Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 37, Issues 2–3, February–March 2013, Pages 181-199
Child Abuse & Neglect

Finding the way out: A non-dichotomous understanding of violence and depression resilience of adolescents who are exposed to family violence

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2012.11.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

In this cross-sectional study on family violence and resilience in a random sample of 5,149 middle school students with a mean age of 14.5 years from four EU-countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) we examined the prevalence of exposure to family violence, and we worked from the premise that adolescent can be resilient to family violence. We expanded the definition of resilience to include the absence of both physical aggression and depression symptoms in adolescents who have been exposed to violence in their families and extended our understanding of resilience to include three levels which we describe as: “resilient”, “near-resilient” and “non-resilient”, thus responding to calls for a more fluid and paths-based understanding of resilience.

Methods

Data were collected via self-administered surveys consisting of a number of subscales that investigate depression symptoms and physical aggression. The study was analyzed with a three-stage strategy using logistic regression procedures, in which regression analyses were conducted separately for girls and boys using seven steps for modeling the three resilience levels.

Results

More than 30% of our respondents reported experiencing family violence. Contrary to previous research findings, our data showed that structural characteristics like country, gender, socio-economic status and migration status were minimally predictive of violence and depression resilience at any level. Overall, for both sexes, despite some small but significant sex differences, resilience is strongly linked to personal and relational characteristics and the absence of experiences that involved exposure to and direct experiences with violence. Resilience supportive factors confirmed by this study are: higher emotional self-control, talking with parents or friends about violence, seeking help to avoid violence, and not endorsing aggression supportive beliefs. Also key to resilience are irrespective of country, gender, and SES are lower levels of experience with: victimization by boys, engagement in physical altercation with boys, parental abuse, witnessing of physical spousal abuse, exposure to an authoritarian (harsh) parenting style and verbal aggression from teachers.

Conclusion

From a content perspective this means that resilience is more than the absence of one or two behavioral factors. This also means that positive changes in resilience levels can be facilitated by supporting constructive personal and social relationships with family members, peers, and teachers. These results are discussed in terms of their practical implications for policy and intervention.

Introduction

A large body of existing research persuasively indicates that witnessing violence or psychological aggression between parents and experiencing child maltreatment are common experiences for adolescents in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US; Eaton et al., 2008, Hussey et al., 2006, Kassis et al., 2010). Almost 28% of adolescents in the US-National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health reported physical abuse by caregivers during childhood (Hussey et al., 2006). Research also shows that this exposure to violence is associated with a number of individual and family characteristics: gender, family socioeconomic status, and substance misuse (Aisenberg and Herrenkohl, 2008, Gilbert et al., 2009, Selner-O’Hagan et al., 1998). Moreover, it has been shown that those adolescents who experience one kind of family violence often experience co-occurring forms of family violence (Herrenkohl et al., 2003, Sousa et al., 2011, Yates et al., 2003).

The investigation of the effects of violence in the family on the development of adolescents has emerged as a salient field in the social sciences (Hussey et al., 2006, Loeber et al., 2008a, Prinzie et al., 2008). As well, exposure to family violence during adolescence is an established risk factor for the development of violent behavior in adolescence (Gilbert et al., 2009, Hussey et al., 2006, Kassis et al., 2010, Kitzmann et al., 2003, Yates et al., 2003). Depression in children and adolescents has also been linked with exposure to violence and with low family attachment, as has the co-occurance of depression symptoms and aggression (Dunn et al., 2011, Kmett Danielson et al., 2010, Stormshak et al., 2011, Zinzow et al., 2009), and can be observed in children in elementary school (Leadbeater & Hoglund, 2009) and in adolescence and young adulthood (Leadbeater, Thompson, & Gruppuso, 2012).

The main types of family violence that have been linked with both adolescents’ depression symptoms and violent behavior include physical maltreatment by parents (Gilbert et al., 2009, Hussey et al., 2006) and witnessing violence or psychological aggression between parents (Kitzmann et al., 2003, Yates et al., 2003). This research also shows that aggression and depression symptoms are symptomatic not only of individualized issues but also of suboptimal socialization conditions (Kassis et al., 2011), especially in families, and therefore, indicate the need for help not only at the individual, but also at the family level (Pollack, 1999). In order to understand what kind of help should be offered, we need to understand both the developmental pathways for depression symptoms and violence and the way out.

Although a large number of studies have established a significant association between exposure to family violence and the development of aggression and violence in adolescence (Hussey et al., 2006, Loeber et al., 2008a, Loeber et al., 2008b, Prinzie et al., 2008), fewer studies have examined the development of depression symptoms and the connection to experiencing violence in one's family (Brownfield and Thompson, 2005, Leadbeater et al., 1999). Additionally even fewer studies have examined resilience pathways out of the violence and depression cycle (Van der Put, Van der Laan, Stams, Deković, & Hoeve, 2011). As a consequence, the specific socialization patterns for violence resilience are unclear. Thus we cannot say whether resilience among children and youth who are raised in violent families is “just” the absence of these young people's violence and/or depression symptoms or something more (Smith-Osborne, 2008).

Further, because we also know that both violent behavior and depression symptoms are linked to physical maltreatment by parents (Artz et al., 2008, Gilbert et al., 2009, Hussey et al., 2006) and witnessing violence or psychological aggression between parents (Kitzmann et al., 2003, Yates et al., 2003), we believe it makes sense to develop an understanding of violence resilience that examines both aggression and depression symptoms.

Section snippets

A new theoretical framework for resilience: Resilience as a non-dichotomous concept

If we take seriously a broader understanding of resilience to the experience of family violence, we believe that we must define this concept more flexibly to include a continuum of levels of the severity of use of violence and the tendency to depression. Luthar, Cicchetti, and Becker (2000) draw our attention to the multidimensional nature of resilience. Masten (2001, p. 228) also argues for an expanded definition and urges us not to overlook resilience potentials that may be obscured by a

Predicting violence and depression resilience

A number of personal, relational, and structural factors have been identified as contributing to violence resilience. As Brownfield and Thompson (2005) have shown, young people who have a more internalized locus of control (that is they see themselves as having a choice in how they behave and what their future holds) are likely to be more resilient to violence. Thus, self-acceptance has been shown to contribute to protection against engaging in aggression and violence despite being exposed to

The study

The research that we report on here is part of a larger study entitled, Formation of non-violent behavior in school and during leisure time among young adults from violent families [The principal investigator on the team is Dr. Wassilis Kassis (University of Osnabrueck, Germany); the co-investigators are: Dr. Sabine Bohne (University of Osnabrueck, Germany), Mag. Elli Scambor, Dr. Christian Scambor and Mag. Lisa Mittischeck (Men's Counselling Centre and Research Institute, Graz, Austria), Dipl.

Analysis results of stage 1: Identifying family violence (gender-, SES-, migration-status-, and country-specific analyses)

Of the 5,149 young people who participated in our research, 1,644 (31.9%) had been affected by family violence (see analytic strategy, stage 1, for the computation of the composite variable “family violence”). In these families, 3 kinds of experiences with violence were found: (1) the young person was physically abused by his/her parents (752 young people or 14.6%); (2) the young person witnessed the parents physically abusing each other (460 young people or 8.9%); or (3) the young person was

Discussion

It is well-known that exposure to family violence harms the development of adolescents (Sousa et al., 2011, Spano et al., 2010). We therefore begin our discussion by stressing the inordinate level of exposure to family violence and therefore risk for harm that we found in our sample: More than 30% of the adolescents who responded to our survey reported experiencing family violence: By the age of 14.5, every fourth respondent had been physically abused by his/her parents and almost every sixth

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