Breaking the Cycle

By Jenny Cisneros

Last week as a class we took the first steps towards formulating our own PD inquiry. Unlike most research inquires, the PD inquiry has been a mildly difficult task to complete. However, it helped to give one another constructive criticism. This past week I have given my initial PD inquiry a lot of thought and looking further into the literature on abusive relationships, I have decided to take my inquiry in another direction. Initially, my PD inquiry consisted of, “how have young Hispanic women (18-22) that don’t have a good relationship with either mom or dad have managed to not end up in an abusive relationship?” The most daunting task of formulating a PD inquiry is trying frame a complex social issue and create the worst case scenario. After careful consideration and given the helpful comments from my classmates, I have decided to change the direction of my PD inquiry. 

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in every four women will experience some form of domestic violence in her lifetime. Which begs the question, are some young women predisposed to falling into an abusive relationship?  Various literature suggests that a number of factors play into women falling into abusive relationships. However, the term “abuse” encompasses a number of different forms of assault.  The Oxford Dictionary definition of abuse, states that abuse is characterized by someone who is offensive, cruel, insulting and engaged in constant violence.  So what would entice a young girl to date someone who is offensive and cruel?  Zayas and Shoda (2007) argued that women who had had previous experiences with psychological abuse were more likely to seek out an abusive relationship on their own. The college-aged women surveyed in this study showed a stronger preference for dating an individual of was characterized to be one of the following traits; hostile, aggressive, violent, jealous, possessive, and impulsive. On the other hand, Zayas and Shoda (2007) studied men who admitted behaving abusively in previous relationships and asked if they sought out women who appeared to have a high attachment anxiety. High anxiety refers to Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment (1951) that argues that a person’s attachment to their caregivers appears as early as infancy. If the child is separated from its caregiver it will show signs of high anxiety and start to cry. Although Bowlby’s theory primarily focused on the infant and its caregiver’s relationship, he believed that as adults, people maintained an emotional attachment to others that exhibited similar behavior to a caregiver. Hazan and Shaver (1987) explored the attachment theory’s application to romantic relationships. Romantic relationships are similar to infant-caregiver relationships because some similar features emerge as the romantic relationship unfolds. Like infants, adults exhibit attachment behaviors by feeling secure with another individual. However, adults engage in intimate bodily contact which directly influences the attachment. If attachments are generated during infancy, are women who experience or witness different types of abuse more likely to end in an abusive relationship? 

Research suggests that transgenerational patterns of violence in family units are directly correlated to a person’s learning of how relationships function. Champion (1999) explored the life stories of young Hispanic adolescents who had experienced various forms of physical and psychological abuse in their homes. These adolescents found themselves applying similar types of behavior in their intimate relationships with others. Males exhibited more hostility and violent acts towards significant others, while females engaged in less excessive behavior such as self defense tactics (Champion, 1999). Self esteem issues were not found to be a direct correlation between females and seeking out potentially abusive partners, however, women who had experienced previous psychological abuse were a a higher risk (Zayas & Shoda, 2007). 

Since the available literature suggests that abuse is a learned behavior, I decided to reframe my PD inquiry with the following, “How have young Hispanic females, who have experienced or witnessed physical or psychological forms of abuse at an early age, managed to either escape an abusive relationship or avoided one entirely?” By examining college aged women, I can research their sex-role identification and how it was shaped by their parents or guardians. Then find women who either witnessed or experienced various types of abuse and explore how it affected their intimate relationships as adolescents and then as adults. By creating a solid set of conditions, hopefully I can research how against all odds, some women have been able to break the generational cycles of abuse.