Date of Award

Summer 2021

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Suzanne C. Swan

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined as physical, sexual, or psychological violence or aggression by a current or previous partner or spouse. Articles on IPV among Latinxs often speculate that Latinx gender role attitudes, such as marianismo, caballerismo , or machismo, cause IPV among Latinxs. Traditional machismo is the belief that men should be controlling and dominant. Caballerismo is the idea that men should protect their families. Marianismo is the belief that women should be submissive, virtuous and chaste, and self-sacrificing for their families. However, most research on IPV has failed to actually measure Latinx gender role attitudes (Sabina, 2016; Klevens, 2007). The overall objective of this study was to examine a culturally informed model of a mechanism that accounts for the association between gender role attitudes and risk of Latino men perpetrating IPV. The central hypothesis of the current study was that men who report that their ideal female partner should embody more Marianismo and who report that their current female partner does not embody these characteristics (idealpartner discrepancy) would be more likely to report IPV male perpetration. Additionally, this study hypothesized that men who report high discrepancies between their endorsement of Machismo and perceive that their female partner endorsement of Machismo is different from theirs (gender role discrepancy) would be more likely to report IPV male perpetration. Furthermore, high ideal-perceived partner discrepancy for Marianismo and higher gender role discrepancy for Machismo would be related to low relationship satisfaction, and lower levels of relationship satisfaction would be related to higher rates of IPV perpetration; therefore, it was hypothesized that relationship satisfaction would function as a mediator between gender role discrepancies and IPV perpetration. Exploratory analyses were proposed for gender role discrepancy of Caballerismo and IPV perpetration and relationship satisfaction. Results showed that Latino men with higher ideal-current partner discrepancy for the Marianismo scales of Virtuous and Chaste and Subordinate to Others reported higher IPV perpetration, and this association was mediated by relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction did not mediate the association between perceived discrepancy of Machismo and IPV perpetration. However, relationship satisfaction mediated the association between perceived discrepancy of Caballerismo and IPV perpetration.

Rights

© 2021, Melek Yildiz Spinel

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