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What this Psychological study examined was maybe the biggest negative effector of these relationships and that is the mixture of alcohol and problem solving in marital interactions. Alcohol in excessive nature was reported in the violence surveys consistently. Many wives of these husbands that have been battered reported their husbands as either heavy drinkers or problem drinkers. Leonard and Roberts’s study showed 40-60% of these woman labeled their husbands as alcoholics. Reports also have shown that husbands that are frequently drunk have had a higher rate of violence reported toward their spouses. The past experimental studies have shown alcohol consuming by males to cause aggression towards other males, but no other studies have been conducted showing alcohol consumption effect on marital aggression. Thus, Leonard and Roberts study is the first thanks to the conflict-resolution paradigm created by researchers of marital aggression. In this paradigm married couples are recorded on videotape and the research is caterorigized in to forms of aggression shown by the couples. There have been other studies conducted on aggression of husbands on their wives that have shown to be reasonably coherent. These past studies have shown violent husbands tend to insult their wives, and differ with their beliefs, the aggressive men tended to yell and to give very aggressive gestures. A past study had tested figures that were non-alcoholics and were given alcohol and a particular world topic to speak about. The study did not show aggression between the figures, although the people were not necessarily married and there was not a placebo used in these studies, which could not prove that the psychopharmacological effects and cognitive expectancy impact would influence aggression. There, were 2 groups, which Leonard and Roberts used for their study. The groups that they used was a group of physically aggressive married couples where the husband had shown some form of physical abuse towards their wife within the first year of their marriage. The second group was a group of married couples in which the husband did not physically abuse their wives. They stated 2 hypothesis for their effect of alcohol on the study, the study in which the alcohol was taken by the husband they expected to see a great increase in aggression by the husband towards their wives by the couples which had stated past aggressive behavior. They did expect a little aggression in the couples that had no prior aggressive behavior, but far less that in the other couples. The participants that they recruited were 60 couples of past aggressive occurrences and 75 couples of no past aggressive behavior. The couples were paid and transported for the study. The participants were recruited from a Buffalo Newlywed Study and also through advertisements in newspapers for the study. The participants for the study were put through a screening where they had to meet certain criteria such as being married between 1 to 3 years, and the husband had to be between 21 to 33. The couples were picked for the 2 different groups the aggressive group having some kind of report of physical aggression and the other group was the group in which there was never any sort of physical aggression since the couple had been married. They did not include couples in which there had been great amounts of physical abuse. Leonard and Roberts also decided to study the differences between the groups and found there not to be any obstantial differences. There were a number of measures assessed in Leonard and Roberts study. The first measure was separated into two pieces. It asked about premarital aggression and then marital aggression. The second measure was verbal aggression, which was thrown in with the first measure. The third measure was the alcohol, the amount taken in and also the measurement of the Alcohol Dependence Scale, which scaled the loss of behavioral control associated with alcohol. The 4th measure was the couple’s feelings about their marriage whether they thought their relationship was good or not. The fifth measure was the post interaction questionnaire in which each couple took after their meeting. What this did was to help better define the results of this study. The final measure had to do with the wife and husbands guess of how much the husband drank and his intoxication level. The procedure which was taken for the study began with the couples being told about what was going to be observed, what procedures would be taken and that the husband may be put into a group who may be put under the influence of alcohol. The experimenters were not informed of what group the couples were in when they showed up. The setting in which the couples were placed was one that had a home type feeling with a living room and dining room type setting. The experimenter did test the participants for intoxication level before they began the study to make sure nobody was affected by alcohol before the study. The people who had a level of intoxication were sent back home for a later date of observation. A test was taken after all this and what it did was to assess what marital problems were already existent within the relationship. The experimenter used these problems and was able to get the couples to rate the disagreements by greater or less conflict. Some couples had problems getting started talking or coming up with disagreements but the experimenter was able to help them through and express their issues. The initial stage was to start the couples in the setting to get them comfortable with their settings and they were told to just act like themselves on a normal day and discuss daily rituals, such as, (How was work today?), and so on. After this introduction the experimenter gave them a conflict disagreement to talk about. This initial disagreement was not rated as their top area of conflict. After the couples had engaged in their first stage of disagreement interaction, the husbands were taken into separate rooms from the wives. This is where the husbands were either given alcohol, a placebo or no alcohol at all. In order for the placebo group to work the experimenter had each group gargle mouth wash, so that the husbands couldn’t distinguish the mixture of vodka and tonic water. Each group perceived to have about 3 to 4 shots in their drinks. The trick was that there was considerably less vodka mixed into the placebos group tonic water than there was with the alcohol group. Both groups were instructioned to finish their drinks within 15 minutes and they were given an additional 15 minutes to fill out the questionnaire given to them as well. After they had completed these assignments each group was administered a Breathalyzer test where they were given fixed cards by the experimenters, which stated that the alcohol group and placebo group had, blew a 0.4. The fixed card then was to make the placebo group perceive to have drank more alcohol than they actually did. After they got their card they then went back to the video taped setting with their wives. The couple was instructioned to speak for a couple of minutes about anything they wanted except about any of the disagreements they were assigned to. Of course most of the couples didn’t listen and they wound up talking about their disagreements. When the experimenter came back the couples were instructioned to converse about what was rated their number one disagreement. The wives in the alcohol and placebo group were explained to that their husbands had been drinking and were somewhat intoxicated. After the discussion the husbands of the placebo group were told about their actual intoxication levels and that they had actually not drank as much as what was perceived to be in their glass. Now it’s time to see the results of the study. What the Leonard and Roberts video taped setting was trying to explain was is one spouse’s negative behavior effective toward the other spouse’s negative behavior. What they are trying to see is if each spouse is dependent on one another on their negative behaviors. As Leonard and Roberts stated in their hypothesis the aggressive couples conflicts were much more severe than those of the non-aggressive couples. The experimenters of the study did not know who had received the alcohol and placebo and who hadn’t received any alcohol in order to eliminate experimenter bias in the study. Now for the alcohol levels of the husbands, they were again tested after the disagreement discussion with their wives. Alcohol levels did drop off slightly after the session. Both the aggressive and non-aggressive husbands alcohol levels were the same. For the alcohol and placebo groups both couples took questionnaires after they were finished to tell how intoxicated the husbands thought they were and how intoxicated the wife thought their husband was. The tests did reveal what Leonard and Roberts expected and that was that wives of the alcohol group did say that their husbands had more alcohol than that compared to the wives of the placebo group and wives of the placebo group results were significantly more than that of the wives of the non-alcohol group. The husbands reported exactly as the wives did. Although the husbands of the aggressive group reported that they thought they were less intoxicated than that of the non-aggressive group. The study did show that aggressive husbands were more negative towards their wives than those of the non-aggressive group, which was expected. Another, test was taken by the husbands to analyze the husbands problem solving and positivity. The test did state that husbands of the aggressive group actually did show to have better problem solving than those of those of the non-aggressive group. Although the test also analyzed that husbands of the aggressive group did have more negative attitudes, which caused the wife to also act in a negative way, which is known as negative reciprocity. The wives behaviors were reflective of that of their husbands. The aggressive husbands wives did tend to show much more negativity than those of the non-aggressive groups. The couples in the non-aggressive groups did tend to show far less interest and discussion on their disagreements for their 15-minute session. The aggressive groups were much more talkative and negative during their session. The alcohol study did show that husbands who had received alcohol or a placebo did show and increase and negativity, showing that alcohol can have an effect on marital aggression. In Leonard and Roberts discussion they stated that there have not been a tremendous amount of studies done on marital aggression. Their study only showed the effects of marital aggression in the early years of marriage. For as I stated earlier that the studies were done on couples who have only been married in the 1-3 year range. The other studies that have been done in this area came up with very similar results. It has been found that there seems to be more negative and physical aggression in the earlier years of marriage than in couples that have been married for many years. Their hypothesis wasn’t exactly supported in the alcohol phase. They had expected that alcohol would show more negative behavior in both the aggressive and non-aggressive couples, but that wasn’t the case. Alcohol did show to increase negativity in the aggressive groups, but it didn’t change much in the non-aggressive groups. Leonard and Robert’s also showed that the placebo was not effective in tricking the husband into believing he was more intoxicated than he really was. The placebo also has not produced a significant increase in aggression or negativity compared to those of the alcohol group. Finally, the study did prove that alcohol does seem to increase the negativity in already aggressive husbands. It wasn’t as significant as Leonard and Roberts had initially expected but their study did prove that alcohol could be a significant factor in young marriages and their aggression. Bibliography: Word Count: 2013
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