Attitudes to Violence and Spiritual Well-Being among Married Individuals

Abstract

The most common domestic violence is spousal violence against women in Turkey. Although spousal violence may seem to be concerning two people in an intimate relationship, it is actually considered as one of the problems that goes beyond the family and affects the peace of the society. Spiritual well-being discusses the relationship between the meaning of life, the pleasure or satisfaction one receives from this life, and the values that can be called spiritual. In this respect, it is a type of well-being and includes both spirituality and well-being. Studies show that religious commitment prevents spousal violences; spirituality and religious commitment reduce violence against married women and increase marital satisfaction. This study aims to examine the relationship between married individuals' attitudes towards violence and their spiritual well-being scores. The research was carried out with married participants living in Muratpaşa, Antalya. Married participants did not participate in the study as couples, but as individuals. 269 (56.8%) participants were female and 205 (43.2%) were male, and thus, the data of 474 participants were studied in the research. Intimate Violence Responsibility Scale (IVRS) and Spiritual Well-Being Scale forms and socio-demographic information form were applied to the participants. SPSS 22.0 was used for the statistical analysis of the data obtained from the scales while descriptive statistics T-Test and Anova-Tukey were performed during the evaluation phase. It was determined that the data set showed a normal distribution and parametric tests were used The relationship between dependent and independent variables was tested with Pearson correlation. When the sub-dimensions of attitude towards violence and spiritual well-being are examined in terms of gender variable, the sub-dimension of violence was significantly higher in women while control and abuse sub-dimensions were significantly higher in men. It is observed that gender does not differ between the sub-scores of spiritual well-being. This situation can be evaluated as the factors that create spiritual feelings do not create differences between genders in society as a supra-gender phenomenon. When the sub-dimensions of attitudes towards violence of the participants and their spouses are compared in terms of the age variable, it is seen that the control attitude towards violence of the older age (66 years and over) participants is lower than the younger participants. According to the findings related to education, it was found that those who graduated from high school had significantly less control and abuse mean scores than other education levels. In addition, no significant relationship was found between the education level of high school students and the violence sub-dimension. According to the study, those with a low level of education exhibit more verbal violence than those with a higher education level. It is expected that violence will decrease with the increase in the level of education, but the reason for the contradictory data in the literature may be related to the quality of education. Carrying out new studies on this issue may be useful. According to the research findings, while there was a significant negative relationship between the sub-dimensions of transcendence and violence and the sub-dimensions of control and abuse, a positive relationship was found between harmony with nature, violence, control and abuse. It has been found that spiritual well-being (transcendence) increased, and the scores of attitude towards violence decreased. In this sense, it is suggested that spiritual education programs will be influential in changing the attitudes towards violence. It is suggested that it would be beneficial to include spiritual education in education programs.