Beliefs on Marital Violence Among Portuguese Adolescents: Monitoring Their Evolution and Relationship With Dating Violence

Abstract

In the last two decades, the problem of violence in the family sphere in particular and in intimate relationships in general has been on the agenda for Portuguese governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Several initiatives and campaigns have been launched, which are aimed at reducing occurrence of this violence, particularly among teenagers. This present study aims to assess the evolution in adolescents' attitudes and behaviors concerning intimate partner violence. We collected data from a sample of adolescents (n = 913) to compare with corresponding data collected 7 years ago by Neves and Nogueira (2010) in a sample that had identical sociodemographic characteristics (n = 899). Both cohorts resided in the same areas in the northeastern region of Portugal. The instruments used were the Scale of Beliefs about Marital Violence (ECVC) and the Marital Violence Inventory (IVC; Neves & Nogueira, 2010). The results indicate that although respondents tend to reject traditional beliefs on marital violence more now than in the past, especially male and older respondents, the percentage of dating violence reports has not decreased. Among girls, there was even an increase in perpetration of emotional and mild physical violence. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy between the evolution of attitudes and behaviors and make suggestions for improvement in the actions implemented among teenagers to increase their effectiveness.