PERSPECTIVE TRANSFORMATION AS AN ADULT LEARNING THEORY TO EXPLAIN AND FACILITATE CHANGE IN MALE SPOUSE ABUSERS.
Author(s)
WILLIAMS, GEORGE H., JR.Keywords
Education, Adult and Continuing.
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Sorry, the full text of this article is not available in Huskie Commons. Please click on the alternative location to access it.321 p.
This study attempted to apply an adult learning theory, perspective transformation, to the social problem of spouse abuse. It was designed to determine how well perspective transformation could explain the process that led to the development of abusive behavior toward one's spouse and assist in understanding and facilitating change in that behavior.Twenty-five self-selected male spouse abusers who were screened for conditions that would hinder participation in a men's group treatment program offered by the Mental Health Division of the DuPage County Health Department were used for this study. An intake interview to gather background data as well as five self-report instruments--the Index of Spouse Abuse, Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, Conflict Tactics Scales, Rotter's Locus of Control Scale, and the Index of Role Preferences were given as pretests. After the 12 week treatment program, the same five self-report instruments were again administered with an exit interview. Six subjects and their spouses were followed up 12 weeks after termination of the treatment. The Index of Spouse Abuse was given to the wife of the subject to control for response bias, a problem associated with the study of socially undesirable behavior that was also confirmed to be present in this study.The findings showed that significant change occurred in the direction of less physical and nonphysical abuse, internal locus of control, higher self-esteem, greater use of reasoning tactics, less verbal aggression and violence tactics, and egalitarian role preference. Although perspective transformation was not the most strongly associated variable with change in abusive behavior of all of the variables in the study, it did relate significantly with change in physically abusive behavior. It was concluded that perspective transformation offers a viable theory for explaining the processes that led to spouse abuse and in facilitating the process of change from abusive behavior.Change in reasoning tactics, age of subject, and childhood exposure to parent-to-parent and parent-to-child abuse also related significantly with change in abusive behavior. Combined, the principal variables in this study explained 83% of the variance in nonphysical abuse and 77% of the variance in physical abuse.
Date
2011-06-22Identifier
oai:commons.lib.niu.edu:10843/9217http://commons.lib.niu.edu/handle/10843/9217
http://hdl.handle.net/10843/9217