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Alcohol, Fear, and Woman Abuse - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, June, 1999 by Ira W. Hutchison

Research has generally concluded that alcohol use is a contributor to a variety of forms of violence (cf. comprehensive reviews by Hayes and Emshoff, 1993; Martin, 1993; Pernanen, 1991; and Reiss and Roth, 1993); it is occasionally seen as a direct cause (cf. Bushman and Cooper, 1990; Flanzer, 1993), although far less often than as a contributor. Alcohol has been shown to be implicated in many different forms of aggression (Leonard and Jacob, 1988) and sexual assault (Russell, 1984). One study of men incarcerated for a violent offense found that chronic alcohol patterns had little predictive value, but that acute episodes of drinking immediately before the offense were significant (Collins and Schlenger, 1988). However, it is important to not overstate the role of alcohol consumption in battering. Cautioning against the 20th century proliferation of blaming alcohol use for battering, Gordon states: "Associating wife-beating with drinking placed it in a male culture of recreation - or depravity, depending on the perspective - and kept it defined in trivial and fatalistic terms. It was a male foible, not a crime against women" (Gordon, 1988:264).

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The purpose of this article is to investigate one aspect of alcohol-related abuse, specifically the instigation of fear in victims of battering. Emotional factors and their association with woman battering generally have received less attention in quantitative research. Whatever the direct behavioral consequences of alcohol use, such use/abuse may have the additional effect of inducing fear and, thus, forced submission to the abuser's control.(3)

ALCOHOL AND BATTERING

Assessing the relationship between alcohol and woman battering is complex due in part to various ways of operationalizing alcohol use. There is wide variation in the research literature between the ever-use of alcohol, frequent abuse, and alcoholism. In addition, some research has included the temporal factor of alcohol use; for example, the influence of chronic alcohol use over time versus acute drinking immediately preceding a violent event.

Abusive men do not fit into a solitary profile. Gondolf (1988) proposed a threefold typology: sociopathic batterers, antisocial batterers and typical batterers. The first two types were found to be particularly abusive, with the sociopathic batterer distinguished by both greater alcohol abuse and higher frequency of arrests. The sociopathic group's use of alcohol is comparable to the "generally violent" category of men identified by Shields, McCall and Hanneke (1983). In other research, Saunders (1992) derived roughly comparable categories of batterers, who also reflected varying degrees of alcohol use. The most severely violent men (Type II) were "generally violent" and had the most rigid attitudes about the role of women; their alcohol use was also significantly greater than either of the other types.

Frequency/Incidence of Abuse

There is considerable variation in the frequency with which alcohol is associated with battering. A review of 15 empirical studies by Kantor and Straus (1990) found a range from 6 to 85% alcohol involvement in spouse abuse. Gelles (1972) reported that almost one half of batterers were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident, a frequency consistent with Pernanen (1991). Higher rates were reported by others: three-fourths (72%) of the 512 physically battered women in Labell's (1979) study reported "alcohol problems" in their husbands. A comparison study of abusive couples, maritally discordant but not abusive couples, and maritally satisfied couples (Van Hasselt, Morrison and Bellack, 1985) reported significantly higher MAST (Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test) scores for the abusive men than for the other two groups. Kantor and Straus (1990) employed a quantity-frequency index in their analysis of national survey data.(4) Their findings revealed a direct linear relationship between woman battering rates and usual drinking patterns, as measured by their Drinking Index. Violence rates for "high moderates" were twice as high, and the rates for binge drinkers three times as high as for abstainers (Kantor and Straus, 1990). However, even among the men who scored the highest on the Drinking Index, less than 20% had been violent. At the time of the incident, alcohol was not involved in the overwhelming majority (76%) of abusive cases. The probability of drinking at the time of the incident would be expected to increase as the frequency of drinking increased, and this is generally supported by Kantor and Straus' (1990) data. Among high-rate and binge drinkers, the rate of drinking at the time of the incident was almost one-half (48%).

Usual alcohol consumption may be less important than atypical patterns. In a sample of blue collar workers in Pennsylvania, researchers found that physical marital conflict was related to a pathological pattern of alcohol consumption, but not to the usual amount of alcohol consumed; rates for physical abuse were twice as high for those men who had a pathological drinking pattern as those who did not (25% vs. 13%; Leonard, Bromet, Parkinson, Day and Ryan, 1985).(5) This research suggests that "normal" drinking patterns - even if large quantities are consumed - are a less important predictor of marital violence than is excessive consumption in one episode (i.e., drinking significantly more than the usual pattern; Leonard et al., 1985). In studying young married men, Leonard and Blane (1992) found a significant relationship between alcohol and aggression which remained after taking into account levels of hostility and marital satisfaction. They state: "Among men who scored high on hostility, there was a strong relationship between ADS scores and marital aggression, irrespective of the subject's level of marital satisfaction" (Leonard and Blane, 1992, p. 27).(6) In a study of almost 1,800 Anglos, Blacks and Mexican Americans, violence was better predicted by the quantity of alcohol consumed in a typical drinking episode, rather than frequency or total consumption over a one week period (Neff, Holamon and Schluter, 1995).

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Alcohol, Fear, and Woman Abuse - Statistical Data Included

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, June, 1999 by Ira W. Hutchison

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