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2 J. Fam. Violence 1 (1987)

handle is hein.journals/jfamv2 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1987 Psychosocial Factors Related to Wife Abuse Bonnie Yegidis Lewis1 This paper reports the results of a comparative study of wife abuse. Factors that distinguished 94 physically abused women from a comparison group of 110 women were sought. The groups were matched on number of years married or cohabiting and socioeconomic status. Evidence was found that further supports a learning theory explanation of wife abuse. The study also found that wife abuse is no more likely to be displayed by blacks than by whites when the variable of social class is controlled. KEY WORDS: wife abuse; spouse abuse; domestic violence; family violence. INTRODUCTION The development of knowledge about wife abuse has evolved during the last 15-20 years, and has taken a rather traditional research path. Early studies were exploratory in nature, estimating the incidence and prevalence of marital violence (Levinger, 1966; Wolfgang, 1958) or presenting case analyses of wife abusers (Schultz, 1960; Snell et al., 1964). In the 1970s, the focus of marital violence research was largely on identifying psychological and sociological correlates of abuse, such as income insufficiency, drug or alcohol abuse, personal stress experienced, and the effects of learning on shap- ing abusive behavior. Social work researchers constructed typologies of abusers and suggested treatment strategies. For two excellent reviews of the literature on the manifestation and treatment of wife abuse, Galles (1980) and Hilbermann (1980) might be examined. Recently, the focus of research 'Department of Social Work, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620. 0885-7482/87/0300-0001$05.00/0 © 1987 Plenum Publishing Corporation