Source: “Red Traffic Light”/David Lofink/CC By 2.0
England recently passed a landmark law protecting the victims of emotional abuse. The new law makes it a crime to engage in controlling behaviors through social media or through online stalking. By criminalizing such behaviors, which are all-too-common precursors to physical abuse in relationships, the new law offers an important level of protection to people suffering from coercive relationships and could even help to prevent such relationships from evolving into more extreme forms of abuse.
In the U.S., statistics show that well over 1 million people, primarily women, suffer from domestic abuse each year, typically at the hands of husbands, boyfriends, ex-husbands, or ex-boyfriends. In regions of the U.S. characterized by a strong orientation toward honor, rates of the most extreme form of domestic abuse — domestic homicide — are likely to be higher than they are in other regions, at least among Caucasians.1 According to studies by social psychologists Joseph Vandello and Dov Cohen,2,3 this elevated pattern of relationship violence is likely the result of some men attempting to “defend their honor” by controlling their partners or ex-partners, or by punishing them for real or perceived acts of betrayal. In honor cultures, where defense of reputation takes center-stage in social life, there are few threats to a man as powerful as the threat of being cheated on by his romantic partner.
Other research4 reveals a number of less severe forms of controlling behaviors that relationship partners sometimes engage in and that are predictive of actual domestic violence. Here is a list of 10 of these “red light” behaviors, known as “mate guarding” or “mate retention” tactics, that people should take as warning signs when they see them occur in their own or others’ relationships (although they are written from the perspective of a husband controlling his wife, they can occur in any relationship from any romantic partner):
1. Calls frequently to make sure wife is where she said she would be.
2. Does not take wife to a party where other men would be present.
3. Insists that she spend all her free time with him.
4. Becomes angry when she appears to flirt with other men.
5. Stares angrily at any man who looks at her for too long.
6. Gets his friends to beat up someone who was interested in her.
7. Takes his wife away from a gathering where other men were around.
8. Spends all his free time with her so that she could not meet anyone else.
9. Shows interest in another woman to make her angry.
10. Punches another man who flirts with her.
People frequently construe these red light behaviors in a positive way, putting a psychological “spin” on them that can minimize concern and even justify them when they occur. For instance, a woman whose partner exhibits such behaviors might decide that they simply show how committed he is to the relationship. She might even believe that such behaviors are desirable in a relationship partner, rather than warning signs of potential danger. After all, she might tell herself, who wants to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t get a little jealous from time to time?
In a recent study of over 300 married women conducted by Kiersten Baughman at The University of Oklahoma, this is precisely what women tended to do if they embraced the cultural ideology of honor.5 Indeed, although women overall reported more negative views of their husbands if he engaged in these mate guarding behaviors, this negative association between partner perceptions and mate guarding disappeared almost completely for women high in honor ideology. For these women, a partner who engaged in mate guarding was no less desirable than a partner who didn’t. As a consequence, such women might be expected to avoid telling anyone, seeking help, or leaving their partner when he turns from “mere” mate guarding to actual physical abuse. Baughman’s data suggest that women who scored high in honor ideology were, in fact, more likely to report that their husbands had engaged in mate guarding behaviors during the past year.
Culture has consequences, even for relationships. People bound by the ideology of honor might find themselves chained to an abusive partner and be unable to see their partner for who he or she really is.
References:
1. Vandello, J. A., & Cohen, D. (2008). Gender, culture, and men’s intimate partner violence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 652-667.
2. Vandello, J. A. & Cohen, D. (2003). Male honor and female fidelity: Implicit cultural scripts that perpetuate domestic violence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 997-1010.
3. Vandello, J. A., Cohen, D., Grandon, R., & Franiuk, R. (2009). Stand by your man: Indirect prescriptions for honorable violence and feminine loyalty in Canada, Chile, and the United States. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 81-104.
4. Buss, D. M., Shackelford, T. K., & McKibbin, W. F. (2008). The mate retention inventory-short form (MRI-SF). Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 322-334.
5. Baughman, K. (2016). From adolescence to adulthood: Intimate partner violence in honor cultures (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK.
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