PSY344H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Insomnia, Male Privilege, Startle Response
Document Summary
Victimology: no consistent typology for victims, despite myths to the contrary, domestic abuse victims cover all ethnicities, all levels of society, and all personality types. Components of battered woman syndrome: learned helplessness, lowered self-esteem. Impaired functioning: loss of assumption of safety, fear and terror, anger/rage, diminished alternatives, cycle of abuse, hypervigilance, high tolerance for cognitive inconsistency. Cycle of abuse: tension building phase, acute battering incident, contrition phase, positive and negative reinforcement powerfully affect behaviour, not all battering relationships follow this cycle (60-70%) Forensic assessment of bws: self-reports, medical records, interviews with family, friends, co-workers and others, abusive behaviour observation checklist. Intimidation: coercion and threats, emotional abuse (humiliation, minimization, denial, and blaming, use of children to control spouse. Isolation: use of (cid:498)male privilege(cid:499, economic/resource abuse. Battered woman defense: most battered women who kill get convicted, only 1/3 of homicides by battered women take place during a battering incident, problem of imminence and reasonableness.
