Intimate

Relationships

Rowland S.Miller

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C H A P T E R 12

Power and Violence

Power and Interdependence

◆ Violence in Relationships ◆ For Your Consideration

◆ Chapter Summary

Who calls the shots in your relationship? Do you usually get your way? Or do you and your partner trade the lead with each of you getting some of what you want? Most people say that an ideal relationship would be an equal partnership, with both partners sharing the ability to make important deci- sions and to influence one another; at the turn of the century, for instance, 90 percent of young women and 87 percent of young men said they believed that dating partners should have “exactly equal say” in the relationship (Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001). In addition, people clearly prefer friend- ships in which the partners share similar amounts of power to friendships in which one of the partners is typically the boss (Veniegas & Peplau, 1997). This may not seem surprising, but this preference for sharing power is an enormous departure from the traditional model endorsed by previous gen- erations, in which men were the dominant partners in heterosexual relation- ships, making all the important decisions and calling all the shots. These days, few people explicitly announce that they want to emulate this old-fashioned model, but figuring out how to achieve equality in a relationship can be much more complicated than it sounds. How should decision making work in an egalitarian relationship? Should the partners make all decisions together? Or does each partner take responsibility for making exactly half the decisions? Does it matter which decisions are important and which ones aren’t? Endors- ing equality in a relationship is a simple matter, but making it a reality is a much greater challenge.

This chapter will explore the ways in which social power operates in intimate relationships. Social power is the ability to influence the behavior of others and to resist their influence on us (Huston, 2002). I’ll identify some of the influences on power in relationships and consider the consequences of power for individuals and couples. Some of them, unfortunately, can be unpleasant.

12.1 POWER AND INTERDEPENDENCE

There are different ways to analyze social power, but the most widely adopted perspective is that of interdependence theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), which we examined in chapter 6. In this first half of the chapter, I’ll use interdepen- dency ideas to describe the bases on which power is built, the processes by which power is wielded, and the outcomes that are produced by its use.

Sources of Power

From an interdependency perspective, power is based on the control of valu- able resources. If I control access to something you want, you’ll probably be motivated to comply with my wishes (within reason) so that I’ll let you get it. I’ll then have power over you; I’ll be able to get you to do what I want, at least for a while. This is a simple idea, but (as you might expect) there are various subtleties involved in this view of social power.

First, the person who has power does not have to possess the desired resources; it is enough that he or she controls access to them. Imagine that you’re shopping with a friend at a flea market and you discover the rare imported bootleg concert DVD that you’ve wanted for months, but that you keep losing to higher bidders on eBay. Better yet, it’s cheap, but you don’t have enough cash with you, and you need a loan from your friend to buy the elu- sive disc. Your friend doesn’t have the object you desire, but his or her power in this situation will come from controlling your ability to get it. In a similar fashion, relationship partners can control our access to valuable interpersonal rewards—such as physical affection—and thereby have power over us.

Of course, one derives power from controlling a resource only if other peo- ple want it, and the greater their need or desire, the greater one’s power. The example of the rare DVD is an illustration of this: If you have only a mild inter- est in the disc, a friend with the money to buy it has only a little power over you. But if you want the disc desperately, your friend has more power and will be able to ask for a sizable favor in return. Whenever we want something badly (be it a rare DVD or interpersonal intimacy) and believe we cannot get it elsewhere, the person who has what we want is able to exert control over us.

We encountered an example of one person’s desire fueling another person’s power back in the box on page 183. The principle of lesser interest holds that in any partnership, the person who has less interest in continuing and maintain- ing the relationship has more power in that partnership (Waller & Hill, 1951). If your partner loves and needs you more than you love him or her, you’ll get to do what you want more often than not. This sounds cold blooded, but it’s true; in romantic relationships, the partner who is less committed to the relationship usually has more power (Lennon et al., 2013). I mentioned another example of this pattern in chapter 9 when I noted that men desire more sex, on average, than women do. Men’s greater interest in sex gives women power; it’s quite unro- mantic but rather enlightening to think of sex as a valuable resource that women can exchange for various benefits from men (Kruger, 2008). This arrangement is explicit in the case of prostitution when women trade sex for money, but it often also operates in more subtle ways in many romantic relationships. It’s not uncommon, for instance, for a woman to wait for a declaration of affection and emerging commitment from a man before allowing him access to sex.

Of course, if something we want is readily available elsewhere, we can just go there to get it, and the availability of alternative sources of desired resources is another critical factor in an interdependency perspective on power. If there is another friend at the flea market who can lend you the money you need, the first friend has less power over you. And if there are many people who would loan you the money, then you are not very dependent on any one of them, and not one of them has much power over you at all.

In the same fashion, the availability of alternatives influences the balance of power in an intimate relationship. Those with few alternatives to their existing partnerships (who therefore have low CLalts) will be more dependent on their relationships than will those with many other other potential partners (who thereby have high CLalts). And as we have just seen, being more dependent means having less power. If one partner has few alternatives and the other has many, there will be a larger imbalance of power than would be the case if they needed each other to similar degrees (Lennon et al., 2013).

In fact, differences in available alternatives may be one reason that men are typically more powerful than women in traditional marriages. When husbands work outside the home and their wives do not, they often have higher CLalts for at least two important reasons. First, they may encounter larger numbers of other potential partners, and second, they’re more likely to have the money to pursue them if they wish. In contrast, stay-at-home wives may not meet many other interesting men, and even if they do, they’re likely to be economically dependent on their husbands, having little money of their own. Thus, the bal- ance of power in a marriage sometimes changes when a wife enters the work force and gains new friends and money of her own (Fitch & Ruggles, 2000).

There are two more points to make about the interdependence perspective on power. First, interdependence theory recognizes two different broad types of power. On occasion, one can control a partner’s outcomes no matter what the partner does; in such cases, one has a form of power known as fate control: One can autocratically determine what outcomes a partner receives, thereby controlling the other’s fate. When she is his only option, a woman who refuses to have sex with her husband is exercising fate control; she can unilaterally determine whether or not sex occurs. A second, more subtle, type of power is behavior control. This occurs when, by changing one’s own behavior, one encourages a partner to alter his or her actions in a desirable direction, too. If a woman offers to provide a special backrub if her partner cleans the garage, she’s engaging in behavior control.

Of course, in almost all relationships, both partners have power over each other, and the last, and perhaps most essential, point of an interdependency perspective is that the interactions of two partners emerge from their mutual influence on one another. One partner’s power over the other may be matched by the other’s counterpower over the one, so that both partners are able to get each other to do what they want some of the time. For instance, a woman may have fate control over whether or not her husband has sex, but he probably has some behavior control over her in return; by cajoling her, pleasing her, or worse, threatening her, he may be able to get her to do what he wants. Two partners’ abilities to influence one another may be diverse and variable, being strong in some situations and weak in others, but both of them will routinely have some control over what the other does.

Types of Resources

So, power is based on the resources we control—but what kinds of resources are involved? Table 12.1 lists six bases of power first identified by French and Raven (1959); this scheme has been applied to all kinds of interactions, including those that occur in intimate relationships. The first two types, reward power and coercive power, refer to a person’s ability to bestow various rewards and punish- ments on someone else. The benefits and costs involved can be physical or mate- rial goods, such as a pleasant gift or a painful slap, or intangible, interpersonal gains and losses, such as reassuring approval or hurtful disdain (Raven, 2001). For example, if a husband craves a shoulder massage from his wife, she has reward power over him: She can rub his back or not, supplying or withholding a physical reward. But in return, he may have coercion power over her: If he doesn’t get his massage, he may sulk and be less affectionate, imposing intangible costs.

The capabilities to provide desired benefits or to impose aversive costs on our partners are very important and very influential, but there are other ways to influence people, too. Legitimate power exists when our partners believe that we have a reasonable right to tell them what to do, and they have an obligation to comply. In some cultures, for instance, a husband really is thought to be the boss, and a wife is supposed not only to love and honor him, but to obey him as well, doing whatever he asks. This form of legitimate power comes from being in a position of authority, but potent social norms can also impart legitimate power to requests that come from anyone (Raven, 2001). For instance, the norm of reciprocity encourages us to do unto others as they have done unto us, and if someone who has already done you a favor asks for some kindness in return, the norm obligates you to repay the good deed. Equity is also normative, and if your partner has done extra housework lately, an invitation to fold some laun- dry might be difficult to decline. Finally, a norm of social responsibility urges us to be generous to those who depend on us—to help those who cannot help themselves—and if your partner is sick in bed with the flu, a request for some juice may be hard to turn down. Any of these norms can impart power to a partner’s desires, making them very influential, at least temporarily.4

We have referent power over our partners when they adore us and wish to do what we want because they feel connected to us. Our wishes may change our partners’ preferences about what they want to do when they love us and want to stay close to us. Expert power exists when our partners recognize our superior knowledge and experience and are influenced by us because we know more than they do. When a wife is a better cook than her husband, for instance, he’ll often follow her advice and instructions without question when it’s his turn to prepare dinner. Finally, we have informational power when we have specific pieces of information that influence our partners’ behavior; our part- ners may do what we want if we offer to share a juicy bit of gossip with them.

Men, Women, and the Control of Resources

How are these resources used in your relationships? What goes on between you and your partner is largely up to both of you, but you may be influenced to a greater extent than you realize by the broad cultural patterns that sur- round you. Many of us applaud the notion of equal partnerships but still con- duct relationships in which “there is an imbalance of power, with one person making more decisions, controlling more of the joint activities and resources, winning more arguments and, in general, being in a position of dominance” (Impett & Peplau, 2006, p. 283). And in most heterosexual relationships, the dominant partner is the man. Indeed, this isn’t good news for most of us (but perhaps it really isn’t news at all): “In no known societies do women domi- nate men. In all societies that accumulate wealth, men, on average, enjoy more power than women, on average, and this appears to have been true throughout human history” (Pratto & Walker, 2004, p. 242). Heterosexual couples who seek to share power equally are swimming upstream against long-standing tradi- tion, and there are three reasons for this.

First, men and women generally face a disparity in relative resources. Men get paid more than women for the work they do (even when it’s the same work): In the United States, women with full-time jobs presently earn only 84 percent as much as men do (Pew Research, 2014b). Men are also far more likely to hold the reins of governmental, judicial, and corporate power; in 2014, for instance, only 19 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress were women (Manning, 2014), and, even worse, only 5 percent of the chief executive officers of America’s 500 largest companies were women (“Women CEOs,” 2014). Money and status confer reward power and legitimate power on those who possess them, and men often have more of both than women do. Indeed, it’s much more common for wives to earn more than their husbands than it used to be, but in about two-thirds of American marriages, he still makes more money than she does (Pew Research Center, 2013a). And money is a source of power that can be used more flexibly than most other resources. Theorists describe some resources (such as money) as universalistic and others (such as love) as particularistic (Foa et al., 1993). Universalistic resources can be exchanged with almost anyone in a wide variety of situations, and whoever controls them has considerable free- dom in deciding what to do with them (and with whom to do it). Particularistic resources are valuable in some situations but not in others, and they may confer power to their owner only with particular partners. A partner’s love for you may give you referent power over him or her and no one else whereas a large pile of cash may provide you reward power over almost everyone you meet.

The second reason equality is hard to attain is related to the first: Social norms support and maintain male dominance. Worldwide, most cultures are still governed by a norm of patriarchy that confers higher levels of expert and legitimate power on men than on women (Carli, 2001). Americans actually tend to think that women have skills that should make them more effective leaders than men; women are thought to be more honest, intelligent, compassionate, and creative and just as ambitious and hardworking as men (“Men or Women,” 2008). But legitimate power still seems “unladylike” to some people, and when a woman seeks political office, the fact that she’s seeking power undermines her appeal to voters; a man seeking office pays no such penalty (Okimoto & Brescoll, 2010). And if a woman does attain a position of leadership, she’s likely to be evaluated more harshly than a man would be when she straightforwardly tells others what to do (Rudman et al., 2012). Cultural norms still keep women in their place, so Americans tend to prefer that their surgeons, lawyers, and airline pilots be men rather than women (Morin & Cohn, 2008). Women are preferred as elementary school teachers.

Thus, cultural tradition suggests that it’s ordinary and natural for men to make more money and to be in charge most of the time. And that underlies the third reason equality is elusive: We’re not sure what it looks like. Women usually get their way when it comes to decisions regarding household matters and the kids, and they get to pick the things the couple does on the weekend more often than men do (Shu et al., 2012). So, women can rightly feel that they’re influential at home. But just how much? Married Americans still report that wives buy most of the groceries, fix most of the meals, and wash most of the dishes; they also do

most of the laundry and clean more of the house (Newport, 2008). Husbands do yard work and take care of the cars, but—and here’s my point—that division of labor cannot possibly value wives’ and husbands’ time equally: The wives’ duties are constant, and the husbands’ are intermittent (Lachance-Grzela & Bouchard, 2010). Dinner gets eaten every night, but the cars’ oil gets changed only every now and then. So, whereas an American woman does 18 hours of housework each week, on average, a man does only 10 (Parker & Wang, 2013). And when it comes to fundamental, central decisions regarding the relationship—such as “are we going to get married or just keep cohabiting?”—men usually get to call the shots (Sassler & Miller, 2011). Wives do control most household routines, but because their husbands are more likely to get their way when it really matters, the husbands are more powerful. This still tends to be true, although to a lesser extent, even when women’s disadvantage in relative resources is erased—that is, when they earn more than their husbands. For instance, wives with higher incomes do a smaller proportion of the household chores, but they still do most of them (Lam et al., 2012).

So, despite their expressed interests in equal partnerships, most heterosex- ual couples still tolerate substantial inequality (Askari et al., 2010)—and they may not realize just how one-sided their partnerships are. In a culture that takes male dominance for granted, genuine equality that honors both parties’ inter- ests equally is certainly unfamiliar, and it may even seem peculiar or excessive. But, if you’re interested, Table 12.2 may help you judge your own partnerships more evenhandedly; it offers several considerations that may be eye-opening.

Finally, I’ll also note that men often have a lot of coercive power due to their typically larger size and greater strength. But coercion is a clumsy, corrosive way to get what one wants. Fear and punishment are aversive, and they breed dis- content. They also foster resistance, so partners who are coerced are actually less compromising than they would have been had gentler power been employed (Oriña et al., 2002). I’ll return to this point later in the chapter when we examine violence in close relationships, but for now I’ll simply note that coercion is usu- ally an inept, counterproductive way to influence an intimate partner.

The Process of Power

Power feels good. Powerful people are used to getting what they want, so they experience a lot of positive moods and feelings of well-being (Kifer et al., 2013). They feel in control of things. In fact, compared to the rest of us, they tend to think that they can control events that are uncontrollable, such as the outcome of a roll of some dice (Fast et al., 2009). They also tend to do what they want (Guinote et al., 2012); if there’s just one cookie left on the plate, they’ll take it without asking if anyone else wants it (Keltner et al., 2010). Indeed, they are relatively unlikely to realize that someone else was hoping to share the cookie because they’re not very good at comprehending others’ points of view. If you ask powerful people to quickly draw an “E” on their foreheads, they are much more likely than people of low power to draw the letter as if they were reading it, which makes it backward and illegible for anyone else—like this: (Galinsky et al., 2006).

The self-importance of powerful people is also evident in their self- perceptions of their mate value.1 People who are randomly assigned to lead work groups in lab studies expect that their subordinates will find them sexu- ally interesting, and if they approve of casual sex, they both judge their sub- ordinates to be more sexually available and stage more flirtatious interactions with them than those of lesser power do (Kunstman & Maner, 2011). Those perceptions apparently persist in the workplace: Compared to mid-level man- agers, more powerful professionals are more adulterous, being 25 percent more likely to cheat on their current partners (Lammers et al., 2011). And they may not think they’re misbehaving; powerful people judge others’ moral transgres- sions more harshly than their own, so that, compared to less powerful people, they’re more strict in condemning others’ cheating while cheating more often themselves (Lammers et al., 2010).

By comparison, being powerless isn’t so great. Those who find themselves in positions of low power suffer more depression, behave more cautiously, and timidly fear more punishment than powerful people do (Keltner et al., 2010). And, in keeping with these patterns, power differentials affect the behavior of people toward their intimate partners too. Let’s inspect some of the ways in which power is expressed.

Conversation

The conversations two people share are likely to be influenced by the bal- ance of power between them, and, for better or worse, women tend not to speak to men with the same implicit strength and power that they display toward other women. In particular, they allow themselves to be interrupted by men more often than they interrupt men in return.

In one of the first studies of this pattern, researchers surreptitiously recorded conversations of college students in public places (obtaining permission to ana- lyze the recordings after the conversations were done) and then compared the conversations of same-sex dyads to those in which men and women conversed (Zimmerman & West, 1975). Women and men behaved similarly when they were talking to others of the same sex, but distinctive patterns emerged in inter- actions with the other sex. Men interrupted their female partners much more often than their female partners interrupted them (and they did most of the talking, too). That’s important because people who get interrupted are judged to have lower status and to be less powerful than those who do the interrupting (Farley, 2008).

Now, fast-forward to this century and imagine that you and your lover have to decide how to spend a gift of $1,000. You each develop a personal list of your top five priorities and then get together to negotiate your options. If one of you frequently succeeds in interrupting the other, both of you are likely to judge him or her to be the more powerful partner (see Figure 12.1). And men still complete more of these interruptions than women do (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005).

Nonverbal Behavior

Power is also communicated to others nonverbally, and powerful people use larger interpersonal distances, display more intense facial expressions, and assume postures that are less symmetrical and take up more space than those of people who are less powerful (Hall et al., 2005). Take a look at the two poses in Figure 12.2. They exemplify my postural point: The one on the right typifies someone of higher status. (That’s obvious, isn’t it?) Indeed, when people are posed in these positions by researchers, those who assume more space feel more powerful; moreover, male or female, their testosterone levels rise, and they take bolder risks in a gambling game (Carney et al., 2010). The pose on the right is clearly more powerful—and interestingly, it’s more masculine, too. Men tend to take up more space with their postures than women do—one certainly ought not assume the pose on the right if one is wearing a dress—and they use distances and postures that are typical of high-status people more often than women do (Kalbfleisch & Herold, 2006).

Nonverbal Sensitivity

Remember, too, from chapter 5, that women are generally more accurate judges of others’ emotions and meaning than men are. Women decode others’ nonverbal communications more accurately than men do, and they are usually more aware of what others are feeling (Hall & Mast, 2008). This skill is a tremen- dous asset because the sensitivity and accuracy with which a couple commu- nicates nonverbally predicts how satisfied with each other they are likely to be (Määttä & Uusiautti, 2013).

On the other hand, a person’s nonverbal sensitivity also has something to do with how powerful and dominant he or she is (Moeller et al., 2011). When two people differ in status, it’s typically the job of the subordinate to keep track of what the boss is feeling, not the other way around. Powerful bosses don’t have to care much about what their subordinates are feeling; underlings are supposed to do what a boss wants whether they like it or not. In contrast, subordinates can increase their own (limited) power when they carefully monitor their supervisors’ moods; if they make requests when their bosses are in good moods (and stay out of sight when the bosses are cranky), they’re more likely to get what they want.

Thus, in being adept users of nonverbal communication, women gain valuable information that can make them more pleasing partners and that can increase their influence over men. On the other hand, they also behave as sub- ordinates do when they are dealing with people of higher status. Ironically, a useful and desirable talent may perpetuate a stereotypical pattern in which women sometimes behave as if they are the minions of men.

Styles of Power

Just what strategies, then, do men and women use in their efforts to influ- ence each other? Toni Falbo and Anne Peplau (1980) addressed this question in a classic study that asked 50 lesbians, 50 gay men, 50 heterosexual women, and 50 heterosexual men to describe “how I get [my partner] to do what I want.” Two themes characterized the participants’ replies. First, they sometimes explicitly asked for what they wanted, straightforwardly announcing their wishes or making unambiguous requests. Their efforts to influence their part- ners were overt and direct, and their preferences were plain. On other occasions, however, people’s actions were more indirect; they hinted at what they wanted or pouted when their wishes were unfulfilled, but they never came right out and said what they wanted. Importantly, the more satisfied people were with their relationships, the more likely they were to use direct strategies. This could mean that when people have rewarding partnerships, they feel safe enough to be honest and forthright with their partners; on the other hand, it could also mean that people whose desires are expressed indirectly and ambiguously are less adept at getting what they want, and they’re likely to be dissatisfied as a result. What’s your guess? Does indirectness lead to dissatisfaction or follow from it? (Remember, it could be both.)

The second theme that distinguished different strategies described the extent to which people sought their goals through interaction with their partners (as opposed to doing what they wanted by themselves). Sometimes people reasoned or bargained with their partners in efforts to persuade them to provide some desired outcome; in such cases, people sought cooperation or collaboration from their partners, and their strategies were bilateral, involving both members of the couple. In contrast, on other occasions, people took inde- pendent unilateral action, doing what they wanted without involving their part- ners. Importantly, people who reported that they were more powerful than their partners said that they frequently used bilateral strategies whereas those

who were less powerful were more likely to use unilateral strategies. Thus, people who were able to influence their partners successfully did just that, rea- soning and negotiating with them to gain their compliance. In contrast, those possessing low power were less likely to seek their partners’ cooperation; they just went off and did their own thing.

Falbo and Peplau (1980) found that, overall, gays and lesbians employed similar strategies, but there were differences in the strategies used by hetero- sexual men and women. On average, heterosexual men reported more exten- sive use of direct and bilateral styles whereas heterosexual women used more indirect and unilateral strategies. Thus, when they were dealing with their romantic partners, heterosexual men tended to use styles of influence that are characteristic of people who are satisfied and powerful whereas women adopted styles typically used by those who are powerless and discontent.

Wow. Do heterosexual men typically behave in a mature and assertive fash- ion in their romantic partnerships, asking for what they want and reasoning logically with their lovers while their partners pout and get moody without ever saying what they want? Well, yes, to a degree. That statement is obviously too sweeping, but in heterosexual relationships, men do tend to be more openly assertive than women. Moreover, this tends to be true from the moment a rela- tionship begins. When they want to start a relationship, men use more direct strategies, such as asking a woman for a date, whereas women more often use indirect strategies, such as trying to seem friendly and waiting to be asked (Clark et al., 1999).

Importantly, however, this pattern isn’t really a sex difference; it’s a gender difference that’s wrapped up with the sexes’ relative resources.2 Whether they are male or female, people who are high in instrumentality—who are, after all, assertive, self-confident people—tend to use direct, bilateral styles of power. By comparison, people who are low in instrumentality (and that includes most women) tend to use indirect, unilateral styles (Falbo, 1982).

2 Here’s another opportunity to consider a difference between men and women with the sophistica- tion I hoped to foster back in chapter 1. Sex differences are distinguished from gender differences on pages 22–23.

Still, the strategies a person selects are influenced more by his or her status in a particular interaction than by his or her gender (Sagrestano et al., 2006). No matter who people are, they are unlikely to behave authoritatively and asser- tively in situations in which they have lower status than those they are trying to influence. Lynda Sagrestano (1992) demonstrated this when she asked men and women to respond to scenarios in which they were either experts with more knowledge than their partners or novices with lower expertise; both men and women used direct strategies of power when they were experts but indirect strategies when they were novices, and the sexes did not differ in the styles they selected. In addition, recall that there are no differences between the sexes in the ways that gays and lesbians try to influence their partners (Falbo & Peplau, 1980).

Add all this up, and it appears that the different styles of influence exhib- ited by heterosexual men and women in their romantic relationships are products of the routine differences in relative resources in those partnerships. Men and women do not differ in their power preferences in their same-sex partnerships, and women can be just as direct as men when that style pays off for them (Carothers & Allen, 1999), but men have traditionally held more power than women, both in and out of the home. This is changing. These days, each new generation of American women is higher in instrumentality than the one before (Twenge, 2009), and women are gaining more control over political and economic resources all the time. Both men and women are also becoming more egalitarian in their views of marriage (Bryant, 2003). Men probably have less automatic authority in their intimate relationships than they used to, and— here comes an important point—that may be a good thing: Disparities in power are linked to dissatisfaction in close relationships (Amato et al., 2007). People who have to hint and pout to get (some of) what they want tend to be less con- tent than are those who can come right out and ask for what they desire.

The Outcome of Power

Altogether, then, most of us say we want to have equal partnerships with our lovers, but we’re surrounded by a culture that takes male dominance for granted, and we often unwittingly perpetuate gender inequalities through our day-to-day interactions. The outcome of these influences in many cases is sub- tle asymmetry in partners’ influence on one another, with a partnership seem- ing fair or even entirely equal when in reality he has more influence than she does. Here’s an example. When spouses are interviewed together about their political opinions, wives agree more with their husbands’ answers, if the men answer the questions first, than husbands agree with their wives when their wives go first—and this occurs even when the wives earn higher salaries and are more expert on the issues (Zipp et al., 2004). Male autonomy and assertion and female conformity and compliance seem so natural to many people that imbalances of power that fit this pattern can be hard to detect.

Nevertheless, the latest data on marital equality suggest that we should strive to create romantic partnerships in which both partners’ wishes and preferences are given equal weight (Stanik et al., 2013). Things have changed in the last quarter century. Spouses are much more likely to share decision- making than they used to be, and those who do enjoy marriages that are hap- pier, less contentious, and less prone to divorce than those in which one of the partners calls most of the shots (Amato et al., 2007). Take a look at Figure 12.3. The results portrayed there combine the outcomes experienced by husbands and wives, but the differences between equal and unequal partnerships are in the same direction for both men and women: Women are a lot happier when they’re as powerful as their husbands, and notably, their husbands are a little happier, too. Everybody wins when power is shared. The bottom line is that our modern relationships appear to be more stable and happier on the whole when both partners matter to the same extent (Stanik et al., 2013). These days, husbands and wives who adhere to traditional divisions of labor and power are less satisfied with their marriages than are those who construct more equal partnerships (DeMaris et al., 2012).

The Two Faces of Power

Our discussion thus far may have left you with the impression that power has caustic effects on close relationships, but if that’s the case, it’s time to correct that view. Imbalances of power can be problematic, but power itself is not inherently undesirable at all. It does not always lead to the greedy exploitation of one’s partners. Indeed, when people adopt communal orientations3 in committed romantic relationships, they typically use their power for the benefit of their partners and their relationships, not for selfish ends (Gardner & Seeley, 2001). When people care for each other and want to maintain a rewarding relationship, they‘re benevolent; they display concern for the welfare of their partners, and they use their influence to enhance the other’s well-being as well as their own (Chen et al., 2001). Moreover, people with interdependent self-construals,4 who emphasize interdependency with others, are routinely generous when they resolve disputes with others of lower power (Howard et al., 2007).

3 Need a refresher on the distinction between communal and exchange orientations? Take a look back at page 198 in chapter 6.

4 Page 232 in chapter 7.

An old cliché asserts that “power corrupts,” implying that people inevi- tably become greedy and selfish when they are able to get others to do what they want. But in interdependent, intimate relationships in which both part- ners want the desirable outcomes the other can provide, power need not be a corrosive, deleterious thing. Instead, committed, happy lovers often use their influence to benefit their partners and to enhance, rather than undermine, their mutual contentment. Kind, loving people use their power charitably and mag- nanimously (Côté et al., 2011).

There is also, however, a dark side to power. Some people, most of them men, actively seek to be the top dogs in their relationships, and they tend to be controlling, domineering people who have unhappy partners. Power is important to them, and when they are unable to get what they want through more legtimate influence, they may use violence in a sad but sometimes effective effort to exert control (Vescio et al., 2010). It is to this grimmest aspect of intimacy, the potential for intimate violence, to which we now turn.

12.2 VIOLENCE IN RELATIONSHIPS

We commit violence when we behave in a manner that is intended to do physi- cal harm to others (Spitzberg, 2013). The harm we intend may be rather minor or quite severe (Regan et al., 2006), a point that a leading research tool, the Conflict Tactics Scale, takes into consideration (Straus et al., 1996). With the scale, people describe their use of psychological and physical aggression against their roman- tic partners, responding to such items as “I insulted or swore at my partner,” “I slapped my partner,” and “I used a knife or gun on my partner.” Violent actions range from those that do little harm, such as grabbing or pushing, to oth- ers that inflict atrocious injury, such as beatings and burnings (see Figure 12.4). And sadly, intimate violence of all types is more common than most people think.

The Prevalence of Violence

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are conducting a multi-year study of relationship violence in the United States, and the first wave of results (Black et al., 2011) is pretty grim. Almost one of every four women (24 percent) and one in seven men (14 percent) in America have encountered severe physi- cal violence—being beaten, kicked, choked, burned, and more—by an intimate partner. And the rates of such violence are even higher elsewhere in the world. The World Health Organization (2013) reports that 30 percent of the world’s women have been assaulted by a domestic partner, with the highest rates of such victimization—37 percent—occurring in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

When a couple has a history of angry disputes, rates of violence are higher still. Of several hundred cases of divorcing couples in Tucson, Arizona, who were referred to court-ordered mediation to resolve child-custody disputes, 75 percent had involved some form of physical abuse (C. Beck et al., 2013). And psychological aggression—such as screaming, ridicule, and threats—had occurred in almost all (95 percent) of those couples.

Psychological aggression is no small matter. It occurs at one time or another in most relationships (Fergusson et al., 2005), and it is clearly detrimental to marital satisfaction (Yoon & Lawrence, 2013). But as bad as it is, verbal aggres- sion seems less worrisome to most of us than physical violence does (Capezza & Arriaga, 2008), so I’ll focus on violence here. And concern about intimate partner violence (or IPV) is warranted; in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012) estimate that IPV will cost nearly $9 bil- lion in medical care, psychological services, and lost time from work this year.

Types of Couple Violence

It’s one thing to describe the specific acts of violence that occur in close relationships, and another to explain why they occur. Michael Johnson (2008) has suggested that there are three major, distinct types of violence in romantic couples, and they spring from different sources. The most familiar type is situational couple violence (or SCV), which typically erupts from heated con- flicts that get out of hand. It occurs when both partners are angry and is tied to specific arguments, so it is only occasional and is usually mild, being unlikely to escalate into serious, life-threatening forms of aggression. Often, it is also mutual, with both partners angrily and impulsively flying out of control.

A notably different kind of violence is intimate terrorism (or IT) in which one partner uses violence as a tool to control and oppress the other. The physical force and coercion that occurs in intimate terrorism may be just one tactic in a general pattern of threats, isolation, and economic subordi- nation (see Figure 12.5 and the box on page 383), and when it is present in a relationship, it occurs more often than situational couple violence does. Indeed, compared to SCV, intimate terrorism is more likely to be one-sided, to escalate over time, and to involve serious injury to its target. It’s also the form of IPV that’s most likely to get a battered spouse to seek shelter else- where (Johnson, 2008).

The third type of couple violence is violent resistance, in which a part- ner forcibly fights back against intimate terrorism. Violent resistance occurs in some, but not all, cases of intimate terrorism, so it is the least common of the three. When IPV occurs, it is usually situational couple violence, occasionally intimate terrorism, and only sometimes violent resistance (Johnson, 2008).

The distinctions among these three types are important. For one thing, men and women are equally likely to engage in hotheaded, impulsive situ- ational couple violence, but intimate terrorism is disproportionately authored by men. Women do engage in intimate terrorism, but much less often than men do (C. Beck et al., 2013). (And as a result of this asymmetry, violent resis- tance is much more common in women than in men.) Does this mean that men are more violent toward their intimate partners than women are? That’s actu- ally a thorny question.

Gender Differences in Intimate Violence

Stereotypes may suggest that women engage in less intimate violence than men do, but if anything, it’s the other way around; women are actually slightly more likely to engage in physical violence against their partners than men are (Desmarais et al., 2012). That sounds like a straightforward (if surprising) con- clusion, but it has been the subject of considerable controversy and discussion among relationship scientists (e.g., Dragiewicz & DeKeseredy, 2012). For one thing, men and women tend to exhibit violent behavior of different severity. Women are more likely to throw something, kick, bite, scratch, or punch their partners, whereas men are more likely to choke, strangle, or beat up theirs (Tanha et al., 2010). Thus, there’s no question that men are more likely to do some damage; when couple violence occurs, most of the injuries (62 percent) are suffered by women (Archer, 2000). Men are also much more likely than women to rape or murder their partners (World Health Organization, 2013). These brutal acts are often not included in studies of couple violence, but if they are, men are clearly more aggressive than women (Buss & Duntley, 2006).

Sampling is also an issue. Surveys of young adults tend to detect more violence from women than from men—because there is, after all, a lot of it (Straus, 2008)—but studies focusing on distressed couples, such as those in marital therapy or those in court, usually find the husbands to be more violent than their wives (C. Beck et al., 2013). Women are more likely to engage in indi- rect aggression—by trying to ruin someone’s reputation by spreading rumors or gossip (Hess & Hagen, 2006), for example—but that isn’t violence. Add all this up, and it appears that women can be just as violent as men (Cho, 2012), but they are less likely to cause severe injuries and less likely to use violence as a tool in an ongoing pattern of domination and influence. The sexes behave similarly in episodes of SCV (Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al., 2012), but a siz- able majority of intimate terrorists—89 percent—are men (Johnson, 2008). And when they are victims of intimate terrorism, women typically face persistent violence that often does them harm. Why do men sometimes resort to physical force to hold sway over their female partners?

Correlates of Violence

Careful consideration of intimate partner violence recognizes the distinction between situational couple violence and intimate terrorism (C. Beck et al., 2013). Most acts of violence in close relationships result from impetuous, impulsive failures of self-control (that’s SCV), but some violence is part of a program of ruthless subjugation of one’s partner (and that’s IT). And importantly, SCV and IT seem to spring from somewhat different sources.

Situational Couple Violence

Both types of intimate partner violence are complex, emerging from various overlapping influences. A useful model of situational couple violence, the I3 (or “I-cubed”) model created by Eli Finkel (2014), organizes influences on SCV into instigating triggers that cause one or both partners to be frustrated or on edge, impelling influences that make it more likely that the partners will experience violent impulses, and inhibiting influences that encourage the partners to refrain from acting on those impulses. When we’ve been angry, most of us have expe- rienced violent impulses, but most of us didn’t act on them (Finkel et al., 2009), and Finkel‘s model suggests that we refrained from violence either because the impelling influences stimulating us to lash out were too weak or because the inhibiting forces dissuading us from physical action were too strong.

What sort of influences are these? Finkel (2008) suggested that both impelling and inhibitory influences could be distal, dispositional, relational, or situational. Distal influences include background factors such as cultural norms, economic conditions, and family experiences. Dispositional influences include personality traits and long-standing beliefs. Relational influences involve the current state of the couple’s relationship, and situational influences include the immediate circumstances. These are all listed with some examples in Figure 12.6. The figure may seem intimidating at first, but don’t fret; I’ll walk you through it.

Instigating Triggers. The path to situational couple violence begins with instigating influences that cause one or both of the partners to become cantan- kerous or angry. Anything about a couple’s interaction that causes frustration or aggravation can set the model in motion: Jealousy-evoking events, remem- bered or discovered betrayals, real or imagined rejection (Giordano et al., 2010), or any of the exasperating events that exacerbate conflict5 will suffice. A partic- ularly potent instigator, though, is verbal or physical abuse from one’s partner: People are especially likely to become antagonistic when their partners curse or hit them first (Stith et al., 2004).

5 Pages 344–346 in chapter 11.

Impelling Influences. Then, when someone’s fired up, the impelling influ- ences that are at work become important. Some of the influences that predispose one to violence are events from much earlier in life. For instance, people who witnessed violence between their parents (Capaldi et al., 2012) or were abused when they were children (Edwards et al., 2014), and those who consumed a lot of aggressive media (such as violent movies and video games) over the years (Coyne et al., 2010) are more likely than others to engage in IPV. Other impel- ling influences are enduring personal characteristics. People with sour disposi- tions who are prone to anger (Dutton, 2010) or who are high in neuroticism (Hellmuth & McNulty, 2008) are also prone to intimate violence. So are men with traditional, sex-typed gender roles (Golden et al., 2013) and those with atti- tudes that condone a little force now and then as a normal way of doing things (Woodin et al., 2013). (Thus, here’s a bit of good news in this grim landscape: Some of the personal characteristics that predispose people to violence are attitudes that may be comparatively easy to change [Neighbors et al., 2010].) Still other impelling influences emerge from the partners’ patterns of interaction; for example, couples with poor communication skills (L. Simpson et al., 2007) or mismatched attachment styles (Doumas et al., 2008) engage in more IPV than others do.6 (The most troublesome mismatch pairs a man who’s high in avoidance of intimacy with a woman who is anxious about abandonment; they probably both push all of the other’s buttons because both men and women are more violent in such couples.) And finally, the particular circumstances matter: Recent stress at work or school (Gormley & Lopez, 2010) or a hot, noisy, uncom- fortable environment (Larrick et al., 2011) can also make one touchy.

6 The I3 model’s distinction between distal, dispositional, relational, and situational influences is a helpful way to organize the variety of influences that shape IPV, but don’t take it too seriously. The categories overlap, and to some degree, the placement of a particular influence in a specific cat- egory is arbitrary. For example, kids who grow up in violent homes are more likely than the rest of us to have insecure attachment styles, and certain combinations of insecure styles in a marriage— such as an anxious wife paired with an avoidant husband—are tricky (Godbout et al., 2009). So, the distal influence of a violent childhood home produces a dispositional characteristic, attachment insecurity, that becomes particularly problematic when it’s combined with a partner’s style in a way that produces a trying relationship that’s full of annoying vexations. All four types of influ- ences are involved in this sequence of events, and there’s no need for you to fuss too much about what influences on IPV belong in which category. Instead, just note the wide variety of experiences and traits that are associated with violence in intimate relationships. IPV has complex origins. It results from multiple influences.

Inhibiting Influences. All of the influences I’ve mentioned thus far are presumed to fuel one’s violent impulses, but inhibiting influences counteract aggressive urges. Once again, these influences are of diverse types. Violence is less likely in cultures that promote gender equality (Archer, 2006), and consci- entious people are less likely than others to aggress when they’re angry (Jensen- Campbell et al., 2007), so both cultural and individual differences are involved. A particularly important personal characteristic is one’s dispositional capac- ity for self-control. People who are generally able to control their impulses are less violent when they’re provoked; in one study, teenagers in North Carolina who were low in self-control perpetrated seven-and-a-half times more violent acts against their dating partners than those who were high in self-control (Finkel et al., 2009).7 In addition, couples with good problem-solving skills (Hellmuth & McNulty, 2008) and who are satisfied with their relationship (Fournier et al., 2011) are less likely to lash out, and sober people are more peaceable, too; lest there be any doubt, alcohol use does fuel IPV (Stuart et al., 2013). The role of relationship commitment in SCV is also noteworthy: Commit- ment to one’s partner makes violence less likely (Slotter et al., 2012), so spouses are less violent, on average, than cohabiting couples are (Brownridge, 2010). Otherwise, the various influences we’ve touched on here appear to operate similarly in both marriages and dating relationships (e.g., Gover et al., 2008).

7 Make a mental note about the value of self-control, will you? I’ll have more to say about it in chapter 14.

Thus, the I3 model holds that instigating triggers and impelling influences work together to create urges to be aggressive—but that people will nevertheless behave nonviolently when inhibiting influences are strong. However, if inhib- iting influences are weak, violence may occur, and if inhibiting influences are very weak, relatively small provocations may be enough to elicit intimate vio- lence. What’s more, situational couple violence originates in circumstances that are shaped both by temporary passing influences and by dispositional and distal influences that are stable and lasting. Couples may have some bouts of SCV when tempers run high even when neither partner is particularly prone to violence.

But here’s a key question: If IPV happens once, will it happen again? Regret- tably, the smartest answer to that question is “yes.” In a large national study in the United States, only 30 percent of those who had been violent in one roman- tic relationship were violent again within the next 5 years in a different, second relationship; most people who engaged in SCV—sometimes because they were fighting back after their partners threw the first punch—did not continue to be violent once they changed partners (Whitaker et al., 2010). On the other hand, once violence starts in a particular relationship, it tends to recur. In one study involving newlyweds, 76 percent of the men who were physically aggressive when they were engaged perpetrated violence again in the first 30 months after the wedding—and much of their violence was severe (Lorber & O’Leary, 2004). Intimate violence is occasionally an isolated event—but more often it continues, at least sporadically, once it starts. This is especially true of the more chronic, even more dangerous form of IPV: intimate terrorism.

Intimate Terrorism

The I3 model also helps to explain intimate terrorism (Finkel, 2014), but the mix of influences is different. Intimate terrorism seems to be rooted in influ- ences that are more enduring than those that may trigger SCV, with people who terrorize their partners coming from two camps (Holtzworth-Munroe & Meehan, 2005). Some of them may resort to violence because they are rather clumsy and pathetic, and threats of harm are their wretched efforts to keep their partners from leaving. Others seem to be more malevolent; they are anti- social or narcissistic, and violence is just another tool with which to get what they want (Fowler & Westen, 2011).

Men who are intimate terrorists do not become brutal overnight. They have often witnessed violent conflict between their parents and have been sexually abused themselves (Afifi et al., 2009), growing up in homes that taught them traditional gender roles and rather hostile, misogynistic attitudes (Liebold & McConnell, 2004); they are much more likely than other men to think of women as adversaries to be used for one’s satisfaction and pleasure. As a result, they engage in more surveillance and vio- lence than most men even when a relationship has just begun (Williams & Frieze, 2005), and they may be generally aggressive, abusing their pets as well as their partners (Simmons & Lehmann, 2007). The signs that suggest that a man may be an abuser are often evident from the start.

This set of surly attitudes is often combined with feelings of inadequacy that make violence seem to be one of the terrorist’s few resources of power (Bosson & Vandello, 2011). Terrorists often feel intellectually inferior to their partners (Moore et al., 2008) and have low self-esteem (Cowan & Mills, 2004), often because they are plagued by poverty; violence is much more common in homes with low annual incomes than in homes that are affluent (Golden et al., 2013). Certainly, some spouse abusers are well-to-do people with plenty of self- respect who are just flat out mean; nevertheless, on average, intimate terrorists are not well off, and they appear to turn to coercive power because they control few other resources.

One of the most dreadful aspects of all this is the manner in which intimate aggression is transmitted from one generation to the next, with children who are raised in violent homes being more likely to be violent themselves (C. Smith et al., 2011). However, this cycle is not inevitable. Indeed, none of the contrib- uting risk factors I’ve described here guarantee that violence will occur. Sons of the most violent American parents are 10 times more likely than the sons of nonviolent parents to beat their wives. Yet even in this extreme group, only 20 percent of those studied had committed severe acts of violence in the past 12 months; the other 80 percent had not recently engaged in any severe violence in their intimate relationships (Johnson, 2008). Thus, children from violent homes are more likely than others to misbehave, but many never do. Still, their increased risk for such behavior is disturbing; in the cycle of family violence, the evil that people do may, in fact, outlive them.

The Rationales of Violence

Overall, then, men who engage in intimate terrorism often subscribe to mascu- line codes that promote a man’s authority over women, but many of them feel inadequate to the task; they “often feel, or fear, that they do not measure up to those codes. Attempting to shore up their masculine self-concept, they may try to control others, particularly those who are physically weaker than they are” (Wood, 2004, p. 558). Do such men even realize that they are being abusive, or do they consider their use of force to be customary treatment of women by men?

Julia Wood (2004) provided insight into the minds of such men when she interviewed 22 incarcerated men who had abused their female partners. All of the men felt that their behavior had been a legitimate response to the disrespect they had faced from their partners, and all mentioned their partners’ provocation as the genesis of their abuse. They also felt that men were supposed to be domi- nant and superior to women and so were entitled to use violence to control and discipline them. On the other hand, most believed that they were not “real” wife abusers because they did not enjoy hurting women and they had limited their level of abuse, doing less harm than they could have. One man had stabbed his wife only once, and another had brutally beaten his wife but argued that he hadn’t hit her as hard as he could. Perhaps as a result of these rationalizations, only about half of the men expressed regret and remorse about their actions. They understood that their actions were illegal, but they didn’t necessarily believe that their actions were wrong.

What do women feel in response to such treatment? In a broad review of the intimate violence literature, Sally Lloyd and Beth Emery (2000) noted that women are ordinarily surprised when they encounter intimate aggression, and they often struggle to make sense of it. They are influenced by romantic norms that encourage them to “forgive and forget” and they labor under cultural norms that blame victims for their difficulties, so they “consistently ask them- selves why they went out with the wrong kind of man, why they made him angry when they knew he had a violent temper, or why they were in the wrong place at the wrong time” (Lloyd & Emery, 2000, p. 508). As a result of these influences, women feel betrayed, but they sometimes also blame themselves for their partners’ aggression and, due to shame, naïveté, or ignorance, they often remain silent about their plight.

Overall, intimate terrorism exacts a fearsome toll on its victims. Physical injuries are bad enough, but victims may also suffer negative psychological con- sequences ranging from lowered self-esteem and mistrust of men to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (Lawrence et al., 2012). There are also substan- tial social costs; battered women are often absent from work, and some become homeless when violence forces them to flee their homes. And at its most basic level, intimate violence makes a partnership much less desirable than it otherwise might be. The end of the relationship may follow (Lawrence & Bradbury, 2007).

Why Don’t They All Leave?

Indeed, intimate violence causes many people to leave their partners. One study (Campbell et al., 1994) that followed battered women over two-and-a-half years found that at the end of that period,

43 percent of the participants had left their original partners, either remaining unattached (20 percent) or entering new, nonabusive relationships (23 percent),

23 percent remained with their partners but had successfully ended the violence for at least a year, and

33 percent were still in an abusive relationship, either as victims (25 percent) or as both victims and perpetrators of violence (8 percent).

Thus, in this sample, only one-third of the women stayed in an abusive partnership for an extended period. Perseverance and determination are often required to escape an abusive relationship, but most people do, one way or the other. But why don’t all victims run from their persecutors?

There’s a simple answer to that question. They don’t leave because, despite the abuse, they don’t think they’ll be better off if they go (Edwards et al., 2011).8 They’re often wrong in thinking so: People are usually happier when they get away from an abusive partner than they think they will be (Arriaga et al., 2013). But a decision to leave is complex. Some violent partners are sweet and loving part of the time, and intermittent violence may be one’s only complaint about the relationship (Marshall et al., 2000). The costs of leaving may also seem too high; whatever investments one has made in the relationship will be lost, and one’s alternatives may seem bleak (Young & Furman, 2013). One’s economic status is crucial in this regard; the financial expense of departing one’s home may be too momentous to overcome if one is unemployed. Finally, unfortu- nately, the fear of even greater violence can also prevent the victims of intimate terrorism from exiting the relationship. Some aggressive, controlling partners may react with extreme anger against their lovers if they try to leave (Tanha et al., 2010)—and the threat of such retaliation suggests that we should do all we can to assist and protect those who are trying to escape the coercive power of an abusive partner.

8 This is an excellent example of the influence of our judgments of the outcomes awaiting us outside our current relationships, which we labeled as our comparison level for alternatives back in chapter 6. I invite you to look back at pages 178–183 for more discussion of these ideas.

Finally, I need to acknowledge the unfortunate truth that some people don’t leave because they don’t want to go. Women who have high anxiety about abandonment are drawn to possessive, controlling men. A man’s intru- sive jealousy and surveillance reassures an anxious partner that he still cares, and, perversely, the more psychological abuse a woman has encountered in the past, the stronger her preference for abusive men (Zayas & Shoda, 2007). Moreover, such men prefer anxious women in return, probably because they’re willing to tolerate their abuse. Thus, an arrangement in which a man is clearly controlling and dominant to a subservient partner, which would be intoler- able to most of us, suits some couples. It’s likely, however, that if the women involved in such relationships come to value themselves more, they will find their partners’ harsh, inequitable behavior toward them to be less acceptable. Power is all about getting what one wants, but violence should not be part of that equation.

12.3 FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

During their first year of marriage, Britni and Jonathon fell into a pattern in which he kept track of their debit account and paid all their bills each month. She was still a senior in college and didn’t have a job, but he was working and earning just enough money for them to live on each month if they were careful. He took pride in his prudent management of money, but both of them were glad when she grad- uated and got a great job that actually paid her a little more than Jonathon’s did.

He was surprised, however, when she announced that she wanted to main- tain her own checking and savings accounts. She suggested that they each put half of their earnings into a joint account that would pay the bills and then keep the rest of their money for their own use. He was hurt that she did not want to merge their monies and join financial forces, and he was annoyed when he real- ized that, if they each kept half their money, she would have a lot more money than he would after a few years. But she argued that she wanted to be allowed to do what she wanted with her extra earnings, spending or investing them as she saw fit, and she thought that separate accounts would actually avoid dis- agreements and conflict.

Having read this chapter, what do you think the future holds for Britni and Jonathon? Why?

12.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY

Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others and to resist their influ- ence on us.

Power and Interdependence

Sources of Power. From an interdependency perspective, power is based on the control of valuable resources that are desired by others. The principle of lesser interest states that the partner who is less interested in continuing a rela- tionship has more power in it.

There are two different broad types of power, fate control and behavior con- trol. In almost all relationships, both partners have some power over each other, with each being able to influence the other some of the time.

Types of Resources. There are six resources that provide people power. Reward power and coercive power refer to one’s ability to bestow rewards and punishments, respectively, on someone else. Legitimate power exists when one partner has a reasonable right—by dint of authority, reciprocity, equity, or social responsibility—to tell the other what to do. A partner’s love and affection provides the other referent power, knowledge and expertise creates expert power, and specific pieces of information lend one informational power.

Men, Women, and the Control of Resources. Men tend to control more resources than women do, in part because social norms maintain male dominance. The balance of power in close relationships is also affected by the universalistic or particularistic nature of the resources one controls.

The Process of Power. Powerful people interrupt others and tend to be unaware of others’ feelings. The specific influence tactics people use may be direct or indirect and bilateral or unilateral.

The Outcome of Power. Spouses are much more likely to share decision making than they used to be, and those who do enjoy happier marriages than those who have marriages in which one partner is dominant.

The Two Faces of Power. When they are committed to a relationship, many people use power benevolently, generously enhancing their partners’ well-being as well as their own. Unfortunately, this does not always occur.

Violence in Relationships

Violence is behavior that is intended to hurt someone else.

The Prevalence of Violence. Violence among intimates is common around the world, and it occurs in one of every four couples in the United States.

Types of Couple Violence. There are three distinct types of violence in romantic couples: situational couple violence, intimate terrorism, and violent resistance. Men and women are equally likely to engage in situational couple violence, but a huge majority of those who employ intimate terrorism are men.

Gender Differences in Intimate Violence. Women are violent as often as men, but men are more likely to inflict injury.

Correlates of Violence. Situational couple violence springs from impelling and inhibiting influences that are distal, dispositional, relational, or situational. Intimate terrorism is committed by men who are hostile toward women and who are plagued by feelings of inadequacy.

The Rationales of Violence. Wife-abusing men feel superior to women and believe that their aggression is a legitimate response to their wives’ disre- spect. Women sometimes blame themselves for their abuse.

Why Don’t They All Leave? Most victims of abuse leave their relation- ships, but they stay when they don’t believe they’ll be better off if they go. A few don’t leave because they don’t want to go.

未完待续，持续更新中

The series continues to be updated...

Chapter 1 The Building Blocks of Relationships （I）【121777】

Chapter 1 The Building Blocks of Relationships （II）【152979】

Chapter 2 Research Methods 【596719】

Chapter 3 Attraction （I）【431743】

Chapter 3 Attraction （II）【213329】

Chapter 4 Social Cognition（I）【607185】

Chapter 4 Social Cognition（II）【388771】

Chapter 5 Communication (I) 【261909】

Chapter 5 Communication (II) 【230707】

Chapter 6 Interdependency 【228653】

Chapter 7 Friendship 【166249】

Chapter 8 Love 【240092】

Chapter 9 Sexuality 【598969】

Chapter 10 Stresses and Strains（I）【251315】

Chapter 10 Stresses and Strains（II）【438527】

Chapter 11 Conflict

Chapter 12 Power and Violence

Chapter 13 The Dissolution and Loss of Relationships

Chapter 14 Maintaining and Repairing Relationships