SOCIAL COGNITIVE MEDIATORS OF DATING VIOLENCE

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Violence occurs in 30% of marital and dating relationships, compromising the mental and physical health of the men and women involved. Understanding the causes of this costly and prevalent problem is essential for the development of preventive interventions. Although there is a wealth of evidence linking childhood exposure to family violence and neglect with violence in romantic relationships, the mechanisms underlying this association aid not yet established. Research on the consequences of child maltreatment, suggests that social-cognitive factors may play an important mediational role. We seek funds to test this possibility. Our conceptual model identifies two potential social-cognitive mediators: sensitivity to rejection, a disposition to interpret threats of rejection into negative or ambiguous social encounters, and a blaming orientation, a disposition to respond to problems by focussing on who is to blame rather than on resolving the problem. We will test the following hypotheses in 3 studies: (i) Being sensitive to rejection and blame oriented are vulnerability factors for involvement in violent relationships and develop through exposure to critical, rejecting parents in violent or neglecting families; (ii) Rejection sensitivity increases vulnerability to relationship violence both through its impact on the selection of dating partners and on behavior in dating relationships; (iii) Other-blame facilitates aggression while self-blame fosters tolerance of aggression; (iv) Whether violence occurs in the romantic relationships of persons from troubled families depends on their partner's characteristics. Study 1 will test the mediational model in a 4-year prospective study of dating relationships in first -year college students. Assessments of prior exposure to parental violence, neglect and rejection, sensitivity to rejection, blaming orientation and other theoretically-relevant personality variables will be followed by contacts at 6 month intervals to track experiences of dating violence. Study 2 will assess whether behavior observed during laboratory interactions between dating partners mediates the link between rejection sensitivity and dating violence and whether, for rejection sensitive individuals, this link is modified by their partner's qualities. Study 3 tests the model's generalizability to the noncollege population. Hypotheses will be tested by conducting longitudinal data analyses using structural equation models with key concepts specified as latent variables.