Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contribitors
- Introduction
- SECTION ONE THE EFFECT OF COGNITION ON INTERACTION PATTERNS
- SECTION TWO UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVE INTERACTION
- SECTION THREE COPING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT, CRITICISM, AND BETRAYAL
- Introduction to Section Three
- 8 Coping with Disappointment in Marriage: When Partners' Standards Are Unmet
- 9 On Empathic Accuracy and Husbands' Abusiveness: The “Overattribution Bias”
- 10 The War of the Roses: An Interdependence Analysis of Betrayal and Forgiveness
- SECTION FOUR POWER, CONFLICT, AND VIOLENCE IN MARITAL INTERACTION
- Marital interaction at important transition periods
- SECTION SIX Interventions for strengthening relationships
- Conclusions
- Index
- References
9 - On Empathic Accuracy and Husbands' Abusiveness: The “Overattribution Bias”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contribitors
- Introduction
- SECTION ONE THE EFFECT OF COGNITION ON INTERACTION PATTERNS
- SECTION TWO UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVE INTERACTION
- SECTION THREE COPING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT, CRITICISM, AND BETRAYAL
- Introduction to Section Three
- 8 Coping with Disappointment in Marriage: When Partners' Standards Are Unmet
- 9 On Empathic Accuracy and Husbands' Abusiveness: The “Overattribution Bias”
- 10 The War of the Roses: An Interdependence Analysis of Betrayal and Forgiveness
- SECTION FOUR POWER, CONFLICT, AND VIOLENCE IN MARITAL INTERACTION
- Marital interaction at important transition periods
- SECTION SIX Interventions for strengthening relationships
- Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
The following scene is excerpted from Ernest Hemingway's book Men Without Women (Hemingway, 1927, pp. 81–82). Max and Al are professional hit men. They are dining in a restaurant while menacing the owner, George, and another diner, Nick.
Both men ate with their gloves on. George watched them eat.
“What are you looking at?” Max looked at George.
“Nothing.”
“The hell you were. You were looking at me.”
“Maybe the boy meant it for a joke, Max,” Al said. George laughed.
“You don't have to laugh,” Max said to him. “You don't have to laugh at all, see?”
“All right,” said George.
“So he thinks it's all right.” Max turned to Al. “He thinks it's all right. That's a good one.”
“Oh, he's a thinker,” Al said. They went on eating.
Toch (1969) used this example to illustrate that the likelihood of a potential aggressor becoming violent depends upon how that person interprets what other people say and do. In Hemingway's scenario, the killers evoke their own violent tendencies through a twisted interpretation of what George and Nick say or do. George's stare meant nothing – nothing at all. But both killers inferred that George was thinking or feeling contempt for them and that George's stare was direct evidence of that contempt. Once this inference had been made, anything George said or did from that point on only made the situation worse.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Understanding MarriageDevelopments in the Study of Couple Interaction, pp. 228 - 250Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
References
, & (1997). Comparing responses of maritally violent and nonviolent spouses to problematic marital and nonmarital situations: Are the skill deficits of physically aggressive husbands and wives global? Journal of Family Psychology, 11(3), 301–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , & (1987). Factor similarity of the Conflict Tactics Scales across sample, spouses and sites: Issues and implications. Journal of Family Violence, 2(1), 37–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , & (1982). Till death do us part: A study of spouse murder. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 10(4), 271–280Google ScholarPubMed
Berry, D. (1998). The domestic violence sourcebook. Los Angeles: Lowell House
, , , & (1992). Personality traits of convicted male batterers. Journal of Family Violence, 7(2), 123–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , & (1995). A revision of the Dyadic Adjustment Scales for use with distressed and nondistressed couples: Construct hierarchy and multidimensional scales. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 21(3), 289–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deschner, J. P. (1984). The hitting habit. New York: The Free Press
, & (2000). Evaluating criminal justice interventions for domestic violence. Crime and Delinquency, 46(2), 252–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1980). Social cognition and children's aggressive behavior. Child Development, 51, 162–170CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1987). Hostile attributional biases among aggressive boys are exacerbated under conditions of threats to the self. Child Development, 58, 213–224CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1992). Measuring recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121(3), 275–277CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1327–1343CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , & (2000). Rejection sensitivity and male violence in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 7, 54–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1995). A scale for measuring propensity for abusiveness. Journal of Family Violence, 10(2), 203–221CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dutton, D. G. (1998). The abusive personality. New York: Guilford Press
Dutton, D. G., & Browning, J. J. (1988). Concern for power, fear and intimacy, and aversive stimuli for wife assault. In G. T. Hotaling, D. Finkelhor, J. T. Kirkpatrick, & M. A. Straus (Eds.), Family abuse and its consequences: New directions in research (pp. 163–175). Newbury Park, CA: Sage
, , , & (1994). Intimacy-anger and insecure attachment as precursors of abuse in intimate relationships. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1367–1386CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , & (1996). Antecedents of abusive personality and abusive behavior in wife assaulters. Journal of Family Violence, 11(2), 113–132CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engel, B. (1990). The emotionally abused woman. Chicago: Contemporary Books
, & (1999). The development of meaning contexts for empathic accuracy: Channel and sequence effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(4), 746–761CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , , , & (1995). The relationship between heart rate activity, emotionally aggressive behavior, and general violence in batterers. Journal of Family Violence, 9(3), 227–248Google Scholar
Green, D., & Swets, J. (1966). Signal detection theory and psychophysics. (Reprint.) New York: Krieger, 1974
, & (1992). Testing a two dimensional model of adult attachment: A latent variable approach. Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, as cited in Dutton, D. G. (1995). A scale for measuring propensity for abusiveness. Journal of Family Violence, 10(2), 203–221Google Scholar
Hemingway, E. (1927). Men without women. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
(1992). Social skill deficits in maritally violent men: Interpreting the data using a social information processing model. Clinical Psychology Review, 12, 605–617CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1993). Attributing negative intent to wife behavior: The attributions of maritally violent men versus nonviolent men. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 206–211CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , , & (2000). Testing the Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) batterer typology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 1000–1019CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, & (1996). Comparing the emotional reactions and behavioral intentions of violent and nonviolent husbands to aggressive, distressed, and other wife behaviors. Violence and Victims, 11(4), 319–339Google ScholarPubMed
Ickes, W. (1997). Empathic accuracy. New York: Guilford
Ickes, W., & Simpson, J. (1997). Managing empathic accuracy in close relationships. In W. Ickes (Ed.), Empathic accuracy (pp. 218–250). New York: Guilford
Jacobson, N., & Gottman, J. (1998). When men batter women. New York: Simon and Schuster
, , , & (1995). Empathic accuracy in a clinically relevant setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 854–869CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolin, G. (1988). Interpersonal and intrapersonal factors associated with marital violence. In G. T. Hotaling, D. Finkelhor, J. T. Kirkpatrick, & M. A. Straus (Eds.), Family abuse and its consequences: New directions in research (pp. 163–175). Newbury Park, CA: Sage
(1982). A review and reformulation of the concept of social skills. Behavioral Assessment, 4, 1–33Google Scholar
Nelson, N. (1997). Dangerous relationships. New York: Plenum
Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education Groups for Men Who Batter. New York: Springer-Verlag
, , , & (1994). Empathy as a cognitive inhibitor of interpersonal aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 20(4), 275–2893.0.CO;2-4>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1991). Procedures for adjusting self-reports of violence for social desirability bias. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 6(3), 336–344CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweinle, W. E., Ickes, W., & Bernstein, I. H. (in press). Empathic inaccuracy in husband to wife aggression: The overattribution bias. Personal Relationships
Sillars, A. (1998). (Mis)understanding. In B. Spitzberg & W. Cupach (Eds.), The dark side of close relationships (pp. 73–102). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
, , & (1999). When accuracy hurts: Reactions of anxious-ambivalent dating partners to a relationship threatening situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 754–769CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1993). A predictive model of male spousal violence. Journal of Family Violence, 8(2), 183–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, & (1972). Short homogeneous versions of the Marlowe-Crowne social desirability scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 28, 191–1933.0.CO;2-G>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1979). Measuring intrafamily conflict and violence: The conflict tactics (CT) scales. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41(1), 75–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straus, M., & Gelles, R. (1988). How violent are American families? Estimates from the National Family Violence Resurvey and other studies. In G. T. Hotaling, D. Finkelhor, J. T. Kirkpatrick, & M. A. Shaw (Eds.), Family abuse and its consequences: New directions in research (pp. 14–36). Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Toch, H. (1969). Violent men. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company
Tolman, R. (1992). Psychological abuse of women. In R. Ammerman & M. Hersen (Eds.), Assessment of family violence: A clinical and legal sourcebook (pp. 291–310). New York: Wiley
(1999). The validation of the psychological maltreatment of women inventory. Violence and Victims, 14(1), 25–35Google ScholarPubMed
Wallbott, H. G. (1995). Congruence, contagion and motor mimicry: Mutualities in nonverbal exchange. In I. Markova and C. Graumann (Eds.), Mutualities in dialogue (pp. 82–98) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Walker, L. E. (1979). The battered woman. New York: Harper & Row
Walker, L. E. (1984). The battered woman syndrome. New York: Harper & Row
, , & (1996). Effects of sex role stereotyping among European American students on domestic violence culpability attributions. Sex Roles, 34(7–8), 475–491CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 3
- Cited by