Test of Family of Origin Structural Models of Male Verbal and Physical Aggression

Abstract

Using a convenience sample of 152 married or cohabiting couples, this study tested different theoretical models of male aggression toward a female intimate that addressed the relation between physical and verbal aggression variables and family of origin violence, psychological symptoms, and marital satisfaction. Results of covariance structural analysis procedures provided general support for the proposed models. Results indicated that physical violence witnessed in one's family of origin was predictive of greater psychological distress in adulthood for men and women. Husbands' reports of psychological symptomatology were an important path to their own display of physical and verbal aggression; this relation was not true for women's symptomatology reports and their partners' aggression displays. Marital satisfaction was found to have a significant negative relation with both wives' reports of their husbands' verbal aggression toward them and husbands' reports of verbal aggression toward their wives. The findings for the physical aggression model closely paralleled those found for the verbal models.