621898

research-article2015
IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X15621898International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyHaj-Yahia and Shen

Article
International Journal of
Offender Therapy and
Beliefs About Wife Beating Comparative Criminology
2017, Vol. 61(9) 1038­–1062
Among Social Work Students © The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X15621898
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Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia1 and

April Chiung-Tao Shen2

Abstract
Based on an integrative framework, this study addresses the beliefs that a group
of social work students from Taiwan had about wife beating. A self-administered
questionnaire was filled out by 790 students (76.5% female, 23.5% male) spanning all
4 years of undergraduate studies. The results show that male students exhibited a
greater tendency than their female counterparts to justify wife beating and to hold
battered women responsible for violence against them. This tendency was also found
among students who held traditional attitudes toward women, students who held
patriarchal expectations of marriage, and students who had witnessed interparental
violence in childhood. In addition, male students and students with traditional
attitudes toward women exhibited the strongest tendency to believe that wives
benefit from beating. Conversely, female students expressed more willingness than
their male counterparts to help battered women, as did students who held liberal
attitudes toward women and students who held egalitarian expectations of marriage.
Furthermore, female students and those with liberal attitudes toward women tended
to hold violent husbands responsible for their behavior, and to express support for
punishing violent husbands. This article concludes with a discussion of the study’s
limitations and the results’ implications for future research on the topic.

Keywords
beliefs about wife beating, violence against women, family violence, intimate partner
violence, social work students, Taiwan

1The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

2National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Corresponding Author:
Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.
Email: m.hajyahia@mail.huji.ac.il
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1039

Introduction
Violence against women in intimate relations is a serious and prevalent problem
worldwide (Garcia-Moreno, Jansen, Ellsberg, Heise, & Watts, 2005). Social workers
are at the forefront of interventions in cases marked by intimate partner violence (IPV)
and have historically been considered the main service providers for battered women
(Edleson, 1991). Although there is an emerging body of literature on the knowledge,
attitudes, skills, and behavior of practitioners working with battered women and vio-
lent men (e.g., Danis, 2004; Virkki et al., 2015), few studies have focused on social
work students’ perspectives and beliefs regarding IPV (e.g., Black, Weisz, & Bennett,
2010; Haj-Yahia & Schiff, 2007).
Previous research suggests that the majority of social workers have received “none
to a little” academic preparation and training for the task of addressing IPV cases
(Danis & Lockhart, 2003), and that the relationship between social workers and bat-
tered women has been both problematic and disappointing (Eisikovits, Griffel,
Grinstein, & Azaiza, 2000). Social workers have sometimes been criticized for blam-
ing female victims of IPV, for failing to recognize that IPV is a problem, and for failing
to provide appropriate interventions and referrals. It has also been argued that social
work interventions are influenced by personal factors such as the social workers’ ste-
reotypes of intimate relationships and, in particular, of battered women and violent
men (Danis & Lockhart, 2003; Eisikovits et al., 2000; Yechezkel & Ayalon, 2013).
Nevertheless, a few studies have documented some progress in social workers’ ability
to assess and assist battered women, particularly women from diverse backgrounds
(Danis, 2004; Pyles & Postmus, 2004).
Existing studies on social work students have yielded findings that appear to be
similar to those conducted among samples of social workers; these studies show that
graduate social work students have limited knowledge of how to intervene effectively
in IPV cases (Black et al., 2010; Danis & Lockhart, 2003; Eisikovits et al., 2000;
Yechezkel & Ayalon, 2013). Moreover, findings have indicated that a certain percent-
age of undergraduate social work students tend to justify wife beating in a variety of
circumstances, and that the more the students hold non-egalitarian expectations of
marriage and the more rigid their gender-role stereotypes are, the greater their ten-
dency to approve of the husbands’ use of force against their wives (Haj-Yahia & Schiff,
2007). These findings on social work students are consistent with prior research focus-
ing on university students of various disciplines (e.g., nursing, medicine, psychology,
engineering, and communication) in such countries as the United States, Canada,
Turkey, and Brazil (e.g., Bryant & Spencer, 2003; Glick, Sakalli-Ugurlu, Ferreira, &
de Souza, 2002; Haj-Yahia & Uysal, 2011; Reitzel-Jaffe & Wolfe, 2001; Sakalli,
2001).
In light of the serious consequences of IPV and the key role of social work profes-
sionals in implementing successful IPV interventions, it is important to examine
beliefs about and attitudes toward wife beating among future service providers (i.e.,
among social work students). Social work students’ beliefs about wife beating may
also be reflected in the behavior that the students—as professionals after graduation
1040 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

from a university—display toward battered women (Gerbert et al., 2002; Haj-Yahia &
Uysal, 2008). Thus, establishing a rigorous understanding of these students’ beliefs
about wife beating might constitute the first step in implementing educational pro-
grams and policies aimed at preventing IPV. To date, only a few studies have examined
social work students’ beliefs about wife beating. Moreover, to the best of our knowl-
edge, no studies have examined social work students’ beliefs about wife beating in
Chinese societies. Although violence against women is a problem worldwide, percep-
tions of or justifications for violence against women vary across cultures (Malley-
Morrison & Hines, 2004; Waltermaurer, 2012). Therefore, the current study examined
several beliefs about wife beating among social work students in Taiwan using self-
administered questionnaires, based on a conceptual framework that integrates three
theoretical elements: patriarchal ideology, social learning theory, and intrapersonal/
personality factors (with an emphasis on traumatic symptoms).

Theoretical Foundations and Literature Review

Patriarchal Ideology
Patriarchal ideology places women in subordinate positions to men. The resulting ineq-
uitable gender relationships and sexist ideologies serve to maintain tolerance of male
violence toward female intimate partners who violate gender prescriptions, such as when
a wife commits an act of infidelity (Hunnicutt, 2009; Rudman & Glick, 2008; Russo &
Pirlott, 2006). A review of research evidence from 67 countries reveals that individuals
who support patriarchal ideology are more likely to justify wife beating under circum-
stances of certain perceived failures on the part of the wife (Waltermaurer, 2012).
Chinese culture is strongly patriarchal and collectivistic, as it is rooted in centuries-
old Confucianism (Lee, 2000; Yu, 2005). According to Confucian teaching, a Chinese
woman is expected to be submissive to men in all phases of her life cycle, and her
value is determined by her capacity to fulfill the domestic roles of being a supportive
wife and nurturing mother. When a woman fails to fulfill her duties, one can legiti-
mately discipline her by means of violence (Tang, Wong, & Cheung, 2002). It has been
found that Chinese cultural tolerance of male violence against women not only leads
to victims’ self-blame but also to pervasive victim-blaming attitudes and behaviors
among Chinese people in general (Tang et al., 2002). A study conducted in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and Shanghai among high school students revealed that traditional
gender-role beliefs can promote adolescents’ justification of male-to-female violence
as well as adolescents’ engagement in violent behaviors in intimate relationships
(Shen, Chiu, & Gao, 2012). Moreover, a study conducted in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and
China (Beijing) showed that among college students, attitudes toward gender roles and
toward violence appeared to be the most important predictors of IPV definitions.
College students who approved the notion of male dominance were least likely to
define IPV as a crime. The Taiwanese students were most likely to define wife beating
as a crime, followed by the Hong Kong and Beijing students (Jiao, Sun, Farmer, &
Lin, 2014).
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1041

Although many Chinese people may hold a patriarchal view regarding male vio-
lence against women, a breakthrough took place in 1998, when Taiwan’s state legisla-
ture passed the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (Ministry of Justice, 2014). In
reforming the policies and the practices of family violence intervention, Taiwan
became the first country in East Asia to define family violence as a crime. This law is
a clear departure from the traditional legal principle of keeping the state out of the
family, and declares that the state plays a guardian role in protecting battered members
in the family. Researchers suggest that this progressiveness of Taiwanese law and
practice, together with the women’s rights movement in Taiwan, may have strength-
ened Taiwanese college students’ perception of IPV as a crime and may have lowered
their tolerance of IPV (Jiao et al., 2014).
This law mandates, among other things, that professionals in the relevant fields
report cases of family violence to the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention
Center in each city and county in Taiwan. Social workers are the main service provid-
ers who help battered women and their children when such cases are reported in
Taiwan. However, the aforementioned lack of research on beliefs about wife beating
among social work students in Taiwan could be an obstacle to maximizing the law’s
effectiveness. Against this background, the present study examined the relationship
between Taiwanese social work students’ attitudes toward women and expectations of
marriage, and their beliefs about wife beating.

Social Learning Theory

Following social learning theory (Bandura, 1978), one of the mechanisms underlying
the development of violent behavior in intimate relationships and the formulation of
attitudes toward and beliefs about various issues related to the problem of violence
against women is intergenerational transmission (Flood & Pease, 2009; Kelly,
Gonzalez-Guarda, & Taylor, 2011; Mihalic & Elliot, 1997). The basic assumption of
this theory is that individual learning occurs as a result of the behaviors, interactions,
and norms established within families, groups, and society at large (Kelly et al., 2011).
Through learning processes, witnessing and experiencing violence during childhood
within and outside of the family can increase the likelihood that a person will engage
in violent behaviors and develop lenient attitudes toward and beliefs about such behav-
iors in adulthood (Flood & Pease, 2009; Mihalic & Elliot, 1997). Accordingly, when
people are exposed to violent behaviors as witnesses and/or through personal experi-
ence, those behaviors will be justified, socially accepted, internalized, and emulated if
they are not denounced by society at large and by significant figures in particular
(Jasinski, 2001; Kelly et al., 2011). Based on extensive research conducted over the
last four decades, it can be concluded that when parents favor aggressive solutions to
problems, it is likely that their children will internalize, develop, and use similar
aggressive tactics in dealing with others, both in childhood and with their intimate
partners in adulthood (Flood & Pease, 2009; Kelly et al., 2011; Widom & Wilson,
2015).
1042 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

Furthermore, recent studies have also demonstrated that a person’s exposure to

family violence can shape the person’s beliefs about wife beating (e.g., Haj-Yahia &
de Zoysa, 2007; Haj-Yahia & Uysal, 2008, 2011). Research conducted among physi-
cians revealed that the higher their levels of exposure to family violence, the greater
their tendency to approve of and justify husbands’ violence against their wives, and the
greater their tendency to blame wives for violence against them (Haj-Yahia, 2010;
Haj-Yahia, Sousa, Alnabilsy, & Elias, 2015). Research conducted among students has
also demonstrated that men’s exposure to violence in their own family strengthened
their negative beliefs about gender roles as well as their acceptance of interpersonal
violence. In addition, it was found that male university students’ negative beliefs about
gender and interpersonal violence directly affected their use of violence in their inti-
mate relationships (Reitzel-Jaffe & Wolfe, 2001). Moreover, according to a study
using both a community sample and an ex-offenders sample in the United States, the
relationship between childhood experiences of violence and adulthood use of violence
against a spouse was mediated by lenient attitudes toward violence against spouses
(Markowitz, 2001). Nevertheless, research findings on the power of exposure to fam-
ily violence to explain beliefs about and attitudes toward wife beating are inconsistent.
For example, Coleman and Stith’s (1997) study among nursing students revealed that
the more students maintained egalitarian gender-role attitudes (as a possible measure
of the level of their patriarchal ideology), the more sympathetic they were toward
women victims of domestic violence. In their study, they used a conceptual model that
examined the combined influence of patriarchal ideology and social learning on stu-
dents’ attitudes toward violence against women. However, only their patriarchal ideol-
ogy was found to have a significant impact on those attitudes. Consequently, as
measures of social learning theory in that study, students’ witnessing and experiencing
family violence did not correlate significantly with their attitudes toward victims of
domestic violence (Coleman & Stith, 1997). On the basis of social learning theory and
the results of prior research, our present study examines the relationship between
Taiwanese social work students’ experience with and witnessing of family violence
during childhood and their beliefs about wife beating in young adulthood.

Intrapersonal (Personality) Factors

Extensive research has been conducted over the last four decades on the relevance of
personal symptoms as well as personality variables and intrapersonal factors, includ-
ing personality disorders, to violence against women (e.g., Jasinski, 2001; Kelly et al.,
2011; Stith, Smith, Penn, Ward, & Tritt, 2004). Accordingly, it is usually argued that
the abusive behavior of perpetrators results from their mood disorders, personality
disorders, psychoneurological effects of head injury, post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), extreme jealousy, high levels of hostility and anger, depression and anxiety,
low self-esteem, low levels of frustration tolerance, fear of abandonment, and alcohol
and drug abuse, among many other intrapersonal factors (Kelly et al., 2011). In addi-
tion, a range of distinct personality traits and disorders have been identified among
IPV perpetrators, such as psychopathology, hostility/control, borderline/dependency,
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1043

paranoia, schizoidism, narcissism, anti-social orientations, dependency, avoidance,

compulsive-obsessive disorders, and feelings of inadequacy, among other traits and
disorders (Walker, Bowen, Brown, & Sleath, 2015).
Although prior studies have established associations among personal symptoms,
personality variables, and violence against women, there is a serious dearth of research
on the relationship between those variables and attitudes toward and beliefs about wife
beating. Among the few studies dealing with the relationship between traumatic symp-
toms and beliefs about wife beating, the results are mixed. Whereas a recent study
revealed that traumatic symptoms affected nursing students’ beliefs about wife beating
(Haj-Yahia & Uysal, 2011), other studies have found that traumatic symptoms are not
related to students’ beliefs about wife beating (e.g., Haj-Yahia & de Zoysa, 2007; Haj-
Yahia & Uysal, 2008). Because few studies have examined the relationship between
traumatic symptoms and beliefs about wife beating, and because the few studies to do
so have yielded mixed results, the present study examines the relationship between
Taiwanese social work students’ traumatic symptoms and their beliefs about wife
beating.

Research Questions
Given that no studies have examined social work students’ beliefs about wife beating
in Chinese societies, and that social work professionals play a key role in helping bat-
tered women, our study examines the extent to which the integrative conceptual
framework can explain each of the following six beliefs about wife beating among
social work students in Taiwan: justifying wife beating (JWB), blaming wives for their
beating (BWB), perceiving wives as benefiting from their beating (WBB), helping
battered women (HBW), holding husbands responsible for their violence (HRV), and
punishing violent husbands (PVH). These six beliefs about wife beating constitute the
current study’s main dependent variables.
In conducting this study, we sought to answer three specific questions:

Research Question 1: To what extent do Taiwanese students of social work believe

that wife beating is justified, that women benefit from beating, that battered women
are to be blamed for their beating, that battered women deserve help, that husbands
are responsible for their violent behavior, and that violent husbands should be
punished?
Research Question 2: Are there significant relationships between each of the six
above-mentioned beliefs about wife beating and the students’ attitudes toward
women, marital-role expectations, experiencing parental violence, witnessing
interparental violence, and traumatic symptoms?
Research Question 3: To what extent can each of the five above-mentioned inde-
pendent variables significantly explain the variance in each of the six above-
mentioned beliefs about wife beating (over and above the variance that can be
attributed to participants’ sociodemographic characteristics)?
1044 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

Method
Participants
We conducted the present study among a convenience sample of 790 social work stu-
dents at four major universities in Taiwan (276 students from public universities and
514 students from private universities). It should be noted that at all four universities,
the total number of social work undergraduate students was approximately 1,650. It
was important for us to have a representative sampling, encompassing students from
all 4 years of study in the school, and therefore we chose selected courses and not
simply required course, as fourth-year students typically do not take required courses
in their final year of study. This resulted in inviting 935 students, out of 1,650 students,
to participate in the study; consequently, the 790 students who completed the question-
naires constituted 84.5% of the 935 students who were invited to participate.
Most of the participants were women (76.5%), and the gender ratio characterizing
this pool of participants was similar to the gender ratio characterizing the entire popu-
lation of social work students at the four universities. Participants ranged in age from
18 to 26 years old (M = 19.89, SD = 1.53). The students’ distribution by year of study
was as follows: 31.8% were first-year students, 25.5% were second-year students,
23.7% were third-year students, and 19% were fourth-year students. According to par-
ticipants’ responses about their own religion, 22% were Taoists, 14.2% were Buddhists,
14% were Christians, about 1% were Muslims, and the rest of the participants (about
49%) either referred to themselves as unaffiliated with any religion or simply did not
answer the question about their religion. Participants’ fathers and mothers ranged in
age from 37 to 83 years old and from 36 to 70 years old, respectively (M = 50.78,
SD = 5.06; M = 47.83, SD = 4.24, respectively). The number of years of fathers’ and
mothers’ education ranged from 0 to 26 (M = 12.20, SD = 3.52), and from 0 to 24 years
(M = 11.35, SD = 3.37), respectively. According to participants’ responses about their
families’ socioeconomic status (SES), 24.7% of their families were upper class or
upper middle class, 55.2% were centrally middle class, 17.5% were lower middle
class, and 2.6% were socioeconomically disadvantaged. Family size ranged from 3 to
12 persons (M = 4.61, SD = 0.94). About 64.8% of the participants had never attended
a course on family violence during their academic studies, and the remaining 35.2%
had attended such a course during their studies at the university. Courses on family
violence are elective and are offered by social work departments.

Measures
To measure the current study’s diverse variables, we used a self-administered and
anonymous questionnaire based on the following items and scales.

Background information.  The questionnaire consisted of several questions addressing

sociodemographic and background characteristics such as participants’ age, gender,
year of study at the university, religion, fathers’ and mothers’ ages and years of
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1045

schooling, family size, and family’s SES—as perceived by the participants—and

attending a course on family violence during their academic studies.

Beliefs about wife beating.  In this study, we used a revised version of Saunders, Lynch,
Grayson, and Linz’s (1987) Inventory of Beliefs About Wife Beating (IBWB) to mea-
sure the following five beliefs about wife beating: (a) JWB (15 items), (b) WBB (four
items), (c) HBW (seven items), (d) HRV (three items), and (e) PVH (two items). Saun-
ders et al. (1987) reported that all of the five variables have acceptable internal reli-
ability, and support was found for the construct validity of the subscales pertaining to
attitudes toward victims. In the current study, Cronbach’s alpha values were .891 for
the JWB scale, .799 for the WBB scale, .758 for the HBW scale, .784 for the HRV
scale, and .706 for the PVH scale. In our study, we have examined a sixth belief: BWB
(six items). For this sixth belief, we used Haj-Yahia’s (2003) scale (Cronbach’s alpha
was .795 in this study). Responses to all of the items relating to the six beliefs were
based on a 7-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly
disagree). All six beliefs were considered the main dependent variables of the study.

Attitudes toward women.  A short 11-item version of the Spence and Helmreich (1978)
Attitudes Toward Women Scale was used in this study to measure types of attitudes
toward women among Taiwanese social work students (i.e., traditional vs. liberal).
Responses to the items of this measure were based on a 4-point Likert-type scale,
ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (strongly disagree). Cronbach’s alpha value of the
version used in this study was .769.

Marital-role expectations.  In the current study, we used a short 14-item version of Dunn
and DeBonis’ (1979) Marriage Role Expectations Inventory to measure Taiwanese
social work students’ marital-role expectations (i.e., do the expectations reflect an
egalitarian-companionship view or a patriarchal view). Responses to these items were
based on a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly
disagree). The Cronbach’s alpha value for the short version of the Marital-Role Expec-
tations used in this study was .920.

Exposure to family violence.  To measure participants’ exposure to family violence dur-

ing childhood, we used two versions of two subscales—Verbal Aggression and Physi-
cal Violence—composed of 16 items from Straus’ (1979) Conflict Tactics Scales
(CTS). We used one version to measure participants’ witnessing of interparental vio-
lence, and we used the other version to measure participants’ direct experience of
parental violence during that period. Responses to the items were based on an 8-point
scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 7 (daily). In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha values for
items measuring participants’ witnessing interparental verbal aggression and physical
violence were .966 and .991, respectively; and the Cronbach’s alpha value for all items
measuring participants’ witnessing of interparental violence was .989. The Cronbach’s
alpha coefficients for items measuring participants’ experience of parental verbal
aggression and parental physical violence were .953 and .998, respectively, and the
1046 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

Cronbach’s alpha value for the entire measure of parents-to-participant violence was
.988.

Psychological symptoms.  We have used a short 30-item version of Briere and Runtz’s
(1989) Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSC-33) to measure traumatic symptoms among
Taiwanese social work students. Responses to these items were based on a 4-point
Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (very often). The Cronbach’s alpha value
for our study’s version of this scale was .898.

Procedure
In the first stage of the study, we prepared an English version of the questionnaire. To
ensure valid and robust procedures in translating and adapting the questionnaire, we
had two social work professors translate it from English into Chinese, taking into con-
sideration the cultural context of the Chinese students. First, each of the professors
translated the questionnaire separately. Afterward, they worked together to prepare a
unified Chinese version of the questionnaire.
The students and class instructors who were targeted for data collection gave their
informed consent to participate in this study. The dates, times, and classrooms sched-
uled for data collection were advertised in advance. On those dates, either the second
author of this article or the trained research assistants attended the courses, explained
the purpose and procedures of the research to the students, and emphasized the volun-
tary and anonymous nature of the study prior to group questionnaire administration.
The second author of this article or the research assistants also informed the students
of their right to refuse or discontinue participation at any time. Students who declined
to participate in the study either left the class freely or stayed on and continued work-
ing after the explanations had been provided. Self-administered questionnaires were
then distributed, and data were collected from consenting students via the paper-and-
pen method in group sessions scheduled for periods during or outside of regular class
hours (depending on instructors’ preferences). The average duration of questionnaire
administration was 26 minutes. Participants were compensated for their time with a
small gift (candies). The study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the institute
of the first author.

Statistical Analysis
We conducted three types of statistical analyses to address the research questions.
First, we calculated descriptive statistics for each of the sociodemographic character-
istics as well as for each of the items corresponding to the six beliefs about wife beat-
ing (see online table). Second, we calculated zero-order correlations, using Pearson’s
coefficients, among several of the sociodemographic characteristics examined in the
study, as well as for the main independent variables as delineated earlier, and for all six
beliefs about wife beating, as the main dependent variables. (Owing to space con-
straints, the results of these two types of analyses are not presented in tables;
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1047

nevertheless, full tables of these results are available from the authors.) Third, we
conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses for each of the six beliefs about
wife beating (see Tables 1 and 2).
To successfully carry out the third type of analysis, we formed two blocks of pre-
dictors. The first block included the participants’ sociodemographic and background
characteristics (i.e., age, gender, year of study, family size, family’s SES, fathers’ and
mothers’ age, parents’ levels of education, and attendance/non-attendance at a course
on family violence). Owing to the very high and significant correlation and multicol-
linearity between fathers’ and mothers’ ages (r = .675, p < .0001), we calculated one
variable—parents’ ages—by finding the average of both parents’ ages. Similarly,
owing to the very high and significant correlation and possible multicollinearity
between fathers’ and mothers’ levels of education (r = .647, p < .0001), we calculated
one variable—parents’ levels of education—by finding the average of both parents’
levels of education. We entered this block into the regression formula first to control
for sociodemographic and background variables.
The second block consisted of the following five variables: traumatic symptoms,
witnessing interparental violence, experiencing parental violence, attitudes toward
women, and marital-role expectations. To derive one score for participants’ witnessing
of interparental violence, we added up the participants’ scores on two variables: the
witnessing of interparental psychological aggression and the witnessing of interparen-
tal physical violence. The combined score reflected the very high and significant cor-
relation and multicollinearity between these two patterns of witnessing interparental
violence (r = .965, p < .0001). Similarly, to derive one score for experiencing parental
violence, we added up the participants’ scores on two variables: the experience of
parental psychological aggression and the experience of parental physical violence.
The combined score reflected the very high and significant correlation and multicol-
linearity between these two patterns of experiencing family violence (r = .959, p <
.0001).
These types of analyses (i.e., hierarchical multiple regression analyses) facilitated
our efforts to measure the extent to which the variance in each of the six beliefs about
wife beating (as the dependent variables in this study) was attributable to the five main
independent variables of the study (i.e., those in the second block of predictors), over
and above the variance that could be explained by the sociodemographic and back-
ground characteristics (i.e., the first block of predictors). Table 1 presents the results of
our hierarchical multiple regression analyses for three of the beliefs: JWB, WBB, and
BWB. Table 2 presents the results for the other three beliefs: HBW, HRV, and PVA.

Results
JWB, WBB, and BWB
The results reveal that 80% of the participants strongly agreed, agreed, or somewhat
agreed that “there is no excuse for a man to beat his wife” (M = 2.21, SD = 1.922).
However, between 1% and 15.8% of the participants expressed some level of
1048
Table 1.  Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses for Three Beliefs: Justifying Wife Beating, Perceiving Wives as Benefiting From Their Beating,
and Blaming Wives for Their Beating (N = 790).

Justifying wife beating Perceiving wives as benefiting from beating Blaming wives for beating

  B β p B β p B β p
First-block sociodemographic characteristics
 AGE .016 .031 ns .018 .036 ns .022 .040 ns
 GEN −.510 −.282 .0001 −.415 −.239 .0001 −.314 −.161 .0001
 YOS .010 .015 ns .022 .033 ns .011 .015 ns
 PED .008 .031 ns .001 .004 ns .004 .016 ns
 SES .042 .042 ns .054 .056 ns .071 .065 ns
 CFV .024 .015 ns .005 .003 ns .047 .024 ns
 ΔR2 by first block 8.5% 6.2% 3.4%
F(6, 642) = 9.878, p < .0001 F(6, 645) = 7.153, p < .0001 F(6, 645) = 3.787, p < .001
Second-block major predictors
 TSC .092 .053 ns .107 .063 ns .100 .053 ns
 WVI .002 .012 ns .014 .072 ns .020 .093 .05
 EVI .011 .046 ns .007 .030 ns .007 .028 ns
 ATW .524 .311 .0001 .434 .267 .0001 .481 .264 .0001
 MRE .080 .108 .01 .036 .050 ns .072 .091 .05
 ΔR2 by second 11.9% 8.9% 9.8%
 block F(5, 637) = 19.009, p < .0001 F(5, 640) = 18.422, p < .0001 F(5, 640) = 14.449, p < .0001
R2 total 20.3% 15.1% 13.2%

Note. AGE = participants’ age; GEN = Participants’ gender; YOS = participants’ year of study; PED = parents’ level of education; SES = participants’ perception of
their family’s socioeconomic status; CFV = attendance at a course on family violence; TSC = trauma symptoms; WVI = witnessing interparental violence; EVI =
experiencing parental violence; ATW = attitudes toward women; MRE = marital-role expectations.
 Table 2.  Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses for Three Beliefs: Helping Battered Women, Husbands Are Responsible for Their Violent
Behavior, and Punishing Violent Husbands (N = 790).

Holding husbands responsible for

Helping battered women their violence Punishing violent husbands

  B β p B β p B β p
First-block sociodemographic characteristics
 AGE .008 .016 ns .047 .052 ns .050 .053 ns
 GEN .343 .198 .0001 .599 .191 .0001 .445 .136 .001
 YOS .057 .057 ns .171 .142 ns .059 .048 ns
 PED .012 .050 ns .012 .028 ns .012 .027 ns
 SES .005 .006 ns .032 .018 ns .051 .028 ns
 CFV .057 .037 ns .137 .047 ns .072 .025 ns
 ΔR2 by first block 4.7% 4.7% 2.3%
  F(6, 648) = 5.315, p < .0001 F(6, 648) = 5.347, p < .0001 F(6, 648) = 2.571, p < .021
Second-block major predictors
 TSC .004 .002 ns .020 .007 ns .024 .008 ns
 WVI .004 .021 ns .021 .060 ns .017 .047 ns
 EVI .010 .041 ns .012 .029 ns .005 .010 ns
 ATW −.451 −.279 .0001 −.288 −.098 .020 −.235 −.091 .05
 MRE −.065 −.092 .02 −.070 −.053 ns −.124 −.077 ns
 ΔR2 by second block 9% 2% 1.8%
  F(5, 643) = 13.435, p < .0001 F(5, 643) = 2.678, p < .021 F(5, 643) = 2.346, p < .05
R2 total 13.7% 6.7% 4.1%

Note. AGE = participants’ age; GEN = participants’ gender; YOS = participants’ year of study; PED = parents’ level of education; SES = participants’ perception of
their family’s socioeconomic status; CFV = attendance at a course on family violence; TSC = trauma symptoms; WVI = witnessing interparental violence; EVI =
experiencing parental violence; ATW = attitudes toward women; MRE = marital-role expectations.

1049
1050 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

agreement (i.e., strongly agreed, agreed, or somewhat agreed) that in some cases or on
some occasions wife beating is justified. For example, 15.8% and 5.8% of the partici-
pants expressed some level of agreement that “a sexually unfaithful wife deserves to
be beaten” (M = 5.41, SD = 1.724), and that “when a wife’s behavior challenges her
husband’s manhood, he is justified in beating her” (M = 5.24, SD = 1.094), respec-
tively. To cite another example, 6.4% of the participants expressed some level of
agreement with the statement that “sometimes it is OK for a man to beat his wife”
(M = 6.12, SD = 1.332).
With regard to the belief that wives benefit from beating, between 1.3% and 18.7%
of the Taiwanese social work students expressed some level of agreement with state-
ments that reflect this belief. For example, 4.5% of the students expressed some agree-
ment with the statement that “wives try to get their husbands to beat them to get
sympathy from others” (M = 6.19, SD = 1.170). However, it should also be noted that
81.3% of the participants expressed some level of agreement with the statement that
“women feel pain and no pleasure when they are beaten up by their husbands” (M =
2.28, SD = 1.664). Regarding the belief that wives are responsible for any beating that
they experience, between 1% and 37.4% of the participants expressed some level of
agreement with statements that reflect this belief. For example, 37.4% of the partici-
pants expressed some level of agreement with the statement that “wives could avoid
being battered by their husbands if they knew when to stop talking” (M = 4.71, SD =
2.047). Furthermore, 13.2% of the participants perceived battered wives as responsi-
ble for their abuse “because they should have foreseen that it would happen” (M =
5.94, SD = 1.488).
The results reveal that most of the participants’ sociodemographic and background
characteristics (i.e., age, attendance, or non-attendance at a family violence course,
year of study at the given university, parents’ ages and levels of education, family size,
and SES) did not correlate significantly with each of the three aforementioned beliefs
about wife beating. However, male students exhibited a greater tendency than their
female counterparts to believe that wife beating is justified (r = −.272, p < .0001), that
wives benefit from beating (r = −.244, p < .0001), and that battered women are respon-
sible for their abuse (r = −.174, p < .0001). The results also reveal that the more
strongly the Taiwanese social work students held negative and traditional attitudes
toward women, the greater the students’ tendency to justify wife beating, the greater
their willingness to believe that wives benefit from beating, and the greater their ten-
dency to believe that battered women are responsible for their abuse (r = .395, p <
.0001, r = .350, p < .0001, and r = .392, p < .0001, respectively).
In addition, we found that the stronger the participants’ trauma symptoms, the
greater their tendency to hold women responsible for any beating that they experience
(r = .076, p < .05). However, the findings also reveal that the Taiwanese social work
students’ marital-role expectations, their witnessing of interparental violence, and
their experiencing of parental violence did not correlate significantly with their ten-
dency to justify wife beating, with their willingness to believe that wives benefit from
beating, and with their tendency to believe that battered women are responsible for
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1051

their abuse. Furthermore, the participants’ trauma symptoms did not correlate signifi-
cantly with the first two beliefs about wife beating (i.e., JWB and WBB).
The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses reveal that this study’s two
blocks of predictors could explain 20.3%, 15.1%, and 13.2% of the variance in the
participants’ tendency to justify wife beating, in their willingness to believe that wives
benefit from their beating, and in their tendency to believe that battered women are
responsible for their beating, respectively. In particular, the findings indicate that this
study’s five main predictors (i.e., the second block) could explain 11.9% of the vari-
ance in the participants’ tendency to justify wife beating, over and above the variance
attributable to the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. Nonetheless, of all
five major predictors, only marital-role expectations and attitudes toward women con-
tributed significantly to explaining the participants’ willingness to justify wife beating.
Hence, participants with strong patriarchal and non-egalitarian expectations of mar-
riage (β = .108, p < .01), and those with traditional attitudes toward women (β = .311,
p < .0001), exhibited a relatively strong tendency to justify wife beating (see Table 1).
In addition, according to our findings, the block of five major predictors could sig-
nificantly explain 8.9% of the variance in the participants’ belief that wives benefit
from beating, over and above the variance attributable to participants’ sociodemo-
graphic characteristics. More specifically, the findings reveal that of all five predic-
tors, only the participants’ attitudes toward women contributed significantly to
explaining the belief that wives benefit from beating. Thus, the more the Taiwanese
social work students held traditional and negative attitudes toward women, the greater
the students’ tendency to believe that wives benefit from their beating (β = .267, p <
.0001; see Table 1).
Our findings reveal that 9.8% of the variance in participants’ belief that battered
women are responsible for their abuse is attributable to this study’s block of five major
predictors, over and above the variance attributable to the participants’ sociodemo-
graphic and background characteristics. However, three of the five major predictors
contributed significantly to explaining the variance: attitudes toward women (β = .264,
p < .0001), expectations of marriage (β = .091, p < .05), and witnessing of interparental
violence (β = .093, p < .05). Accordingly, the results indicate that (a) the more strongly
the participants held traditional attitudes toward women, (b) the more pronounced the
participants’ patriarchal and non-egalitarian expectations of marriage, and (c) the more
frequent the participants’ witnessing of interparental violence during childhood, then
the more likely the participants were to believe that battered women are responsible
for their beating (see Table 1).
It should also be noted that participants’ sociodemographic and background charac-
teristics could explain 8.5%, 6.2%, and 3.4% of the variance in their tendency to jus-
tify wife beating, to believe that wives benefit from beating, and to believe that battered
women are responsible for their abuse, respectively; and only gender could signifi-
cantly explain the variance in each of these three beliefs (i.e., male participants exhib-
ited a greater tendency than their female counterparts to support each of these three
beliefs about wife beating; β = −.203, p < .0001; β = −.239, p < .0001; and β = −.097,
p < .05, respectively; see Table 1).
1052 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

Helping Battered Wives, HRV, and PVA

Our study’s results reveal that 5.1% of the Taiwanese social work students expressed
some level of agreement with the statement “If I should hear a woman being attacked
by her husband, it would be best that I do nothing” (M = 5.95, SD = 1.206). However,
a substantial percentage of the participants tended to believe that wife beating is a
social problem and should be considered as such by social agencies and the law. For
example, we found that 79.5% and 96.4% of the participants expressed some level of
agreement with the statements “If I heard a woman being attacked by her husband, I
would call the police” (M = 2.50, SD = 1.358) and “The police and the courts should
intervene to help battered women as long as their husbands refuse to receive treat-
ment” (M = 1.61, SD = 0.904), respectively.
Furthermore, the results reveal that between 50.3% and 75% of the participants
tended to believe that abusive husbands are responsible for their violent behavior. For
example, 75% and 59.6% of them expressed some level of agreement with the state-
ments “Husbands who batter are responsible for the abuse because they intended to do
it” (M = 2.69, SD = 1.524), and “ . . . because they should have foreseen that it would
happen” (M = 3.26, SD = 1.691), respectively. In addition, 45.7% and 33.4% of the
participants agreed that violent husbands should be punished by “ . . . the wife’s divorc-
ing him immediately” (M = 3.59, SD = 1.517) and by “the police arresting him” (M =
4.17, SD = 1.659), respectively.
The results also reveal that female participants expressed a stronger tendency than
their male counterparts to support helping battered women (r = .208, p < .0001), to
hold husbands responsible for their violent behavior (r = .177, p < .0001), and to sup-
port punishing violent husbands (r = .139, p < .0001). Nonetheless, all of the other
sociodemographic and background characteristics examined in this study (i.e., partici-
pants’ age, year of study, attendance at a family violence course, parents’ ages and
levels of education, and family size and SES) correlated insignificantly with each of
these three beliefs. The results also reveal that the weaker the participants’ traditional
attitudes toward women, the more likely it was that the participants (a) would support
helping battered women (r = −.353, p < .0001), (b) would hold violent husbands
responsible for their behavior (r = −.162, p < .0001), and (c) would support punishing
violent husbands (r = .138, p < .0001). However, the participants’ expectations of mar-
riage, the participants’ witnessing of interparental violence during childhood, the par-
ticipants’ experiencing of parental violence during childhood, and traumatic symptoms
did not correlate significantly with each of the three above-mentioned beliefs about
wife beating.
The results further reveal that the two blocks of predictors could explain 13.7%,
6.7%, and 4.1% of the variance in the participants’ beliefs about helping battered
women, holding violent husbands responsible for their behavior, and punishing violent
husbands, respectively. Specifically, whereas 9%, 1.9%, and 1.8% of the variance cor-
responding respectively to these three beliefs were attributable to this study’s main
block of predictors (i.e., the second block), 4.7%, 4.8%, and 2.3% of the variance cor-
responding respectively to these three beliefs were attributable to the participants’
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1053

sociodemographic and background characteristics. Accordingly, only the participants’

gender (β = .122, p < .002; β = .160, p < .0001; β = .136, p < .001, respectively) and
attitudes toward women (β = −.279, p < .017; β = −.098, p < .05; β = −.077, p < .02,
respectively) were found to be significant predictors of the participants’ willingness to
help battered women, the participants’ tendency to hold violent husbands responsible
for their behavior, and the participants’ willingness to punish violent husbands (see
Table 2).

Discussion
Summary and Conclusions
The results of this study reveal that non-negligible percentages of the participants
(social work students from Taiwan) tended to justify wife beating in certain circum-
stances, to hold battered women responsible for violence against them, and to believe
that women benefit from battering. Nonetheless, a majority of the participants
expressed a willingness to help battered women, to hold violent husbands responsible
for their behavior, and to believe that those husbands should be punished for beating
their wives. The results also clearly indicate that moderate, but significant, proportions
of the variance in beliefs about wife beating among all the participants were attribut-
able to several predictors derived from the integrative conceptual framework. This
framework consists of predictors that can help measure students’ patriarchal ideology,
social learning theory (with a special emphasis on exposure to family violence), and
traumatic symptoms.
Regarding patriarchal ideology, all six types of beliefs that the participants had
about wife beating were partially attributable to their traditional attitudes toward
women, and some of these beliefs were attributable to the participants’ patriarchal
expectations of marriage. In short, patriarchal ideology may help explain students’
tendency to justify male dominance and female submissiveness in private and public
spheres. Our results are clearly consistent with previous research involving Palestinian
health practitioners (e.g., Haj-Yahia, 2010, 2013; Haj-Yahia et al., 2015) and with
previous research involving health sciences students in the United States (e.g.,
Coleman & Stith, 1997), Sri Lanka (Haj-Yahia & de Zoysa, 2007), Israel (Haj-Yahia
& Schiff, 2007), and Turkey (Haj-Yahia & Uysal, 2008, 2011). The results of these
studies reveal that attitudes toward wife beating and related issues correlated signifi-
cantly with the participants’ patriarchal ideology. This ideology, which generally
grants adult males power over women and children, governs people’s roles in society
and leaves little or no room for egalitarian gender structures, whether in public or pri-
vate spheres (Moghadam, 1992; Yllö & Straus, 1990). Patriarchal ideology generally
holds that husbands—the rightful “rulers of the family”—may justifiably use violence
to preserve or restore their dominant position in the face of threats (Dobash & Dobash,
1992; Haj-Yahia, 2002, 2003; Yllö & Straus, 1990). Thus, patriarchal ideology signifi-
cantly explains why many of this study’s participants both expressed lenient attitudes
toward male violence against women and blamed battered women for their beating.
1054 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

Similarly, patriarchal ideology helps explain the partial association between partici-
pants’ traditional attitudes toward women and the participants’ tendency to believe that
women benefit from violence against them.
Unsurprisingly, non-negligible percentages of the present study’s participants
tended to justify wife beating in certain contexts and circumstances—particularly in
cases when the woman is perceived as “sexually unfaithful to her husband” (the high-
est percentage), when she “is disrespectful to her husband and his family,” when she
“constantly refuses to have sex with her husband,” when she “challenges his man-
hood,” when she “makes fun of her husband in front of his friends,” and when she
“behaves rebelliously and constantly disobeys her husband.” A study examining inti-
mate partner homicide in Taiwan indicates that sexual infidelity (or suspected infidel-
ity) is the leading reason for male partners’ murder of their intimate female partners
(Ma, Liu, & Hung, 2012). Sexual jealousy or sexual ownership has been found to be
the leading cause of intimate partner homicide in Western countries as well (Dobash &
Dobash, 2011). Nevertheless, some of our study’s participants asserted that battered
women do not benefit from being beaten, and this result may reflect these participants’
understanding of and sensitivity to the harsh consequences of experiencing spousal
violence. Yet, this assertion still reflects the traditional, patriarchal perspective of
women as weak and is essentially akin to the assertion that “women should be treated
kindly and tenderly” (Haj-Yahia, 2000). This perspective likely derives from the patri-
archal emphasis on the feminine characteristics of “communion,” which include con-
cern, tenderness, sensitivity, warmth, and connection (Gerber, 1995; Haj-Yahia &
Uysal, 2008, 2011).
Furthermore, patriarchal ideology’s characterization of husbands as the undisputed
honor-bearing leaders of their family helps explain our study’s finding that some par-
ticipants tended to sympathize with violent husbands and to clear them of responsibil-
ity for their violence. Other manifestations of this ideology include the widespread
beliefs that wives can trigger violent behavior in husbands and can benefit from the
violence. The flip-side of this patriarchal view of wives is the patriarchal view of hus-
bands as families’ main providers and as families’ principal moral and intellectual
anchors, whom all other family members—including the wife—should follow (Gerber,
1995; Haj-Yahia & Uysal, 2008, 2011; Moghadam, 1992).
Nonetheless, we should note that substantial percentages of the students indicated
their willingness to help battered women. This tendency reflects, among other pre-
cepts, the principal values that prevail in collectivist societies (Haj-Yahia, 2000; Haj-
Yahia & Sadan, 2008). One such collectivist society is Taiwan’s (Thornton & Lin,
1994). Collectivist values include family and community solidarity, mutual support,
and the common destiny shared by family members and the community. A majority of
our study’s participants (72.4%-96.4%) supported the idea that formal social services
and law enforcement should help battered women. This is perhaps one of the most
surprising and interesting results of our study, insofar as traditional and collectivist
societies usually engage in mutual help at informal levels of the collective (e.g., in the
nuclear and extended family, and in local charity organizations): In this way, the prob-
lem of wife beating can remain, to a considerable extent, a private matter between
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1055

violent men and battered women. This curious result perhaps reflects the processes of
social, cultural, political, and economic transitions that have been taking place in
Taiwan in recent decades (Thornton & Lin, 1994).
Legal changes in Taiwan (the passage of the Domestic Violence Prevention Act in
1998) may also have strengthened students’ willingness to help battered women. Some
of the social work students participating in our study may have learned in their course-
work or elsewhere that they are bound by law to report family violence. This point
raises an important issue: Our participants were young, educated students of social
work who undoubtedly had been exposed to a considerable breadth of knowledge dur-
ing this transitional period in Taiwan’s history; hence, the participants might have
reflected the aforementioned transitional processes more than older or less educated
Taiwanese would have.
Although it is true that our participants tended to approve of help for battered
women, a high percentage of participants did not approve of divorce as a solution to
the problem of violence against women. These comparative results indicate that, not-
withstanding the palpable changes in Taiwanese society, many Taiwanese may still
view family cohesion as more important than the safety of battered wives (Thornton &
Lin, 1994). In fact, preserving the continuity of families is a potent value not only in
most traditional and patriarchal societies but also in most transitional societies
(Thornton & Lin, 1994).
As indicated, a substantial percentage of the participants tended to hold violent
husbands responsible for their behavior. Nonetheless, a non-negligible percentage of
students expressed some level of disapproval for PVA. This disapproval may reflect
the patriarchal tendency to treat punishment of violent husbands as a harmful diminu-
tion of their control over family life, of their dominance in public spheres, and of their
theoretical superiority over women and children (Dobash & Dobash, 1992).
In our study, the more frequently the participants had witnessed interparental vio-
lence during childhood, the more likely they were to believe that battered wives are
responsible for being beaten. None of the other five beliefs, however, could be signifi-
cantly explained by either participants’ witnessing of interparental violence during
childhood or participants’ experiencing of parental violence during childhood. These
findings can be contrasted with the findings of previous research on Palestinian physi-
cians, which revealed an interesting correlation: The higher their levels of exposure to
family violence, the more the physicians tended to approve of husbands’ violence
against their wives (Haj-Yahia, 2010). The present study’s findings contradict the find-
ings of previous research pertaining to medical students from Turkey (Haj-Yahia &
Uysal, 2008) and Sri Lanka (Haj-Yahia & de Zoysa, 2007): Their studies present evi-
dence that considerable variance in the students’ beliefs about wife beating is attribut-
able to the students’ witnessing of interpersonal violence as well as to the students’
experiencing of parental violence earlier in life.
Consequently, the results of this study are partially consistent with social learning
theory, which argues that violent behavior, beliefs, and attitudes that condone such
behavior are learned through various socialization processes that occur mainly in
childhood and adolescence, and are transmitted from one generation to the next (Hines
1056 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

& Saudino, 2002; Jasinski, 2001; Kelly et al., 2011; Mihalic & Elliot, 1997).
Accordingly, when people are exposed to violent behavior as witnesses or through
personal experience, if that behavior is not denounced by society at large and by influ-
ential people in particular, it will be internalized and emulated on the basis of the
assumption that such behavior is socially acceptable and justified (Hines & Saudino,
2002).
An additional finding of our study is that the third component of the conceptual
framework, trauma symptoms, did not contribute significantly to explaining the vari-
ance in the Taiwanese social work students’ beliefs about wife beating. This finding is
consistent with the results of previous studies (e.g., Haj-Yahia & de Zoysa, 2007; Haj-
Yahia & Uysal, 2008), which found that personal and intrapsychic variables, including
traumatic symptoms, are not related to beliefs about wife beating.
In examining all three theoretical perspectives of the conceptual framework, the
results of the present study clearly show that factors related to patriarchal ideology are
far more important predictors of the six beliefs about wife beating than are factors
derived from social learning theory and the intrapersonal perspective. This finding
might be due to the fact that Chinese culture is strongly patriarchal and collectivistic,
and that the culture’s tolerance for male violence against women leads to pervasive
victim-blaming attitudes and behaviors among Chinese people, including college stu-
dents (Lee, 2000; Tang et al., 2002; Yu, 2005). The present study’s results also suggest
that adherence to different beliefs about wife beating might be predicted by various
factors that we did not examine in the present study. Because this study was the first to
examine social work students’ beliefs about wife beating in Chinese societies, the
research findings should be viewed as exploratory, and there is a need for future stud-
ies to examine various predictors of different beliefs related to wife beating.

Implications for Future Research and Theory Development

In this study, we examined two major variables that derived from patriarchal ideology
and that functioned as potential predictors of the participants’ beliefs about wife beat-
ing: attitudes toward women and expectations of marriage. Clearly, there are many
other variables that can be derived from patriarchal ideology and that can function as
possible predictors of beliefs about wife beating. Hence, future studies might examine
variables such as gender-role stereotypes, familial patriarchal beliefs, hostile attitudes
toward women, benevolent sexism, sexual conservatism, perceptions of family honor,
male dominance and male centeredness, and religiosity. Furthermore, future research
on beliefs about wife beating (among students, practitioners, and ordinary people)
should also examine the extent to which those beliefs can be attributed to structural
elements of patriarchy in a given society, as reflected in the “low status women gener-
ally hold relative to men in the family and in economic, educational, political, and
religious institutions” (Yllö & Straus, 1990, p. 384).
Regarding the second component of our study’s conceptual framework (i.e., social
learning theory), Bandura (1978) argued that violence can be learned from two pri-
mary sources besides the family: culture (including subcultures) and the media.
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1057

Although the present study examined the relationship between participants’ exposure
to family violence and their beliefs about wife beating, it did not address the extent to
which those beliefs have been learned from culture and media. Accordingly, there is a
need for future research that rigorously examines the extent to which people’s expo-
sure to media and people’s major affiliations (e.g., national, ethnicity, religion) as well
as people’s main subculture (e.g., training for social work professions) are related to
people’s beliefs about wife beating.
Although the sample of participants in the study was heterogeneous in terms of
religious and ethnic affiliation, we did not ask them about their worldviews, values,
norms, and lifestyles prevailing in these religious and ethnic groups. Hence, future
studies should examine the extent to which these variables can influence people’s
beliefs about various issues relating to domestic violence in general and beliefs about
wife beating in particular (e.g., family and familism, marital relations, the status of
men and women, approaches to resolving conflicts, household management). It is also
important for future studies to examine the relationship between people’s culturally
diverse types of exposure to violent behavior and these people’s negative or positive
beliefs about wife beating.
In our study, neither the participants’ attendance/non-attendance at a family vio-
lence course nor the participants’ year of studies explained a significant amount of
variance in any of the six beliefs about wife beating. Accordingly, research should
more comprehensively examine the possible relevance of these two factors, as well as
the relevance of the personal and educational processes underlying these factors, to
students’ beliefs about wife beating. A specific topic important to future research is the
influence that developmental, intrapersonal, ethical, moral, academic, and profes-
sional processes can have on students’ beliefs about wife beating in their coursework
and fieldwork practicum. In addition, it might be worthwhile to examine social work
programs’ curriculum and students’ fieldwork practicum experiences, either of which
might influence the students’ beliefs about wife beating.
Although the relevance of personal symptoms (e.g., PTSD, hostility, anxiety, and
depression) and personality variables (e.g., personality disorders) to violence against
women has been examined extensively in recent decades (see, for example, Jasinski,
2001; Walker et al., 2015), there is a serious dearth of research on the relationship
between these variables and beliefs about wife beating. Consequently, researchers
should empirically examine such variables, particularly as they derive from micro-
oriented theories. Among these variables are self-image, self-esteem, fear, anxiety,
PTSD, stress, anger, frustration, and pathological jealousy. Any one of these might
correlate significantly with beliefs about wife beating.
Notwithstanding these issues, the results of the present study provide compelling
evidence that Taiwanese social work students’ beliefs about wife beating are partially,
but significantly, explained by several predictors derived from our proposed theoreti-
cal conceptual framework. Research investigating beliefs about wife beating would do
well to adopt a holistic and integrative perspective, especially when investigating
these beliefs as held by social work students and, indeed, by students training in
any other therapeutic disciplines. Such an integrative framework might rely on and
1058 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 61(9)

incorporate social exchange theory, resource theory, family stress theory, symbolic interac-
tionist theories, and frustration-aggression theory, among others (Jasinski, 2001).

Limitations of the Study

Notwithstanding the abundance of data obtained from this study, several limitations
merit our attention. First, although the CTS has well-established reliability as a mea-
sure of experiencing and witnessing different patterns of family violence, there are
several issues that are yet to be addressed regarding the use of this measure. In particu-
lar, we used the CTS in this study to measure participants’ exposure to violence in their
families of origin before the age of 18, and we considered participants’ entire age span
to be one life stage. Hence, we did not measure the extent of participants’ exposure to
family violence during different periods in their childhood. Furthermore, although we
asked students about their exposure to violence, we did not ask about the contexts in
which the exposure to violence had taken place. Nor did we ask about their
interpretation(s) of their exposure to each of the violent acts during different stages of
their childhood as reported in the CTS, compared with their interpretation(s) at the
time of their participation in the study. Therefore, our present study did not examine
the possible relationship between participants’ historical interpretations of family vio-
lence and their beliefs about wife beating.
Another limitation of our study concerns partial or distorted reporting by partici-
pants. Because the students may have forgotten or repressed some of the violence that
they witnessed or experienced during childhood, their reports may be incomplete or
inaccurate, in turn weakening the correlation between the participants’ exposure to
family violence and their beliefs about wife beating. Future research can address these
limitations by rigorously examining the contexts in which the students were exposed
to family violence and by asking the participants about their past and present interpre-
tations of the violence, as well as by obtaining data about their exposure to family
violence from more than one source in the participants’ families (e.g., a sibling, a
parent).
Third, we made concerted efforts to adapt our study’s questionnaire to the Chinese
language and culture, as well as to maintain its face validity and content validity fol-
lowing collaboration with professional judges. Nevertheless, no information exists in
the literature about other types of validity (e.g., criterion validity, discriminant valid-
ity, construct validity) pertaining to any of the measures in the Chinese version of the
questionnaire. Accordingly, future research in this area should adopt methodological
procedures to obtain information on those types of validity for the Chinese version of
all scales in the questionnaire.

Implications for Professional Socialization

The results of this study have some implications for the professional socialization of
social work students. In particular, the social work curriculum should incorporate con-
tent emphasizing that there is no justification for violence against women, which
Haj-Yahia and Shen 1059

enhances students’ awareness of the suffering experienced by battered women. In

these ways, schools of social work can challenge and debunk students’ beliefs that
women benefit from their beating and that battered women are responsible for being
beaten. Furthermore, schools should also challenge students’ beliefs that abusive hus-
bands are not responsible for their violence. In addition, curriculum and fieldwork
practicum should strengthen students’ willingness to help battered women while
enhancing students’ awareness of and sensitivity to the physical, psychological, and
marital consequences of violence against women.
Academic and training programs for social work students should invest in enhanc-
ing students’ awareness of sexist, traditional, conservative, and patriarchal attitudes
toward women as well as non-egalitarian expectations of marriage and family life. By
paying attention to these perspectives, students can gain considerable insight into a
given perspective’s relevance to their beliefs about wife beating.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to extend their gratitude to Professor Yueh-Ching Chou.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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