Self-perception of abuse and attitudes towards victimization in interpersonal relationships

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the connection between the perception of maltreatment and the experience of several abuse forms in romantic relationships held by young people. By the same token, the present research has the intention of ascertaining the ways in which some attitudes have an influence in the experience of maltreatment within intimate relationships. In order to do so, a survey has been conducted and addressed to a total of 450 secondary and tertiary-education students, from both sexes and aged between 18 and 28, a 30,2% and 69,8% of whom were men and women respectively. The evaluation tools were “Dating Violence Questionnarie-R”, focused on the study of violence within dating relationships and “Gender Role Attitudes Scale”, which is aimed at evaluating the manifestation of either sexist or equalitarian attitudes. The results show that maltreatment self-perception is significantly close to victimization experience while sexist attitudes increase the probability of experiencing different types of abuse present in young-people relationships.