Aggressors condemned for intimate partner violence: Sexist attitudes and distorted thoughts about women and the use of violence

Abstract

This work analyzes the ambivalent sexist attitudes and distorted thoughts about women and the use of violence in a sample of Spanish aggressors found guilty of intimate partner violence. We have studied the relationship between the aggressors ambivalent sexist attitudes and their cognitive distortions, as well as the predictive capacity of their distorted thoughts concerning women and violence with respect to sexist attitudes. Similarly, we have analyzed the presence of significant differences between ambivalent sexist attitudes and distorted thoughts with respect to several personal and psychological characteristics of the condemned aggressors. The instruments applied were the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), the Inventory of Distorted Thoughts about Women and the use of Violence (IDTWV) and the Social Desirability Scale (SDS). Likewise was realized a general structured interview to discover their personal, family and penitentiary situation. The study concludes that aggressors use violence as a resource to resolve conflicts with their intimate partner, even though they do not show a hostile sexist attitudes towards women in general. We demonstrate that distorted thoughts concerning women and violence predict a greater prevalence of ambivalent sexist attitudes in aggressors, and we have found a low level of education and the existence of jealousy in the relationship are related with a greater presence of sexist attitudes. However, the existence of episodes of family violence in childhood, concretely having been the victim of emotional abuse, does not necessarily lead to greater sexism in aggressors. We discuss the implications of the results of this work for prison environment.