Does Men's Positivity Moderate or Mediate the Effects of their Abuse on Women's Relationship Quality?

Abstract

Taylor's (1991) mobilization-minimization theory of coping with stress provides one perspective to understand counterintuitive findings from research on abuse of women (e.g., many abused women love their partner and report relational satisfaction). Extension of her theory led to the hypothesis that men's affection and caring behavior mediates the effects of their abuse on women's evaluative relational judgments (relational well-being, satisfaction, happiness, and commitment). Using an abused subsample from a larger study of low-income, ethnically diverse women, we tested whether men's positivity (caring behavior, relational satisfaction, and happiness) moderates their abuse (threats and acts of violence and sexual aggression) as suggested by Lloyd (1996) or functions as a mediator. The results of structural equation modeling with 717 African-American, Euro-American, and Mexican-American women indicated that Men's Positivity did not moderate the effects of Men's Abuse on Relational Quality. Partial and complete mediation provided similar fits, with the full mediation model accepted as the most parsimonious. This held for women who had sustained severe, potentially life-threatening violence. Neither ethnicity nor relational type (dating, cohabiting, married) functioned as moderators. Thus, when women are abused they apparently give more weight to their perceptions of the positive aspects of their partner when evaluating the quality of their relationship. Limitations of the study as well as implications for therapy and future research are discussed.

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