Causal Attributions for Marital Violence and Emotional Response by Women Seeking Refuge

Abstract

The aim was to examine the association between causal attributions for marital violence and emotional reactions of 15 women from two refuges in Northern Ireland. The women who perceived the cause of the violence as stable and uncontrollable scored higher on the Avoidance and Intrusion subscales of the Impact of Events Scale, respectively. In addition, more global causal attributions were associated with higher scores on Intrusion and Avoidance as well as depressive symptomatology as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory. No evidence was, however, found to support the view that these women were engaged in self-blaming (attributions tended to be overwhelmingly external).