Potential Abusers

Essay # 25050

Child, Youth Issues > Child Abuse
Psychology > Behaviorism
Psychology > Child and Adolescent

Potential Abusers

Discusses different theories on whether or not victims of child abuse grow up to become abusers themselves.

1,121 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2002 United States

Paper Summary:

Review of statistics and literature in cases of child abuse victims with correlations to becoming and abuser as an adult. Discusses the four social factors that were found to have an effect on whether or not victims of child abuse became abusive themselves - functional social support, tangible social support, quality of family relationships and quality of the primary intimate relationship.

From the Paper:

The notion that abused children become abusive parents is extremely prevalent and accepted as generally accurate. This idea is referred to as "The intergenerational hypothesis of abuse" or "The intergenerational theory of abuse." As the moniker would suggest, this theory subscribes to the strong correlations between abusive parents and the idea that their childhoods having had been abusive as well. Parents who abuse, suffered abuse at the hands of their parents and thus, the violence towards children is passed down from one to generation to another in the family. However, that theory has come under some scrutiny as of late. Many researchers have found mitigating factors that could possibly break the intergenerational theory chain. I will discuss evidence that supports and also disagrees with the strength of the intergenerational hypothesis.