors of abuse as well as implementing prevention programs with college students.

Department

Psychology

Major

Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Dara Musher-Eizenman

First Advisor Department

Psychology

Second Advisor

Dr. Kate Magsamen-Conrad

Second Advisor Department

Communication

Publication Date

Spring 4-23-2017

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