AmeNcan Journal o f Community Psychology, VoL 10, No. 5, 1982

Problem-Solving Skills of Rural Battered

W o m e n 1

Susan Claerhout 2 FMRS Mental Health Council, Inc., Beckley, West Virginia

John Elder Memorial Hospital, Brown University Program in Medicine, Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Carolyn Janes FMRS Men tal Health Council, Inc., Beckley, West Virginia

Recent research suggests that battered women may have a problem-solving skill deficit, thereby limiting their ability to prevent and/or effectively deal with future battering incidents. Situations encountered by battered women were analyzed by gathering data o f 30 women receiving outpatient mental health treatment and o f women who used a domestic violence emergency shelter. These situations were administered in an open-ended questionnaire format to 14 battered and 20 nonbattered women. These subjects were asked to develop as many alternatives as they couM for each situation. Nonbattered women generated significantly more total alternatives and effective alternatives than did battered women. Battered subjects were more likely to produce avoidant and dependent responses.

The problem of wife-battering has increasingly been brought to the attention of the American public. According to FBI statistics, violence occurs in 35-50 % of all marital relationships. Straus (1978)found that approximately 1.8 million wives are beaten by their husbands every year. Martin (1976) reported that wife- bat~g~g;cSL!t~ across socioeconomic class, educational level, race, and national origin, ' ~ d ~ u r s in both urban and rural areas.

1 The a u t h o r s ~ d like to thank Jason Najmulski and Kathy Dysart for their assistance in the data ana!~:~.~a'~d paper presentation.

2 All c o r r e s ~ should be addressed to Susan Claerhout, FMRS Mental Health Council, Inc., 101 S. ! ] 3 ~ i o w e r Drive, Beckley, West Virginia 25801

6O5

0091-0562/82/1000-0605 $03.00 /0 © 1982 Plenum Publishing

606 Claerhout, Elder, and Janes

In part, cultural attitudes explain the occurrence of wife-battering. While men are taught to be aggressive and independent, women often assume dependent and submissive roles in marital relationships. Historically, the woman has been viewed as her husband's property. Wife-battering remains a socially sanctioned method of resolving arguments when it takes place in the home setting (Walker, 1978).

Walker (1979), Hilberman (Note 1), and Greeley (Note 2) suggest that victims of domestic violence have similar "psychological profiles." Their case study data indicate that victims typically have low self-esteem, chronic anxiety, "learned helplessness," denial, shame, guilt, and psychosomatic complaints. In addition, women do not view divorce as an effective solution to battering because of their cultural upbringing. Many women are withdrawn, vulnerable, chronically depressed, and cannot perceive adaptive alternatives to the battering situation. Such women often use denial, drinking, or may even precipitate a battering episode to alleviate high tension levels. Walker, Hilberman, and Greeley also suggest that a woman typically assumes responsibility for her batterer's actions. In concert, these studies imply a problem-solving skill deficit in battered women.

Current strategies for treating victims of domestic violence are crisis intervention (i.e., providing emergency shelter, financial assistance, medical services, and legal advice), traditional psychotherapy, marital therapy, con- sciousness raising, and assertion training. These treatment alternatives are typically geared toward encouraging a woman to leave a violent situation or toward directly impacting the batterer's behavior. Although leaving is a viable option, it is less likely to occur in rural areas due to logistical variables (e.g., distance from hospitals, mental health centers, and police stations), lack of economic resources, and the traditional cultural values of a rural society. Moreover, these same cultural values may engender a denial by the battering husband that he in any way needs to change his behavior. It may be necessary to teach battered women problem-solving skills enabling them to directly prevent and/or deal with future episodes of abuse and indirectly offset the secondary negative effects of chronic battering.

D'Zurilla and Goldfried (1971) define a problematic situation as one to which an individual cannot immediately develop an effective response. They view problem-solving as a behavioral process which makes a variety of effective responses available to the individual and increases the likelihood that the in- dividual will choose the most effective solution to the problem. According to these authors, the critical steps in problem-solving are general orientation, problem identification, generation of alternatives, decision-making, and verifica- tion. D'Zurilla and Goldfried suggested that abnormal behavior can often be explained by the inability to solve certain problems that arise.

Patterning their work on the D'Zurilla and Goldfried model, Freedman, Rosenthal, Donahoe, Schlundt, and McFall (1978) developed the Adolescent Problem Inventory (API), a behavioral role-playing measure used to assess

l~oblem-Solving Skills of Battered Women 607

performance skills in delinquent and nondelinquent boys. In developing the inventory they were concerned with identifying problem situations encountered by adolescents. Their method included analyzing problem situations related to delinquency, obtaining a wide range of possible responses to the problems, and determining whether a difference between delinquent's and non-delinquent's responses to these problems existed.

The present study used Goldfried and D'Zurilla's (1969) guidelines for assessing competence in the development of a questionnaire for use in mea- suring problem-solving skills of battered and nonbattered rural women. Using the Freedman et al. (1978) approach, we also sought to determine through administration and evaluation of the questionnaire whether nonbattered women were more effective problem-solvers than battered women.

METHOD

Subjects

Two separate groups of women participated in this study. The first was a group of 30 women who sought treatment from a mental health center or resided at an emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence. Although these women were admitted for various reasons, all reported incidents of battering. They were asked to describe incidents before the battering incident occurred, the actual battering incident, and incidents after the battering had taken place. These incidents were recorded and the most frequently occurring incidents were used in the construction of the questionnaires.

The second group of volunteer subjects participated in the actual com- pletion of the questionnaires. This group comprised 34 Caucasian women; 20 were between the ages of 18 and 30, while the remainder were evenly dis- tributed through the 31-40, 41-50 , and 51-60 age ranges, drawn from the waiting rooms of area legal service offices, health maintenance organization clinics, and vocational technical adult education classes. All agencies had similar low-income clients. Subjects were identified as battered or nonbattered based on their written responses to the following question, "Have you ever been beaten by your husband or boyfriend?" Due to the sensitivity of the subject, the women were told that their response to this question was optional. However, all subjects responded yes or no. Of these 34 women, 14 reported being battered and 20 nonbattere d.

Setting

This study was conducted in two rural counties in southeastern West Virginia with a total population of 110,000. The major industry of this area is bituminous coal mining.

608 Claerhout, Elder, and Janes

Questionnaire Development

The first step involved in developing the questionnaire was to analyze the situations encountered by 30 battered women. The procedure for this phase was adopted from Goldfried and D'Zurilla's (1969) guidelines for assessing social competence.

Situations were analyzed by determining (a) precipitating factors of domestic violence and (b) "presenting problems" of the sample of battered women described above. The results pointed to the following factors as precipitat- ing domestic violence: (a) arguments, (b) alcohol-abuse by husband, (c)husband not controlling anger, (d) jealousy related to extramarital affairs, (e) initiation of separation or divorce, and (f) illegal activity of the husband. Alcohol-abuse by the husband was the most frequently occurring presenting factor.

Women who came to the mental health center for treatment presented a variety of problems including battering, depression, anxiety, lack of assertiveness, inability to solve problems, marital conflict, and alcohol-abuse by the husband. Although battering was the most frequently occurring presenting problem, many other individuals initially presented problems other than battering.

Based on the above data, the "Family Problem Questionnaire" was de- veloped. Six problem situations were constructed:

1. You were planning to go to the grocery store, to go shopping with your friend. You tell your husband that you are going to take the car. He insists that you not go, explaining that the car might break down. The car that you have is in excellent working condition.

2. Your husband saw you downtown talking to a male friend you knew in high school. When you got home, he told you he had seen you and got very loud and angry.

3. You have just gotten into a loud argument with your husband about the children. You got angry at each other. During the argument, your husband holds up a fist and threatens to hit you.

4. Lately your husband has been drinking a lot. You think he might be having trouble at work. One night after work, he comes home drunk. He starts an argument about why dinner is not ready. During this argu- ment, he begins to push and hit you.

5. You have just been in an argument in which your husband beat you severely. You have been hurt.

6. During the last 5 years of your marriage, you husband has beaten you from time to time. In between these beatings, there have been times when you got along very well.

The questionnaire was six pages in length with one page available for responses to each problem situation. For each problem situation, there were five sections to which a woman could respond: Section A had instructions to "List

Problem-Solving Skills of Battered Women 609

all the possible things you could do." Six spaces were available for responses. Section B asked "Which one of these would be best? Why?" On the sixth page of the questionnaire, an optional question was listed: "Have you ever been beaten by your husband or boyfriend?" The respondents used their own definitions of battering in answering this question.

Subjects were told upon recruitment that we were studying the "attitudes which women have toward family problems and themselves." They were assured that the information would be reported in group summaries only and would be used to design better services for families in the county. Women were asked to try to imagine how they might react to the situations even if they had never been in the problem situations presented.

Scoring

The alternatives for each situation were scored according to the procedure suggested by Getter and Nowinski's "Interpersonal Problem Solving Assessment Technique" (1980). Responses were scored as effective, ineffective, or un- scorable. Effective responses were those that led to an instrumental straight- forward solution such as (in situation # 1), ':Take the car to the store having explained what you do if the car breaks down." Ineffective responses were those that led to avoidant, dependent, or inappropriate/aggressive alternatives. For instance, an avoidant response was: "Stay home," while "Ask friend to ask your husband for the car" was a dependent response. An example of an in- appropriate/aggressive response was "crying and shouting at husband." Un- scorable responses were those that were incomplete, nonsensical, irrelevant, or involving adding conditions not stated in the situation such as, " I f he were in a bad mood, I 'd stay home."

Reliability of Ratings

Scoring definitions were developed and revised until two independent scores achieved kappa = .85 reliability in scoring the questionnaires.

Responses were enumerated and categorized by a social work practicum student unfamiliar with both the purpose of the study and whether question- naires had been completed by battered or nonbattered subjects. In addition, a randomly selected 10% of all responses were scored by the second author for purposes of computing reliability. Of these 80 responses classified as effective, avoidant, dependent, or aggressive, the scorers agreed on 63 categorizations. Their concordance yielded a kappa coefficient of .69 (p < .001) thereby in- dicating adequate reliability.

610 Claerhout, Elder, and Janes

RESULTS

Comparisons of Battered and Nonbattered Groups

Analyses o f variance were performed on the groups' totals of all altematives, effective alternatives, avoidant alternatives, dependent alternatives, and inap- propriate alternatives. Table I presents the results of these analyses.

As neither significance between situation differences nor Situation X Group (i.e., "bat ter ing") interactions appeared, all six situations were combined for subsequent analyses. The mean total number of alternatives across all six problem situations was 24.2 for the nonbattered group and 17.0 for the battered subjects.

Nonbattered subjects were also significantly more likely to generate ef- fective alternatives than were their battered counterparts. Nonbattered women averaged 14.7 effective alternatives per questionnaire while bat tered women averaged 6.2.

The two subject groups were more equivalent to their generation of inef- fective alternatives. However, battered women produced significantly more avoidant (~ = 3.2) and dependent (~ = 2.8) responses than did the nonbat tered

Table I. Analyses of Variance on Number of Alternatives Generated

Type of alternatives Source elf SS MS F

Total Battering 1 88 88 44b Situation 5 25 5 2.5 Battering × Situation 5 5 1 .5 Error 192 395 2 Total 203 513

Battering 1 91 91 19.2 c Error 32 161 5 Total 33 252

Battering 1 32 32 4.6 a Error 32 222 6.9 Total 33 254

Battering 1 13 13 5.4a Error 32 77 2.4 Total 33 90

Battering I 2 2 .4 Error 32 168 5.2 Total 33 170

Effective

Avoidant

Dependent

Inappropriate

qp < .05. //p < .01. Cp < .001.

Problem-Solving Skills of Battered Women 611

subjects 0 ~ avoidant = 1.2; 2 dependent = 1.3). Differences in inappropriate and unscorable alternatives were nonsignificant.

Finally, the nonbattered women were more likely to choose an "effective" alternative as that which they would be most likely to select. The nonbattered subjects selected as first choice an average of 2.5 effective alternatives per six situations, while the battered group's mean was only 1.4. Other first choices were equivalently distributed across dependent, inappropriate, and unscorable categories. No subject chose an avoidant alternative as first choice.

DISCUSSION

Our data support the research of Walker (1979), Hilberman (Note 1), and Greeley (Note 2) which suggested that battered women do not typically perceive alternative ways of responding in a battering situation. Our study added new information. Battered women were far less likely to generate effective response alternatives and more likely to produce avoidant and dependent in- effective alternatives than were the nonbattered subjects. Thus a treatment strategy which includes training in problem-solving skills might enable battered women to deal with and/or prevent further battering by developing more ef- fective responses to potentially volatile situations. Such treatment should include discussing the short- and long-term negative consequences of dependent and avoida_nt behavior as well as the potential benefits which accrue to effective responding.

Several directions for future research are suggested by the present study. First, Goldfried and D'Zurilla's (1969) social competence model might be used to develop assessment devices which would identify other performance problems of battered and nonbattered women. Second, future research should focus on developing a meaningful definition which can clearly differentiate between battered and nonbattered women. Moreover, skill assets and deficits of other populations (e.g., abused children, batterers, victims of violent crimes, etc.), might be determined in an analogous fashion. Problem-solving therapies could be compared to others in the clinical treatment of battered women, especially of those who are unable to leave their battering partner (e.g., many of those living in rural areas).

A final potentially interesting application of problem-solving approaches to the primary prevention of wife-battering lies in a yet earlier intervention using these techniques. For example, in a pilot study McAllister, Perry, Killin, Slinkard, and Maccoby (1980)used a problem-solving approach to ~each young people at a preproblem age to avoid smoking, drinking, and drug-use before they encountered these situations. Likewise, incorporating these techniques in secondary education, pastoral, and premarital counseling, and at other junctures where young women may learn effective coping skills, could serve to prevent

612 Claerhout, Elder, and Janes

and/or enable women to better deal with initial as well as chronic battering

episodes. Given the prevalence of wife-battering, such approaches may indeed

prove more cost-effective than secondary prevention methods.

REFERENCE NOTES

1. Hilberman, E. Sixty battered women: A preliminary survey. Paper presented at the meeting o f the American Psychiatric Convention, Toronto, May 1977.

2. Greeley, J. E. Treatment perspectives on domestic violence in rural areas. Paper presented at the meeting of the National Council of Community Mental Health Centers, Inc., Silver Spring, Maryland, October 1978.

REFERENCES

D'Zudlla, T., & Goldfried, M. R. Problem-solving and behavior modification. Journal o f Abnormal Psychology, 1971, 78, 107-126.

Freedman, B. J., Rosenthal, L., Donahoe, C. P., Schlundt, D. G., & McFall, R. M. A social- behavioral analysis of skill deficits in delinquent and non-delinquent adolescent boys. Journal ofConsultingand Clinical Psychology, 1978,46, 1448-1462.

Getter, H., & Nowinski, J. K. A free-response test of interpersonal effectiveness. Journal o f Personality and Assesment, 1981, 45, 301-308.

Goldfried, M. R., & D'Zurilla, T. A behavioral-analytic model for assessing competence. In C. D. Spielberger (Ed.), Current topics in clinical and community psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Academic Press, 1969.

Martin, D., Battered wives. San Francisco: Glide Publications, 1976. McAllister, A., Perry, C., Killen, J., Slinkard, L., and Maccoby, N. Pilot study of smoking,

alcohol, and drug abuse prevention. Public Health, 1980, 70, 719-721. Strans, M., Wife beating; Causes, treatment, and research needs. In Battered women: Issues

on public policy. (A consultation sponsored by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Washington. D.C., January 30-31, 1978.)

Walker, L. E. The battered Woman. New York; Harper & Row, 1979.