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Emotion regulation as a mediator between family-of-origin aggression and marital aggression

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Emotion regulation as a mediator between family-of-origin aggression and marital aggression

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Content EMOTION REGULATION AS A MEDIATOR BETWEEN FAMILY-OF-ORIGIN
AGGRESSION AND MARITAL AGGRESSION
Copyright 2003
by
Catherine Delsol
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PSYCHOLOGY)
August 2003
Catherine Delsol
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UMI Number: 3116690
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This dissertation, written by
under the direction o f hs2A. dissertation committee, and
approved by all its members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Director o f Graduate and Professional
Programs, in partial fulfillment o f the requirements for the
degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
» Director
Date A u R u s tl2 , 2 0 0 3
Dissertation Committee
Chair
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ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Gayla Margolin, my committee chair
and mentor. She has been tremendously helpful and supportive during my years as a
graduate student. I am most thankful to her for sharing her love for research and
encouraging me to follow my passion and curiosity in developing my own research
ideas.
I am also grateful for the helpful feedback and support I obtained from my
committee members Drs. Shannon E. Daley, Gerald C. Davison, Richard S. John,
and Thomas Lyon. Their assistance has been invaluable in refining the design of this
study and putting its results in a broader theoretical perspective. I want to thank them
for thinking so carefully about the issues I addressed in this study and for helping me
look at them from different perspectives.
I also want to thank the faculty, staff, and my fellow graduate students at the
Psychology Department for providing such a warm, welcoming, and fun atmosphere
in which to learn and grow. I am taking with me fond memories of hard work, good
times, and caring people.
I thank my husband, Laurent Delsol, for his love, understanding and
enthusiasm for my endeavors. He has been my cheering section, encouraging me to
follow my dreams throughout the years. Finally, I am eternally grateful to my mother
for her unconditional love, belief in me, and for always wanting to do all she can to
help me reach my goals.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................ ii
List of Tables....................................................................................................................iv
Abstract.............................................................................................................................. v
Chapter 1: Introduction......................................................................................................1
Chapter 2: Method...........................................................................................................13
Chapter 3: Results........................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 4: Discussion..................................................................................................... 31
Bibliography....................................................................................................................47
Appendix.......................................................................................................................... 54
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iv
LIST OF TABLES
Table
1. Correlations among family-of-origin violence, emotion regulation,
marital physical and emotional abuse, and life stress...................................22
2. Summary of regression analyses examining emotion regulation
as a mediator between family-of-origin violence and marital
physical aggression..........................................................................................23
3. Summary of regression analyses examining emotion regulation
as a mediator between family-of-origin violence and marital
emotional aggression...................................................................................... 26
4. Summary of regression analyses examining emotion regulation
as a moderator between family-of-origin violence and marital
physical aggression..........................................................................................28
5. Summary of regression analyses examining emotion regulation
as a moderator between family-of-origin violence and marital
emotional aggression...................................................................................... 29
6. Summary of regression analyses examining the interaction
between stress and emotion regulation predicting marital
physical and emotional aggression.................................................................30
A1. Convergent and discriminant validity of the Emotion
Regulation Scale...............................................................................................60
A2. Inter-item correlations for the Emotion Regulation Scale.............................61
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V
ABSTRACT
This study examines competing models for emotion regulation as a mediator
or a moderator of the relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital
physical and emotional aggression in a community sample of 116 married men.
Current life stress is examined as a potentiator of emotion regulation problems
increasing the risk for marital aggression. Emotion regulation was found to be
associated with marital aggression. Regression analyses showed emotion regulation
to be a mediator, but not a moderator, between family-of-origin violence (witnessing
interparental aggression and victimization) and marital physical and emotional
aggression. Analyses examining life stress were nonsignificant. Implications of
findings for batterer treatments and for social learning and borderline personality
explanations of the intergenerational transmission of marital violence are discussed.
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
In trying to understand why some men engage in domestic violence whereas
others do not, studies have examined a wide variety of characteristics of perpetrators
of domestic violence. Experiences of violence in the family of origin is one set of
variables that have consistently been linked to marital aggression in adulthood,
although the relationship tends to be rather modest (Feldman, 1997; Holtzworth-
Munroe, Bates, Smutzler, & Sandin, 1997; Hotaling & Sugarman, 1986). In a review
of studies on the intergenerational transmission of marital violence, Delsol and
Margolin (2003) found that across studies, approximately 60% of maritally violent
men report having experienced violence in their family of origin, whereas only 20%
of men who do not engage in marital violence report violence in the family of origin.
In addition, a greater percentage of men who experienced family-of-origin violence
later engage in marital violence than among men who have not experienced family-
of-origin violence (Delsol & Margolin, 2003). Also, Margolin, Gordis, Medina, and
Oliver (2003) found that husbands who were exposed to violence in their family of
origin had a greater likelihood of engaging in marital aggression than husbands who
had no history of aggression in their family of origin.
Furthermore, family-of-origin violence has not only been linked to marital
physical aggression, but also to marital emotional aggression (Foo, 1996). Although
physical and emotional aggression tend to co-occur, emotional abuse tends to be
more common among married men than physical abuse. Margolin, John, and Foo
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(1998) found that whereas 89% of men who engage in physical abuse also engage in
emotional abuse, only 46% of married men who engage in emotional abuse also
engage in physical abuse. Thus, many emotionally aggressive men would be
considered nonaggressive if men were grouped into aggressive versus nonaggressive
groups based on the occurrence of physical violence only. Also, among men who
engage in both physical and emotional abuse, emotional abuse tends to continue even
after the physical abuse has stopped (Gondolf and Russell, 1986). Therefore, it is
important to examine emotional aggression in addition to physical aggression.
Relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital violence.
When examining family-of-origin violence, researchers have typically
differentiated between witnessing interparental violence and being the victim of
violence from a parent. Although both forms of family-of-origin violence have been
linked to marital aggression, some consider witnessing interparental violence to be a
stronger predictor of later marital aggression than being victimized by parent-to-
child aggression (Aldarondo and Sugarman, 1996; Carter, Stacey, & Shupe, 1988;
Hotaling and Sugarman, 1986), whereas others find victimization to be a stronger
predictor (Mihalic and Elliott, 1997; Corvo and Carpenter, 2000). Overall, findings
with respect to the relative roles of witnessing interparental violence and
victimization in the family of origin are mixed. Moreover, because witnessing
violence and victimization often co-occur (Margolin & Gordis, 2000), identifying the
unique effects of each type of family-of-origin violence is difficult.
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It is not entirely clear, however, why and how family-of-origin violence
leads to marital violence. The most common theoretical explanation for the
intergenerational transmission of violence is the social learning or modeling theory
(Bandura, 1973; 1977). According to this theory, children learn about what behaviors
are appropriate among family members by observing live models: their parents. How
parents behave towards each other and towards their children becomes a schema
about how family relationships work. These experiences are not necessarily
translated into aggressive behaviors immediately upon learning. Rather, the learned
behaviors are encoded into memory and can lie dormant, available for future use.
Thus, memories from these childhood experiences develop into a behavioral
repertoire for possible use in the family of procreation.
The likelihood of enacting what has been learned in childhood depends on
conditions present in the learning situation. First, the likelihood of repeating the
violence depends on the consequences the violence had for the perpetrator, or in
other words, whether the violence was rewarded or punished. If the child repeatedly
learned that a person who used violent behavior achieved their goal or got what they
wanted by using violence (usually power and control), then that child is more likely
to envision violent behavior as being effective for obtaining what one wants. Such
“positive” consequences increase the likelihood of repeating violent behavior.
Second, the degree to which the child identifies with the perpetrator also affects the
likelihood of repeating violent behavior. The more the child identifies with the
perpetrator, especially with a perpetrator for whom the consequences of violent
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behavior are positive, the more likely that child is to later become a violent person.
In addition, according to Bandura (1977), social learning is not merely mimicry, but
involves a certain degree of abstraction of rules. In the case of family violence,
children learn that violence is an appropriate way of resolving conflict among family
members in general. This means that both witnessing interparental violence as well
as victimization can be considered learning experiences that affect the likelihood of
later husband-to-wife aggression.
Although social learning (Bandura, 1973) is often used to explain the link
between family-of-origin violence and marital aggression, most studies on the
intergenerational transmission of violence do not actually examine crucial aspects of
social learning, such as the consequences of the violence and the degree of
identification with the perpetrator. In essence, there is little evidence of the
mechanisms by which violence in one generation is passed on to the next. Some
multivariate studies suggest that the relationship between family-of-origin violence
and marital aggression is an indirect one (e.g. Stith and Farley, 1993). Variables
affecting the relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital physical
aggression that have been identified include husband’s mental status and
psychological distress (Julian et al., 1999), antisocial personality traits (Simons, Wu,
Johnson, and Conger, 1995), husband’s substance abuse (Hamberger & Hastings,
1991; Hastings & Hamberger, 1988), marital conflict styles affected by husband
hostility, gender identity (masculinity), and perceived power (Leonard & Senchak,
1996), and general aggression and antisocial behaviors (Foo, 1996). With respect to
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psychological abuse, Foo (1996) found both direct and indirect effects of family-of-
origin violence, although both effects were modest. The indirect effects of family-of-
origin violence on psychological abuse were through antisocial characteristics and
alcohol abuse. Examining a moderator model of intergenerational transmission of
violence, O’Heam and Margolin (2000) found that family-of-origin violence was
highly correlated with husband-to-wife physical aggression only for those men who
condone marital violence, but not for those who do not condone such violence.
Finally, findings that not all maritally violent men report having experienced
violence in their family of origin, and not all men who experience violence in their
family of origin later engage in violence towards their spouse, further suggest an
indirect relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital violence.
Emotion regulation and psychopathology.
One variable that might provide a link between family-of-origin violence and
marital aggression that has not been examined so far is emotion regulation. In its
broadest sense, emotion regulation refers to how people deal with states of positive
or negative affect, with negative affect being the focus of attention with respect to
psychopathology. Because, according to Thompson (1994), emotion regulation
involves such basic processes as attention and interpretation of events, encoding of
internal emotional cues, access to coping resources, regulation of emotional demands
of settings, and selection of response alternatives, it is reasonable to assume that
these processes are involved in the regulation of emotions in both children and
adults. Bradley (2000) conceptualizes affect regulation problems as developmental
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precursors to many forms of psychopathology seen in children and adults. She
proposes a model in which biological vulnerabilities and psychological factors
interact in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. An individual’s
vulnerability to experiencing heightened states of arousal can be due to both
hereditary and environmental factors. The strategies the individual employs to
regulate the arousal or distress in turn are also influenced by both biological/
neurological factors and learning. Successful affect regulatory strategies are likely to
be repeated, reinforcing these behaviors. Unsuccessful strategies result in prolonged
states of distress, which lead to symptoms of psychopathology. These symptoms are
comprised of emotional experiences (e.g., anger, anxiety) and the individual’s
attempts at dealing with these feelings (e.g., avoidance, aggression, self-mutilation).
Hence, emotion regulation involves both intensity and duration of arousal.
Emotion regulation and aggression.
Several studies suggest that children who are exposed to domestic violence or
who are abused by their parents have difficulties with emotion regulation. For
example, Rieder and Cicchetti (1989) found abused children to be hypervigilant to
potentially dangerous and violent stimuli, even in nonthreatening situations.
Additionally, abused children have been found to react to interpersonal conflict with
increased levels of arousal, anger, and aggression (Cummings, Hennessy, Rabideau,
& Cicchetti, 1994).
Emotion regulation problems also have been linked to aggression in children.
Schwartz and Proctor (2000) found emotion regulation deficits to be a mediator
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between witnessing community violence and aggressive behavior in school-age
children. Looking at the effect of familial aggression on children, Shields and
Cicchetti (1998) find emotion regulation to be a key mediator between child
maltreatment and aggressive behavior in a group of preadolescent children. Baron
and Kenny (1986) define a mediator as a variable that reflects the mechanism that
accounts for the relationship between two variables. A mediator explains why two
variables are related, as opposed to a moderator, which specifies under what
conditions a relationship between two variables exists. Lindsey et al. (2003) also find
the relationship between marital conflict and boys’ peer aggression to be mediated
by mother-child reciprocity of negative affect. In sum, child maltreatment appears to
lead to mood lability and angry reactivity, which then can lead to aggression. This
leads to the question of whether a similar relationship between exposure to violence
in the family-of-origin, emotion regulation, and aggression can be seen in adults.
The association between emotion regulation and aggression is not as widely
studied in adults as it is in children. Neurological studies have found that emotion is
regulated by the orbital frontal cortex, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, among
several other connected brain regions (Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000).
According to Davidson, Putnam, and Larson (2000), abnormalities in these regions
of the brain have been associated with deficits in emotion regulation, as well as with
impulsivity and aggression. They propose that people with faulty emotion regulation
are at risk for impulsive violence and aggression. Studies on the long-term effects of
trauma suggest that one of the main consequences of trauma is affect dysregulation,
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and the earlier in life the trauma occurs, the more likely people are to have problems
with the regulation of anger and other negative emotional states (van der Kolk,
1996). In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual o f Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-
IV; American Psychological Association, 1994) posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) field trials, Roth et al. (1997) found emotion regulation problems to occur as
frequently as PTSD among adults who were abused as children. Finally, van der
Kolk (1996) reports one of the manifestations of lack of self-regulation as a result of
trauma to be aggressive behavior.
Emotion regulation and marital violence.
Emotion regulation, although not studied with respect to perpetrators of
domestic violence, very well could help explain how exposure to aggression in the
family during childhood can lead to aggression in an intimate relationship in
adulthood. The concept that comes closest to emotion regulation in the marital
violence literature is probably anger, which refers to a transient emotional state of
arousal. Anger has been linked to aggressive behavior when not properly regulated.
In fact, the most common forms of psychological treatment for batterers include
emotional awareness training, emotional expressiveness training, and anger
management, among others, indicating a focus on emotion regulation with respect to
anger in the rehabilitation of batterers (Dutton, 2003; Margolin, Sibner, &
Gleberman, 1988). Studies examining anger in married men tend to find men who
are physically and psychologically aggressive towards their spouse to be more angry
than nonaggressive men (Holtzworth-Munroe et. al., 1997), although there are some
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inconsistencies in the findings that may be due to unclear definitions of the construct
of anger and other issues of measurement (Eckhardt, Barbour, & Stuart, 1997). The
presence of increased anger among some maritally violent men suggests that at least
some marital aggression may be the result of emotion regulation problems.
Another link between emotion regulation and marital aggression is suggested
by Dutton (2003), who proposes the existence of at least a subset of maritally violent
men whose violence is a result of what he calls Borderline Personality Organization,
a less severe form of borderline personality disorder. This personality type is
characterized by intense, unstable personal relationships, an unstable sense of self,
intense anger, and impulsivity. Violence is thought to be in the form of intermittent
abuse that occurs solely within the family, accompanied by high emotionality and
strong fears of abandonment. Borderline personality disorder, in turn, has been
conceptualized by Linehan (1993) as having emotion regulation deficits as a core
feature affecting a multitude of problematic behaviors, including aggressive
behavior. Therefore, it seems that at least for some maritally violent men, emotion
regulation may be an important factor in their abusiveness. Linehan also suggests
that many of the emotion regulation difficulties experienced by individuals with
borderline personality disorder have their source in adverse childhood experiences in
the family-of-origin. In fact, Dutton, Starzomski, and Ryan (1996) found childhood
trauma to be associated with borderline personality organization, which in turn is a
predictor of marital violence. However, a true mediating model of the relationship
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between childhood trauma, borderline personality organization, and marital violence
has not been tested.
Stress as a trigger o f emotion regulation problems.
The type of aggression seen in children with emotion regulation difficulties
has been called reactive aggression, which is associated with high sympathetic
arousal and angry reactivity. This form of aggressive behavior is thought to occur in
an attempt to protect oneself from real or perceived threat (Shields & Cicchetti,
1998). Reactive aggression is contrasted with instrumental aggression, which is
thought to be nonemotional and methodical, geared towards attaining a goal such as
dominance or resources. Reactive aggression, by definition, is triggered by some sort
of stressor or threat. Therefore, whereas family-of-origin violence may operate as a
distal risk factor for marital aggression through its effect on emotion regulation, a
more proximal risk factor might be the experience of stressful events.
Stress has been proposed as a mediator of violence, in the sense that violent
men are seen as being unable to effectively cope with stress that they experience in
and out of the home because of a scarcity of financial resources and limited coping
skills (Howell & Pugliesi, 1988). The relationship between individual stress (i.e. not
marital stress) and marital violence is still not clear. Although some researchers find
that violent men experience more personal stress (Barnett, Fagan, & Booker, 1991;
Julian & McKenry, 1993), others, using the same measure of stress, find that
negative life events do not predict level of marital violence (McKenry, Julian, &
Gavazzi, 1995). Margolin, John, and Foo (1998) found that stressors such as
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negative life events are important risk factors contributing uniquely to the prediction
of men’s level of abusiveness. That is, the number of negative life events
differentiated severely abusive men from less severely abusive men. Margolin et al.
(1998) agree with Straus’ (1990) proposal that stress may not directly cause violence,
but that the relationship is moderated by variables such as early socialization to
stress, positive attitudes towards violence, marital dissatisfaction, and socioeconomic
status. The presence of these moderating factors would increase the likelihood of
aggression in response to stress. If the relationship between stress and marital
aggression is an indirect one, it may be that stress acts as a potentiator of emotion
regulation problems, such that the interaction of life stress with emotion regulation
problems would lead to a greater risk for marital aggression.
Hypotheses.
In sum, emotion regulation is associated with aggression in both children and
adults, and has been found to be a mediator between child maltreatment and
aggressive behavior in children. In addition, family-of-origin violence has been
associated with marital violence, but through an indirect relationship. The goal of the
present study is to examine the relationship between husbands’ exposure to violence
in the family of origin, emotion regulation, and physical and emotional aggression in
the marriage. Based on findings from studies of maltreated children, it is
hypothesized that emotion regulation is a mediator between family-of-origin
violence and marital physical and emotional aggression. In addition, in order to
further examine the nature of the indirect relationship between family-of-origin
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violence and marital violence, exploratory analyses will examine whether emotion
regulation is a moderator of the relationship between family-of-origin violence and
marital physical and emotional aggression. In this case, it is hypothesized that
family-of-origin violence would only be related to marital violence in men who also
show poor emotion regulation. Finally, the effect of stress on emotion regulation and
marital aggression will be examined. It is hypothesized that stress acts as a more
immediate potentiator of emotion regulation difficulties resulting in increased risk
for physical and emotional marital aggression.
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CHAPTER 2
METHOD
Participants.
Participants were 114 couples recruited from the Los Angeles community
through flyers and newspaper advertisements as part of a larger study on the effects
of marital and community violence on children’s adjustment. The criteria to enroll
families in this study were that (1) one child in the family must be between the ages
of 9 and 10 years old, inclusive; (2) this child has lived with both current parents for
at least the 3 previous years; (3) both parents and the child read and speak English;
and (4) both parents and the child are willing to participate in one laboratory session.
For their participation in the laboratory session and the completion of questionnaires
at home each family received $150.
Husbands’ age ranged from 24 to 59 years (M = 40.84, SD = 6.78), and
wives’ age ranged from 25 to 53 years (M= 38.37, SD = 5.84). Couples have been
together between 3 and 25 years (M= 13.56, SD = 4.51). 26.1% of couples were
both of White ethnic background, 25.2% were Hispanic/Latino couples, 23.5% were
African-American couples, 8.7% were Asian/Pacific Islander couples, and in 16.5%
of couples, husbands and wives were of different ethnic backgrounds. Individually,
the ethnicity distribution among husbands was 32.2% White, 27% Hispanic/Latino,
23.5% African-American, 8.7% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2.7% other, and 6.7% mixed.
The sample of wives was 30.4% Hispanic/Latina, 28.7% White, 24.3% African-
American, 10.4% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 6.1% mixed. Husbands’ and wives’
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mean years of education were 14.07 (SD = 2.47) and 14.25 (SD = 2.48), respectively.
Among husbands, 81.7% were employed full-time, 6.1% were employed part-time,
and 12.2% were unemployed. Husbands’ mean monthly gross income was $3752
(SD = 2512.01). Among wives, 46.1% were employed full-time, 23.5% were
employed part-time, and 30.4% were unemployed. Wives’ mean monthly gross
income was $1978 (SD = 1573.15).
Measures.
Family-of-origin violence. History of family-of-origin violence and abuse
was assessed using eight questions from the Personal Background Questionnaire
(Margolin & John, 1992). Each husband reported how often he received verbal
aggression or physical aggression from a parent, and how often these same behaviors
occurred between his parents on a 7-point scale (anchored never, once, 2-5,5-10,
10 - 20, 20 - 50, and more than 50 times) with scores ranging from 0 to 6 for each
item. In addition to a total score, labeled any family-of-origin violence, derived by
adding responses to all 8 items, two types of family-of-origin violence were
identified by adding the scores of the four items pertaining to each type:
Victimization, which includes parent-to-child verbal aggression (yelled or screamed
at and insulted or criticized) and parent-to-child physical aggression (hit or slapped
and physically injured or bruised), and witnessing, which includes interparental
verbal aggression (same behaviors as parent to child verbal aggression) and
interparental physical aggression (same behaviors as parent to child physical
aggression). Internal consistency reliability coefficients have been reported to be .91,
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.93, .79, and .72 for interparental verbal aggression, interparental physical
aggression, parent-to-child verbal aggression, and parent-to-child physical
aggression, respectively, in a community sample similar to the present sample (Foo,
1996). In the present sample, the means, with standard deviations in parentheses, for
any family-of-origin violence, witnessing, and victimization were 13.89 (10.36), 6.21
(5.53), and 9.00 (6.30), respectively. Twenty four men reported growing up in a
single-parent household, and therefore had no opportunity to witness interparental
violence. Therefore, only 90 men reported on witnessing interparental violence.
Emotion regulation. Due to the lack of emotion regulation measures for
adults, the Emotion Regulation Q-Scale (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997), developed for
children was used to assess husband’s emotion regulation. The scale contains 10
items, one of which was dropped because it lowered internal consistency of the scale
in a validation sample. Therefore, the following 9 items were used in the present
study: (1) can recover after stressful experiences; (2) has rapid shifts in mood; (3)
overreacts to minor frustration; (4) is warm and responsive; (5) shows recognition of
others’ feelings; (6) develops genuine and close relationships; (7) tends to be rigidly
repetitive in stress; (8) is inappropriate in emotive behavior; (9) tends to go to pieces
under stress. Because this scale is not a self-report measure, but to be filled out by an
informant, wives reported on their husband’s emotion regulation using the following
answer choices for each item: never true, sometimes true, often true, and almost
always true. Shields and Cicchetti (1997) report good convergent and discriminant
validity, as well as specificity pertaining to affective regulation and dysregulation for
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this scale. Furthermore, the Emotion Regulation Q-Scale differentiated between
well-regulated and dysregulated groups of children, and between maltreated and
nonmaltreated children across a wide age range. Convergent and discriminant
validity for this scale in adult males was established in a sample of 89 college
undergraduate males (see Appendix). In the present sample the mean emotion
regulation score was 20.76 (SD = 4.61).
Marital Aggression. The Domestic Conflict Index (DCI: Margolin, Burman,
John, & O’Brien, 1990, revised 2000) was used to assess physical and emotional
abuse in the marital relationship. The DCI is a 61-item self-report questionnaire that
inquires about physical aggression, verbal aggression, psychological abuse, anger,
and withdrawal in the marriage. Twenty-seven items from Straus et al.’s (1996)
Revised Conflict Tactics Scale are included in the DCI. Each item on this
questionnaire describes a conflict behavior, and participants are asked to rate
whether they have engaged in the behavior by answering yes or no. Each participant
also reports the behaviors their partner has engaged in. Only reports of husband
violence were used in the present study, and an occurrence was counted if either
spouse endorsed it.
Physical abuse towards the wife was assessed using the following 15 items:
(1) physically twisted her arm, (2) pushed, grabbed, or shoved her, (3) slapped her,
(4) physically forced sex on her, (5) burned her, (6) shaken her, (7) thrown or tried to
throw her bodily, (8) thrown an object at her, (9) choked or strangled her, (10)
kicked, bit, or hit her with a fist, (11) hit or tried to hit her with something, (12) beat
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her up (multiple blows), (13) threatened her with a knife or gun, (14) used a knife or
gun on her, and (15) slammed her against the wall.
Emotional aggression towards the wife was assessed using the following 11
items: ( 1) frightened her, (2 ) damaged a household item or some part of your home
out of anger towards her, (3) deliberately disposed of or hid an important item of
hers, (4) tried to prevent her from seeing/talking to family or friends, (5) restricted
her use of the car or telephone, (6 ) tried to turn family, friends, or children against
her, (7) told her that she could not go to work or school, or other self-improvement
activities, (8 ) locked her out of the house, (9) purposely hurt her pet, (10) purposely
damaged or destroyed her clothes, car, and/or other personal possessions, and ( 1 1 )
prevented your partner from getting needed medical care.
In the present sample, the mean for marital physical violence was 1.60 (SD -
2.36), and the mean for marital emotional aggression was 5.97 (SD = 3.36). 52.6% of
men had engaged in marital physical aggression, and 98.3% had engaged in
emotional aggression in their current relationship.
Stress. The Life Experiences Survey (LES; Sarason, Johnson, & Siegel,
1978) is a 43-item list of potentially stressful life events, and participants are asked
to report which of these they experienced in the past year. Additionally, for each
item endorsed, participants rate the kind of impact the event had on their life at the
time on a 7-point scale ranging from -3 (extremely negative) to +3 (extremely
positive), giving information on both the desirability and the impact of each event.
The LES has been reported to have good validity and reliability (Sarason et. al.,
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18
1979). The amount of husbands’ perceived negative life stress in the past year was
assessed by adding absolute values of the negative impact ratings (-1 to -3). The
mean LES negative items score in the present sample was 5.39 (SD = 7.37).
Procedure.
As part of the data collection for the larger study, participants filled out
questionnaires pertaining to themselves and their marital relationship both at home
and during one visit to the laboratory. Due to the large number of measures
administered in this study, and in order to minimize participants’ time spent in the
laboratory, some questionnaires with simple instructions were mailed to participants’
home for completion. Husbands and wives were instructed to complete these
questionnaires independently and to keep their responses confidential from one
another. In the laboratory, each spouse completed the remaining questionnaires by
inputting her or his answers directly into a computer, and was administered a series
of interviews by an experimenter. Due to repeated findings of husbands’
underreporting of potentially negative behaviors (Arias & Beach, 1987; Dutton &
Hemphill, 1992; Riggs, Murphy, & O’Leary, 1989), both husbands and wives
reported on husbands’ physical and emotional spousal aggression.
Following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) recommendations for testing
mediation, a series of regression equations were used to test the hypotheses that
emotion regulation mediates the relationship between family-of-origin violence and
marital physical and emotional aggression. The two forms of marital aggression,
physical and emotional aggression, and the three forms of family-of-origin violence,
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19
any family-of-origin violence, witnessing, and victimization, were examined
separately using the same analyses in the mediation models. First, emotion regulation
was regressed on family-of-origin violence. Second, marital aggression was
regressed on family-of-origin violence. And third, marital aggression was regressed
on both family-of-origin violence and emotion regulation. In order to have
mediation, the results of the first regression should show that family-of-origin
violence is associated with emotion regulation. Furthermore, family-of-origin
violence should be associated with marital aggression in the second regression, and
emotion regulation should be related to marital violence in the third regression.
Finally, if emotion regulation is a mediator between family-of-origin violence and
marital aggression, then the association between family-of-origin violence and
marital aggression should no longer be significant in the third regression equation,
which also contains emotion regulation. These three regression analyses were
conducted for emotion regulation being a mediator between ( 1) any family-of-origin
violence and marital physical aggression, (2 ) witnessing and marital physical
aggression, (3) victimization and marital physical aggression, (4) any family-of-
origin violence and marital emotional aggression, (5) witnessing and marital
emotional aggression, and (6 ) victimization and marital emotional aggression.
The exploratory analyses examining emotion regulation as a moderator of
the relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital aggression were
examined with regression analyses, following recommendations by Aiken and West
(1991) for testing interactions with continuous variables. For each of the three
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20
family-of-origin violence and the two marital aggression variables, the following
regression analyses were performed: (1) a regression equation predicting marital
aggression from both family-of-origin violence and emotion regulation and (2 ) a
second regression equation predicting marital aggression from family-of-origin
violence, emotion regulation, and the product of family-of-origin violence and
emotion regulation (the interaction term). The variables for these analyses were z-
scored in order to control for differing variances. If the interaction term in the second
regression equation is significant, t-tests for simple slopes are conducted to examine
the moderator relationship.
The interactive effect between emotion regulation and stress on marital
aggression was examined with the same regression analyses as the moderator models
described above. For marital physical aggression and for marital emotional
aggression, the following two analyses were performed: ( 1) a regression equation
predicting marital aggression from both stress and emotion regulation and (2 ) a
second regression equation predicting marital violence from stress, emotion
regulation, and the product of stress and emotion regulation (the interaction term).
Again, the variables were z-scored. If the interaction term in the second regression
equation is significant, then there is an interaction between stress and emotion
regulation.
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21
CHAPTER 3
RESULTS
Emotion regulation as a mediator.
Table 1 summarizes the correlations among independent and dependent
variables in this study. The first prerequisite for mediation is that the independent
variable be significantly related to the mediator. As can be seen in Table 1, any
family-of-origin violence was significantly related to emotion regulation (r - -.30,/?
< .01). Witnessing violence in the family of origin was also significantly correlated
with emotion regulation (r = -.30,/? < .01). And finally, victimization in the family of
origin was significantly correlated with emotion regulation (r = -.25, p < .05).
Results from separate regression equations confirmed that any family-of-origin
violence (Adjusted R2 = .08;F = 10.88,/? < .01), witnessing violence in the family of
origin (Adjusted R2 = .08; F = 8.90, p < .01), and victimization (Adjusted R2 = .05; F
= 6.87,/? < .05) were all significant predictors of emotion regulation, as required by
Baron and Kenny (1986) for mediation. Table 1 also shows that all three family-of-
origin variables and emotion regulation were significantly related to marital physical
and emotional aggression (p < .05).
Table 2 shows the regression equations testing emotion regulation being a
mediator between ( 1) any family-of-origin violence, (2 ) witnessing violence in the
family of origin, and (3) victimization in the family of origin, and marital physical
aggression. As can be seen in Table 2, any family-of-origin violence significantly
predicted marital physical aggression, which is the second prerequisite for mediation
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Table 1.
Correlations among family-of-origin violence, emotion regulation, marital physical and emotional abuse, and life stress.
Variable Emotion
regulation
Any FOV FOV
Witnessing
FOV
Victimization
Marital
physical
abuse
Marital
emotional
abuse
Any FOV - . 3 0 a* *
FOV Witnessing - , 3 0 b * *
9 0 c * *
FOV Victimization - . 2 5 a * , 8 9 e * * . 6 6 c * *
Marital physical abuse - , 3 9 d* * , 2 8 e * * . 2 8 c * * 21 **
Marital emotional abuse - . 4 0 d* * . 2 5 e * * • 2 5 c * • 2 2 e * . 6 8 e * *
Life stress • 0 8 d - . O l e • 0 0 c - . 0 4 e - . 0 8 e - . 0 6 e
Note: FOV = family-of-origin violence. a n = 1 0 9 ; b n = 8 8 ; c n = 9 0 ; d n
= 1 1 1 ; e W =
1 1 4 .
* p < . 0 5 ; * * p < . 0 1 .
N>
K >
23
according to Baron and Kenny (1986). When emotion regulation and any family-of-
origin violence were both included as predictors of marital physical violence, any
family-of-origin violence was no longer a significant predictor, fulfilling the third
requirement for mediation.
Table 2.
Summary o f regression analyses examining emotion regulation as a mediator
between family-of-origin violence (FOV) and marital physical aggression.
Predictor Adjusted F B SEB
P
R2
Any family-of-origin violence
Model 1: .07 9.64**
Any FOV .06 . 0 2 .28**
Model 2: .16 1 1 .1 0 **
Any FOV .03 . 0 2 .17
Emotion regulation -.17 .05 -.33**
Witnessing
Model 1: .07 7.31**
Witnessing . 1 2 .05 .28**
Model 2: .19 11.40**
Witnessing .07 .04 .15
Emotion regulation -.19 .05
_ 3 9 **
Victimization
Model 1: .06 8.70**
Victimization . 1 0 .03 .27**
Model 2: .16 11.15**
Victimization .07 .03 .17
Emotion regulation -.18 .05 -.34**
Note: ** p < .01.
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24
These results mean that emotion regulation can be considered a mediator
between any family-of-origin violence and marital physical aggression, because all
three prerequisites for mediation were met: family-of-origin violence significantly
predicted emotion regulation, family-of-origin violence significantly predicted
marital physical aggression, and family-of-origin aggression was no longer a
significant predictor of marital physical aggression once emotion regulation was
added as a predictor. The results obtained for witnessing interparental violence and
victimization in the family of origin also followed this same pattern, with witnessing
and victimization each being significant predictors of emotion regulation and marital
physical aggression. Both witnessing and victimization were no longer significant
predictors of marital physical violence when emotion regulation was included in the
regression equation. Therefore, emotion regulation is also a mediator between
witnessing interparental violence and marital physical violence, as well as between
victimization in the family of origin and marital physical violence.
Using Sobel’s (1988) method for testing the significance of mediated effects,
an unstandardized beta and for the indirect effect of family-of-origin violence on
marital violence and its standard error are calculated from the product of the
unstandardized betas of the regression predicting emotion regulation from family-of-
origin violence and the regression predicting marital violence from emotion
regulation (with family-of-origin violence in the model). A /-value is obtained by
dividing the obtained unstandardized beta of the indirect effect by its standard error.
Using this method, the mediated effect was found to be significant for all three forms
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25
of family-of-origin violence examined: any family-of-origin violence (t = 2.28, p <
.05), witnessing (t = 2.30,p < .05), and victimization (t = 2.07, p < .05). This means
that the strength of the relationship between the family-of-origin violence variables
was significantly reduced when emotion regulation was added to the model. In
addition, when dividing the unstandardized beta for the indirect effect by the
unstandardized beta for the zero-order path from family-of-origin violence to marital
violence, emotion regulation was found to account for 33% of the relationship
between any family-of-origin violence and marital physical violence; 42% of the
relationship between witnessing violence in the family-of-origin and marital physical
violence; and 30% of the relationship between victimization in the family of origin
and marital physical violence.
Table 3 summarizes the same regression equations testing emotion regulation
as a mediator between the three family-of-origin violence variables and marital
emotional aggression. The results follow the same pattern as those obtained for
marital physical violence, with all three family-of-origin variables significantly
predicting emotion regulation and marital emotional aggression, and then no longer
significantly related to marital emotional aggression when emotion regulation is
added to the regression equation. As was the case for marital physical violence, the
mediated effect was significant for all three forms of family-of-origin violence
examined with respect to marital emotional aggression using Sobel’s (1988) test of
mediation: any family-of-origin violence (t = 2.95, p < .05), witnessing (t = 2.28, p <
.05), and victimization (t = 2.30, p < .05). Here too, emotion regulation is a mediator
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26
between marital emotional aggression and any family-of-origin violence, witnessing,
and victimization. In fact, emotion regulation accounted for 75% of the relationship
between any family-of-origin violence and emotional aggression; 47% of the
relationship between witnessing violence and emotional aggression; and 41% of the
relationship between victimization in the family of origin and emotional aggression.
Table 3.
Summary o f regression analyses examining emotion regulation as a mediator
between family-of-origin violence (FOV) and marital emotional aggression.
Predictor Adjusted F B SEB
P
R2
Any family-of-origin violence
Model 1: .05 9.64**
Any FOV .04 . 0 2 .25**
Model 2: .16 11.65**
Any FOV . 0 2 . 0 1 .13
Emotion regulation -.13 .03 -.36**
Witnessing
Model 1: .05 6.00*
Witnessing .08 .03 .25**
Model 2: .19 11.38**
Witnessing .04 .03 . 1 2
Emotion regulation -.15 .04
_ 4 j**
Victimization
Model 1: .04 5.90*
Victimization .06 . 0 2 .2 2 *
Model 2: .16 11.47**
Victimization .03 . 0 2 . 1 2
Emotion regulation -.14 .03
_ 2 7 **
Note: * p < .05, **p< .01.
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27
Emotion regulation as a moderator.
Results of regression analyses examining emotion regulation as a moderator
in the relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital aggression can be
found in Tables 4 and 5. For each set of variables, the predictor variables were z-
scored, and then an interaction term was calculated. In step one, the family-of-origin
variable and emotion regulation are entered, and in step two, the interaction term is
added to the equation.
Table 4 summarizes results for the three family-of-origin variables predicting
marital physical aggression. Similar to the results obtained in the mediator analyses,
emotion regulation is significantly associated with marital physical violence in all
three cases, but neither any family-of-origin violence, nor witnessing, nor
victimization significantly predict marital physical violence when emotion regulation
is in the same equation. More importantly, though, the interaction term is not
significant in the models for any family-of-origin violence, witnessing, and
victimization. Therefore emotion regulation does not seem to be a moderator in the
relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital physical violence.
Similarly, Table 5 summarizes the results for the moderator models
predicting marital emotional aggression. Here too, none of the interaction terms were
found to be significant, and emotion regulation does not appear to moderate the
relationship between family-of-origin violence and marital emotional aggression.
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28
Table 4.
Summary o f regression analyses examining emotion regulation as a moderator
between family-of-origin violence (FOV) and marital physical aggression.
Variable Adjusted AR2 F B SEB
P
R2
Any family-of-origin violence
Step 1 .16 11.08**
Any FOV .41 . 2 2 .17
Emotion regulation -.79 . 2 2 -.33**
Step 2 .15 .01 7.59**
Any FOV .40 . 2 2 .17
Emotion regulation -.74 .23 -.31**
Interaction -.17 .2 1 -.08
Witnessing
Step 1 .19 11.40**
Witnessing .37 .24 .15
Emotion regulation -.90 .23
_ 3 9 **
Step 2 .18 .00 7.52**
Witnessing .37 .25 .15
Emotion regulation -.89 .24 -.38**
Interaction -.04 . 2 2 - . 0 2
Victimization
Step 1 .16 11.15**
Victimization .41 . 2 2 .17
Emotion regulation -.81 . 2 2 -.34**
Step 2 .15 .00 7.62**
Victimization .40 . 2 2 .17
Emotion regulation -.78 . 2 2 -.32**
Interaction -.18 . 2 2 -.07
Note: ** p < .01.
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29
Table 5.
Summary o f regression analyses examining emotion regulation as a moderator
between family-of-origin violence (FOV) and marital emotional aggression.
Variable Adjusted AR2 F
R2
B SE B
P
Any family-of-origin violence
Step 1 .16 11.65**
Any FOV .23 .15 .13
Emotion regulation -.61 .16 -.36**
Step 2 .16 .00 7.72**
Any FOV .23 .16 .14
Emotion regulation -.63 .16
_ 2 7 **
Interaction .04 .15 . 0 2
Witnessing
Step 1 .19 11.38**
Witnessing . 2 1 .17 . 1 2
Emotion regulation -.67 .17
. 4i**
Step 2 .20 .01 8.14**
Witnessing . 2 2 .17 .13
Emotion regulation -.72 .17 -.43**
Interaction .19 .16 . 1 2
Victimization
Step 1 .16 11.47**
Victimization .2 1 .15 . 1 2
Emotion regulation -.63 .15
_ 3 7 **
Step 2 .15 .00 7.59**
Victimization . 2 0 .15 . 1 2
Emotion regulation -.63 .16 -.37**
Interaction .04 .16 - . 0 2
Note: ** p < .01.
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30
Life stress as a potentiator o f emotion regulation difficulties.
The role of recent life stress as a potentiator of emotion regulation problems,
increasing the risk of marital aggression was examined with regression analyses like
those for the moderator models. Table 6 shows that stress was not significantly
related to either form of marital aggression when emotion regulation was also in the
equation. Also, neither interaction term predicting marital physical aggression, nor
emotional aggression was significant. Therefore, stress does not seem to increase the
likelihood of marital aggression as a result of emotion regulation difficulties.
Table 6.
Summary o f regression analyses examining the interaction between stress and
emotion regulation predicting marital physical and emotional aggression.
Variable Adjusted AR2 F
R2
B SE B 1 3
Marital physical aggression
Step 1 .14 9.70**
Stress -.13 .21 -.06
Emotion regulation -.91 .21 -.38**
Step 2 .14 .01 6.85**
Stress -.05 .23 -.02
Emotion regulation -.96 .22
_ 40**
Interaction -.27 .25 -.10
Marital emotional aggression
Step 1 .15 10.68**
Stress .05 .14 -.03
Emotion regulation -.68 .15
_ 4Q**
Step 2 .17 .02 8.37**
Stress .03 .15 .02
Emotion regulation -.73 .15 -.43**
Interaction -.32 .17 -.17
Note: ** p < .01.
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31
CHAPTER4
DISCUSSION
Emotion regulation as a mediator.
The present study examined two competing hypotheses regarding the role of
emotion regulation in the intergenerational transmission of marital violence. Results
from regression analyses support the hypothesis that emotion regulation is a
mediator, but not a moderator, of the relationship between experiencing aggression
in the family of origin and engaging in marital physical aggression as an adult. The
relationships between the family-of-origin aggression variables (any family-of-origin
violence, witnessing aggression, and victimization in the family of origin) and
marital physical aggression were no longer significant when emotion regulation was
added to the equations. Exploratory analyses examining emotion regulation as a
moderator of the relationship between family-of-origin aggression and marital
physical and emotional abuse were nonsignificant. Based on Baron and Kenny’s
(1986) definitions, a mediator reflects the mechanism that accounts for the
relationship between two variables (i.e., why the intergenerational transmission
occurs), whereas a moderator specifies when, or under what conditions, a
relationship between two variables exists. Therefore, in the present study, it appears
that emotion dysregulation is a factor that helps explain the connection between
growing up in violent families and engaging in marital aggression as adults.
However, it does not seem that the intergenerational transmission of marital violence
occurs only for men who also have difficulties with emotion regulation.
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32
The results of the present study also suggest that the kinds of relationships
between exposure to family violence, emotion regulation, and aggressive behavior
obtained in adults are similar to the ones obtained in children. That is, emotion
regulation is not only a mediator between exposure to family violence and aggressive
behavior in children, as suggested by Shields and Cicchetti (1998), but emotion
regulation difficulties appear to continue to mediate the relationship between family-
of-origin aggression and aggressive behavior in adulthood, at least with respect to
marital aggression. In addition, similar results were obtained for marital physical and
emotional aggression. That is, emotion regulation was a mediator of the
intergenerational transmission of both marital physical and marital emotional
aggression, suggesting that these two forms of aggression have similar etiologies.
Emotional aggression, a much more common form of marital aggression, seems to
be as much part of the intergenerational transmission of violence as is physical
aggression.
Stress and emotion regulation.
Analyses examining recent stressful life events as potentiators of emotion
regulation difficulties that would increase the risk for marital aggression were
nonsignificant. Emotion regulation difficulties may be triggered by more immediate
experiences of stress that bring about momentary increases in negative affect rather
than overall life stress in the past year. Such sudden increases in negative affect may
be difficult to regulate by individuals with deficits in emotion regulation skills on a
short-term basis. On one level, emotion regulation difficulties may result in minor
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33
stressors being experienced as triggering more negative affect than in people without
emotion regulation deficits. On another level, individuals with emotion regulation
deficits may resort to aggression in order to reduce a sudden surge of negative affect,
for lack of more socially acceptable means to regulate this affect. Thus, reactive
aggression, as described by Shields and Cicchetti (1998) in children, may still be
taking place in maritally violent men in the face of stress, but a more immediate
assessment of stress may be necessary to show the effects of stress on emotion
regulation and marital aggression.
Alternatively, Dutton (2003) suggests that the negative affect experienced by
maritally violent men with borderline personality organization appears to sometimes
build from within and may to a certain degree be independent of external stressors.
In fact, studies examining observational data of conflictual interactions among
married couples also report husbands’ displays of anger to be independent of
displays of anger on the part of the wife in couples who report physical aggression,
but not in nonviolent couples (Burman, John, & Margolin, 1992). More generally,
observational studies find maritally violent men to display more anger and hostility
during conflictual interactions than do nonviolent but maritally discordant, as well as
nonviolent nondistressed husbands (Cordova et al., 1993; Jacobson et ah, 1994;
Margolin, Burman, & John, 1989), suggesting emotion regulation problems among
maritally violent men. In particular, Margolin, Burman, and John (1989) found
maritally violent men to exhibit less problem solving skills than nonviolent men, and
they identified a pattern of interaction for maritally violent men characterized by
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34
high levels of hostility throughout the conflictual interaction that, for lack of other
conflict resolution resources, ends in withdrawal and despair.
Borderline personality organization.
The findings of emotion regulation being associated with marital aggression
support Dutton’s (2003) theory and research proposing that at least some maritally
violent men may be violent because they possess a borderline personality
organization. Such marital violence is thought to occur in cycles described by
Walker (as cited in Dutton, 2003) with a phase of inner tension build-up during
which frustrations increase, followed by the battering stage during which this tension
is released in explosive anger, and finally the third phase, characterized by
appeasement, confession, and promises of change in an attempt to get the partner to
come back physically and emotionally. This tension build-up and release overlaps
with the construct of emotion regulation. It is important to keep in mind, however,
that the present study did not examine borderline personality organization per se, but
emotion regulation, which is one feature thought to be associated with the moodiness
and impulsivity seen in borderline personality (Linehan, 1993).
The origin of this borderline personality organization is hypothesized to lie in
adverse childhood experiences such as childhood trauma, verbal and physical abuse,
as well as interparental violence in the family of origin (Linehan, 1993). The
association between family-of-origin aggression and emotion regulation obtained in
the present study supports findings by several of Dutton’s studies (Dutton, 1994;
Dutton et al., 1995; Dutton et al.,1996) that show childhood abuse to be associated
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35
with borderline personality organization among maritally violent men. Dutton et al.
(1996) further suggest that borderline personality organization may be a mechanism
of the intergenerational transmission of violence, although they do not test an actual
mediational model. Finding emotion regulation to be a mediator of the relationship
between family-of-origin aggression and marital aggression lends some empirical
support to this hypothesis.
Heritability and environmental influences on the development o f emotion
dysregulation.
However, a causal link between family-of-origin aggression, emotion
regulation, and marital aggression has not been established, and the role of biology
and heritability cannot be ruled out with the present findings. We do not know for
sure whether emotion dysregulation is a result of exposure to violence in the family
of origin or to what degree such dysregulation is heritable. If violence is thought to
result at least in part from emotion dysregulation, then it is safe to assume that the
aggressive parents of maritally violent men also have emotion regulation deficits.
These deficits may have been passed on to their children and, in the absence of a
supportive environment, these deficits are never overcome through learning. In fact,
Bradley (2000) suggests that the capacity for affect regulation is to some degree
inborn. Literature on the temperament of newborn infants shows that there is a
subgroup of infants who cry more and are more difficult to soothe than others. Such
a difficult temperament has been linked to behavior problems and aggression in
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36
childhood and adolescence (Caspi et al., 1995). These temperamental difficulties
may be early signs of emotion regulation difficulties.
Bradley (2000) further suggests that a responsive caregiving environment and
a secure attachment can help these infants overcome early difficulties in most cases.
But children who grow up in violent homes may never learn proper emotion
regulation. Caregivers play a crucial part in young children’s affect regulation, first
by being the ones to soothe the child, and gradually teaching children to soothe
themselves. However, caregivers in violent homes are often not very good at
soothing and being responsive to the child’s emotional states. Moreover, they are
often the source of the child’s negative affect because they are the perpetrators of the
violence. In addition, one of the effects of trauma is a generalized state of
hyperarousal (van der Kolk, 1996), which is difficult to regulate for a child who does
not have the means to soothe him or herself and lives in more or less constant threat
of verbal or physical aggression.
The family of origin, is not the only source of affect regulation skills. As
children become older, interactions with peers become important settings for
practicing and further developing means to regulate and appropriately express
emotions (van der Kolk, 1996). In the case of children from violent homes, however,
peer relations are often problematic, marked by rejection from the peer group and
aggressive behavior (Gottman & Katz, 1989; Shields & Cicchetti, 1998). These
negative social relationships may prevent these children from learning much needed
emotion regulation skills and possibly make up for what they did not learn from their
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37
parents. Such a negative developmental trajectory may be one reason why we
continue to see emotion regulation problems in adults.
Thus, the rearing environment is, at least in part, responsible for the emotion
regulation abilities observed in adults. Any inherited trait interacts with the
environment to produce a certain phenotype, or in this case, behavior. Therefore,
whether or not a propensity for emotion regulation difficulties is inherited, the family
of origin still plays an important role in the kinds of emotion regulation skills
exhibited by children and adults. A similar argument can be made for the heritability
of aggressive behavior, as suggested by Schmitz et al. (1995).
Social learning and the intergenerational transmission o f violence.
The most prevalent theoretical explanation for the intergenerational
transmission of marital violence is Bandura’s (1973) social learning theory, which
proposes that maritally violent men learn to behave aggressively by watching their
parents use aggression to solve their problems. Although a certain degree of social
learning is probably taking place in the intergenerational transmission of violence,
social learning alone, the way it has been examined in the marital violence literature
so far, does not account for why some men who experience violence in the family of
origin engage in violence against their spouse while others do not. This may in part
be due to the fact that social learning does not merely involve exposure to the
aggression. As mentioned earlier, the likelihood of enacting what has been learned in
childhood depends on conditions present in the learning situation, such as the
consequences the violence had for the perpetrator and the degree to which the child
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38
identifies with the perpetrator. Interestingly, many studies refer to social learning
theory to explain their results of a link between family-of-origin violence and marital
violence, but none ever actually test this theory by looking at the conditions present
during the social learning incidents (Delsol & Margolin, 2003).
Alternatively, social learning theory may be more relevant to instrumental
aggression than to reactive aggression. Bandura (1977) emphasizes the importance of
cognitive processes such as the anticipated consequences of violent behavior in
determining the likelihood of engaging in such behavior. Violent behavior is
performed in order to attain a certain goal, a positive consequence. The same is the
case in instrumental aggression, which is considered a calculated, goal-directed form
of aggression, motivated by a calculated desire to gain power and control over the
wife in the case of maritally violent men.
In contrast, reactive aggression is considered a more emotional form of
aggression, a reaction to a perceived threat or stressor that involves high levels of
anxiety and anger. In a study that assessed husbands’ reactions to an anger-arousing
audiotaped scenarios with the Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations
paradigm (ATSS) Eckhardt, Barbour, and Davison (1998) found maritally violent
men to express more hostile attribution biases than nonviolent men, suggesting they
have a greater tendency to perceive events as being caused by the malicious and
hostile intentions of the other person. Such an attributional bias increases the
likelihood that other people’s actions are perceived as threats. In addition, Eckhardt
et al. reported that maritally violent men made significantly less anger-controlling
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39
statements that would reflect the use of strategies to calm down and reduce negative
emotionality than nonviolent men. These results support the possibility that at least
some maritally violent men engage in reactive aggression and that these men also do
not appear to think about ways to reduce negative affect as much as nonviolent men
do. Whether these maritally violent possess these affect-reducing skills or not cannot
be deduced from these data. The results of the present study further suggest that there
may be a link between experiencing violence in the family of origin and engaging in
reactive aggression among at least some maritally violent men. The violence in these
men seems to occur at least in part as a reaction to an increase in negative affect,
resulting from a perceived threat, that these men have difficulty regulating and
expressing in more appropriate ways. Additional mechanisms that operate along with
social learning, such as emotion regulation problems, may help more fully
understand the intergenerational transmission of this kind of violent behavior.
In fact, researchers have increasingly turned to examining individual
variables as possible mechanisms of this transmission. Together with studies finding
variables such as husband’s mental status and psychological distress (Julian et al.,
1999), antisocial personality traits (Simons, Wu, Johnson, and Conger, 1995), and
husband’s substance abuse (Hamberger & Hastings, 1991; Hastings & Hamberger,
1988) to be mechanisms of the intergenerational transmission of marital violence, the
results of the present study support the notion that exposure to aggression in the
family of origin may affect more than a person’s social cognitions about how to
resolve conflict and the appropriateness of violence.
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40
Moreover, studies on the mechanisms of memory encoding of traumatic
events suggest that the releases of high amounts of stress hormones during at the
time of the traumatic event may have an inhibitory effect on the encoding of
autobiographical context of the event through the hippocampus. At the same time the
encoding of the emotional aspects of the event is enhanced through increased
activation of the amygdala (Jacobs & Nadel, 1999; McNally, 2003). Jacobs and
Nadel (1999) further suggest that autobiographical memories of events in general,
including those of traumatic events, are encoded and represented as disaggregated
entities (e.g. people, objects, their actions and interactions, their good, bad, or neutral
characteristics, their consequences, and connections in space and time). The process
of remembering involves reconstructing the event from reorganization of these
entities and filling in the gaps through inferential processes. Because these fragments
are normally encoded through the hippocampus, in the case of traumatic events,
much of this information is lost. What is left are strong emotional memories without
much of a spatiotemporal frame of reference (Jacobs & Nadel, 1999). Although
people are generally able to fairly accurately reconstruct a single traumatic event due
to a large extent to its distinctness from the remainder of the person’s memories
(Jacobs & Nadel, 1999; McNally, 2003), in the case of repeated stressful events, as
would be the case in exposure to violence in the family of origin, Jacobs and Nadel
suggest that what would be left is a large “pool” of more or less heterogeneous
emotional representations. Hence, large amounts of stress may actually impair the
encoding of exactly the kinds of information necessary for the cognitive processes
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41
social learning. Rather, it would seem that the emotional aspects of the stressful
experiences are the ones leaving most prominent and lasting mark on the person.
Typologies o f batterers.
Typologies of batterers further reinforce the idea that different etiologies and
mechanisms may be involved in different types of marital violence, as these studies
suggest that maritally violent men are a heterogeneous group where different forms
of marital violence are associated with certain sets of batterer characteristics
(Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994). The results of the present study support
findings from typology studies of maritally violent men of the existence of at least
one type of maritally violent man whose violence involves emotional lability and a
high degree of anger and arousal. In their review of batterer typologies, Holtzworth-
Munroe and Stuart identify three types of batterers, one of which, the
dysphoric/borderline batterer, is characterized by emotional volatility, psychological
distress, and high levels of anger. This type of batterer is also hypothesized to have
been exposed to violence in the family of origin. The violence of the
borderline/dysphoric batterer is contrasted with the sometimes more severe and
controlling violence of antisocial batterers, who are thought to engage in more
instrumental aggression.
Several empirical tests of the Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) typology
in fact identify one type of maritally violent man who exhibits elevations on scales of
borderline personality, impulsivity, and anger, and who also reports more child abuse
victimization than other types of maritally violent men (Hamberger et al., 1996;
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42
Holtzworth-Munroe et al, 2000). Saunders’ (1992) emotionally volatile batterers,
exhibiting high levels of anger and jealousy, as well as violence in the family of
origin, also fit the picture o f a batterer with emotion regulation difficulties.
However, because the present sample was a community sample of husbands
in stable long-term relationships who engaged in low levels of marital violence for
the most part, it is very likely that a large part of this sample consisted of what
Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) call family-only batterers. These maritally
violent men are generally free of psychopathology and engage in low levels of
violence that occur mainly within the family. Typologies of batterers in community
samples find that about half of the batterers from such samples are family-only
batterers (Delsol, Margolin, & John, in press; Holtzworth-Munroe et al., 2000). The
results of the present study suggest that emotion regulation may not only be involved
in the violence committed by border line/dysphoric batterers, but in the violence
committed by family-only batterers as well. If this is the case, then the violence of
family-only batterers could also be considered reactive aggression.
Strengths and limitations o f this study.
Strengths of the present study include the use of multiple informants to
assess the constructs examined. Husbands reported on their experiences in the family
of origin, wives reported on husbands’ emotion regulation, and marital violence was
assessed with both husbands’ and wives’ reports. In addition, this study examined a
construct not studied with respect to marital violence so far. Despite all the variables
associated with battering, no other study has looked at emotion regulation in
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43
maritally violent men. Moreover, the findings of the present study are coherent and
consistent with findings from other studies on the intergenerational transmission of
marital violence, borderline personality traits in maritally violent men, and batterer
typologies.
Furthermore, these results have direct implications for understanding and
treating batterers. Finding emotion regulation to be involved in marital violence
helps explain the anger observed in maritally violent men (Cordova et al., 1993;
Jacobson et al., 1994; Margolin, Burman, & John, 1989). This anger may be one
outward expression of underlying emotion dysregulation. Thus, treatment that helps
maritally violent men learn to control and regulate their negative affect in general,
and not just their anger, may prove to be more effective than traditional anger
management therapies. A form of Linehan’s (1996) dialectical behavior therapy,
adapted to the needs of maritally violent men may be a way to address the issues of
emotionally dysregulated batterers, because much of the focus of this therapy deals
with teaching emotion regulation skills.
Limitations of this study include the use of a fairly short measure of emotion
regulation that was developed for use in children. Although this measure has been
validated in adult males for the purpose of this study, the validation sample consisted
of male undergraduate students, a somewhat different type of population than most
married men. Therefore, additional validation studies in a variety of samples are
warranted. In addition, research on more complete measures of emotion regulation in
adults would aid in replicating and confirming the results of the present study.
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44
Similarly, a more thorough assessment of the aggression experienced in the family of
origin may provide a more complete picture of the factors involved in the
intergenerational transmission of violence.
Moreover, the data in this study are entirely correlational, making it
impossible to draw conclusions about causal relationships among these variables.
Alternative direction of effects could explain the findings reported here. For
example, retrospective reports of experiences of family of origin violence may be
subject to recall bias that may be affected by emotion regulation problems. Husbands
with emotion dysregulation may be more likely to recall or report family-of-origin
violence than husbands who do not have emotion regulation problems. Husbands’
aggression towards the wives could also influence wives’ assessment of their
husband’s emotion regulation. Therefore, longitudinal data would be needed to
examine causal relationships and rule out alternative explanations for the
relationships between these variables obtained in the present study.
Furthermore, the present sample was drawn from the community and,
although a fair number of husbands had engaged in physical aggression towards their
wife, the majority engaged in fairly low levels of aggression, such as the occasional
pushing, grabbing, or shoving. According to Johnson (1995), different sampling
procedures in the marital violence literature capture different types of marital
violence. Community samples tend to capture what he calls common couple violence,
characterized by occasional violent episodes that occur within the context of specific
arguments, whereas identified samples from battered women shelters or batterer
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45
treatment programs capture intimate terrorism, which involves a high rate of violent
episodes and the use of violence as one of several methods of interpersonal control.
Studies with samples of more severely abusive men are needed to examine the role
of emotion regulation in more severe forms of marital violence, or intimate
terrorism.
Another limitation of this study might be the more long-term time frame of
the types of stressors assessed: major life events in the past year. As discussed,
emotion regulation difficulties may be triggered by more immediate stressors that
lead to a rather quick accumulation of tension and frustration. An assessment of
stress that focuses more on daily hassles than on major life events may provide more
information on the effects of stress on emotion regulation in maritally violent men.
In addition, future studies may wish to examine different types of stressors, such as
interpersonal stress versus work or general life stress, to find out whether particular
types of stress are more likely to interact with emotion regulation difficulties in
increasing the risk for marital aggression.
Conclusion.
In sum, the present study found emotion regulation to be a mediator, but not a
moderator, of the relationship between family-of-origin aggression and marital
emotional and physical abuse among men from a community sample. These results
lend support to the idea that the intergenerational transmission of marital violence
may involve something more than social learning via modeling of violent behavior.
In fact, family-of-origin violence may not only increase emotional arousal in
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46
children, but a violent family may deprive children of the responsive environment
necessary for the development of proper emotion regulation skills. These deficits
appear to be involved in marital violence perpetration in adulthood. Although
emotion regulation and violent behavior are thought to be, to a large degree, a
product of the childhood rearing environment, heredity factors of emotion regulation
and violent behavior, cannot be ruled out. Nevertheless, the results of the present
study suggest possibilities for treatment of batterers by addressing broader emotion
regulation deficits rather than focusing interventions narrowly on the management of
just one emotion, as is the case in traditional anger management approaches.
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47
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APPENDIX
VALIDATION OF THE EMOTION REGULATION SCALE IN AN ADULT
SAMPLE.
The items that comprise the Emotion Regulation Scale used in the present
study were taken from an emotion regulation scale for children developed by Shields
and Cicchetti (1997). Emotion regulation has been predominantly studied in
children, although it has shown to be relevant in adult forms of psychopathology as
well (Bradley, 2000). According to Shields and Cicchetti (1998), emotion regulation
refers to a set of regulatory processes such as emotional intensity, lability, flexibility,
and contextual appropriateness. It is reasonable to assume that these basic processes
are involved in the regulation of emotions in both children and adults, and a measure
of children’s emotion regulation could adequately measure emotion regulation in
adults as well. Therefore, in order to use the scale developed for children in the
present sample of adult men, reliability and validity were examined in a sample of
male undergraduate students.
Convergent validity was established by correlating scores on the Emotion
Regulation Scale with the Borderline Features and Aggression subscales of the
Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991), and the Hostility subscale of
the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90 R; Derogatis, 1983). These measures
were selected because they measure constructs theoretically closely related to
emotion regulation, and because there is no other emotion regulation measure for
adults against which to measure convergent validity. Among these measures, the PAI
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55
Borderline Features is thought to measure the construct that comes closest to
emotion regulation, based on Linehan’s (1993) theory about borderline personality
disorder having emotion regulation deficits as a core issue.
Discriminant validity was established by correlating scores on the Emotion
Regulation Scale with Depression, Anxiety, and Somatization subscales of the SCL-
90 R. These scales were hypothesized to measure constructs unrelated to emotion
regulation, or related to a much lesser degree to emotion regulation than are
borderline personality, aggression, and hostility. In addition to convergent and
discriminant validity, internal reliability of the Emotion Regulation Scale was also
examined in the same sample of male undergraduate students.
METHOD
Participants.
The sample consisted of 89 male undergraduate students enrolled in
psychology classes at a large urban university who agreed to participate in research
studies conducted at the psychology department. They received extra credit for
participating in these research studies, with non-research extra credit options
available as well. Their ages ranged from 17 to 35 years, with a mean of 20.38 (SD =
2.60). The ethnicity breakdown was 47% Caucasian, 27% Asian/Pacific Islander,
19% Hispanic/Latino, 1% African-American, and 6 % Other.
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56
Measures.
Emotion Regulation Scale. The following 9 items taken from the Emotion
Regulation Q-Scale (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997), developed for children, were used
to assess emotion regulation: ( 1) can recover after stressful experiences; (2 ) has rapid
shifts in mood; (3) overreacts to minor frustration; (4) is warm and responsive; (5)
shows recognition of others’ feelings; (6 ) develops genuine and close relationships;
(7) tends to be rigidly repetitive in stress; (8 ) is inappropriate in emotive behavior;
(9) tends to go to pieces under stress. Respondents indicated whether each statement
was never true, sometimes true, often true, or almost always true about themselves.
Shields and Cicchetti (1997) report good convergent and discriminant validity, as
well as specificity pertaining to affective regulation and dysregulation for this scale.
Furthermore, the Emotion Regulation Q-Scale differentiated between well-regulated
and dysregulated groups of children, and between maltreated and nonmaltreated
children across a wide age range. In the present sample the mean Emotion
Regulation score was 20.52 (SD - 2.57).
Convergent Validity. Two subscales from the Personality Assessment
Inventory (Morey, 1991), a 344-item self-report inventory of adult personality and
psychopathology, were used to measure convergent validity: the Borderline Features
(24 items) and Aggression scales (18 items). Items on the Borderline Features scale
measure poor control over emotions and anger, intense and unstable interpersonal
relationships, confusion over identity and self-worth, and impulsivity that has a
tendency to result in self-destructive behaviors. The Aggression scale measures
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57
attitudinal and behavioral features related to poor anger control. The PAI has been
found to have good validity and reliability in clinical, non-clinical census-matched,
and college student samples (Morey, 1991). The means for the Borderline Features
and Aggression scales in the present sample were 5.21 (SD = 2.89) and 15.39 (SD -
8.42), respectively.
Convergent validity was also measured with the Hostility subscale of the
Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90 R; Derogatis, 1983). The SCL-90 R is a
90-item self-report measure of adult psychopathology symptoms. For each item,
respondents indicate the amount of discomfort the problem has caused them in the
past week on a scale of 0 to 4 (anchored not at all, a little bit, moderately, quite a bit,
and extremely). The Hostility subscale consists of 6 items measuring thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors associated with anger, irritability, and aggression. Derogatis
(1983) reports and internal consistency reliability coefficient of .84 for this subscale,
as well as good validity in clinical and nonclinical populations for the entire SCL-90
R. The mean for the Hostility scale was 2.68 (SD = 3.12) in this sample.
Discriminant Validity. The Depression, Anxiety, and Somatization subscales
of the SCL-90 R were used to measure discriminant validity. The Depression
subscale consists of 13 items that measure affective and behavioral symptoms of
depression, such as dysphoric mood, lack of motivation, and feelings of
hopelessness. The Anxiety subscale consists of 10 items measuring cognitive and
somatic symptoms of anxiety such as tension, nervousness, feelings of apprehension,
and panic. Finally, the Somatization subscale is comprised of 12 items measuring
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58
distress related to perceptions of bodily dysfunction in systems with a strong
autonomic component, such as cardiovascular and gastrointestinal symptoms.
Internal consistency reliability coefficients of .90, .85, and . 8 6 for Depression,
Anxiety, and Somatization, respectively, as well as good validity were reported by
Derogatis (1983). In this sample, the means for Depression, Anxiety, and
Somatization were 10.86 (SD = 8.36), 5.15 (SD = 5.05), and 6.24 (SD = 6.25),
respectively.
Procedure.
Participants were administered the questionnaires as part of a screening
packet for the psychology subject pool. These packets contained a variety of
screening measures for several different experiments conducted at the psychology
department of the university. They were distributed in class, to be taken home, and
collected in class one week later. Students were free to choose whether to complete
the questionnaires or not, as other extra credit opportunities were available to them.
Responses to the questionnaires used in this study were anonymous: each set of
questionnaires was marked with an ID number between 100 and 400 by the
experimenter, and no identifying information was requested from respondents. In
addition to completing the measures, participants were asked to provide their age,
gender, and ethnic background.
Pearson correlations were performed to examine convergent and discriminant
validity. In addition, internal consistency reliability was examined with inter-item
correlations and coefficient alpha.
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59
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Correlations between all scales can be found in Table A l. With respect to
convergent validity, results show that the Emotion Regulation Scale correlated
significantly with all three measures hypothesized to measure constructs related to
emotion regulation: Borderline Features, Aggression, and Hostility. As expected, the
highest correlation was obtained for Borderline Features, as this scale comes closest
to measuring the construct of emotion regulation.
With respect to discriminant validity, correlations between the Emotion
Regulation Scale and Somatization and Depression were nonsignificant, as expected.
Anxiety, however, was significantly related to Emotion Regulation, although the
magnitude of the correlation is fairly small (r = -.24,p < .05), and most importantly,
much smaller than the correlation between Emotion Regulation and Borderline
Features.
Internal consistency reliability for the Emotion Regulation Scale was found
to be adequate for a scale containing only 9 items, with a standardized alpha of .71.
Inter-item correlations can be found in Table A2. A tenth item originally included in
Shields and Cicchetti’s (1997) Emotion Regulation Scale was dropped from the
present analyses, because it reduced internal consistency reliability of the scale in the
present sample and was not correlated with any of the other items in the Emotion
Regulation Scale.
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Table Al.
Convergent and discriminant validity o f the Emotion Regulation Scale.
Measure Emotion
Regulation
Borderline Hostility Aggression Depression Somatization
Borderline
Hostility
Aggression
-.51**
-.35**
-.24*
.57**
.50**
Convergent validity
.55**
Depression -.16 .31**
Discriminant validity
40** ..09
Somatization -.17 . 2 0 .54** .14 .60**
Anxiety -.24* .33** .60** .13
6 3 ** .73**
Note', n = 89.
* p < .05, **p< .0 1 .
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Table A2.
Inter-item correlations fo r the Emotion Regulation Scale.
Items 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Can recover after stressful experiences
2. Has rapid shifts in mood* .26
3. Overreacts to minor frustration* .20 .42
4. Is warm and responsive .24 .10 .11
5. Shows recognition of others’ feelings .14 .10 .01 .51
6. Develops genuine and close relationships .15 .12 .01 .34 .38
7. Tends to be rigidly repetitive in stress* .24 .35 .26 .12 .12 .06
8. Is inappropriate in emotive behavior* .15 .32 .24 .13 .08 .01 .35
9. Tends to go to pieces under stress* .31 .35 .38 .14 .06 .11 .33 .40
Note: * Items are reverse-scored.
62
Overall, the results of this study demonstrated adequate reliability and
validity of the Emotion Regulation Scale in adult males. Results from convergent
and discriminant validity analyses show that this scale has some specificity with
respect to the construct that it measures, as it was most closely related to a measure
of borderline personality features, the construct hypothesized to be most closely
related to emotion regulation among the measures examined. Specificity was also
demonstrated by the non-significant correlations between emotion regulation and
measures of depression and somatization, constructs hypothesized to involve
emotion regulation to a lesser degree. Finally, the Emotion Regulation Scale was
found to have adequate internal consistency reliability.
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63
REFERENCES
Bradley, S. J. (2000). Affect regulation and the development o f psychopathology.
New York: Guilford Press.
Derogatis, L. R. (1983). SCL-90 R: Administration, scoring, and procedures manual
(2nd ed.). Towson, MD: Clinical Psychometric Research.
Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment o f borderline personality
disorder. New York: Guilford Press.
Morey, L. (1991). Personality Assessment Inventory. Florida: Psychological
Assessment Resources.
Shields, A. & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation among school-age children:
The development and validation of a new criterion Q-sort scale.
Developmental Psychology, 33, 906-916.
Thompson, R. A. (1994). Emotion regulation: A theme in search of definition. In N.
A. Fox (Ed.), The development of emotion regulation: Biological and
behavioral considerations. Monographs o f the Society for Research in Child
Development, 59, 53-72.
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Creator Delsol, Catherine (author)

Core Title Emotion regulation as a mediator between family-of-origin aggression and marital aggression

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Psychology, clinical,sociology, individual and family studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Margolin, Gayla (committee chair), Daley, Shannon (committee member), Davison, Gerald C. (committee member), John, Richard S. (committee member), Lyon, Thomas (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-632779

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