| Summary: | This multi-case study explored the motivation patterns of 11
battered women and 3 male batterers. The Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT) and Arnold’s story sequence analysis were utilized to
obtain and analyze a series of 13 stories from each subject. Story
imports were extrapolated from the subject’s story sequence to
expose the motivating attitudes and were matched to a scoring
criteria. The motivating attitudes form a pattern delineated in
clinical evaluations. Then the imports and clinical evaluations of the
battered women and male batterers were matched in a cross-case
analysis of their respective groups. Finally, as a comparative validity
measure, the cross-case analyses for each group were matched to the
attitudes, values, and behaviors attributed to each group in the
research literature.
The battered wives, and the male batterers demonstrated
negative motivation patterns. Therefore Arnold’s passive,
pessimistic, self-centered, and malicious negative motivation pattern
descriptions were used in the cross-case analyses. Negative passive
and pessimistic patterns of motivation were common across both
groups expressing a lack of contingency between actions and
outcome, and pessimistic beliefs that one cannot overcome adversity
by one’s own actions. These patterns matched learned helplessness
that research has associated with battered wives, and depression,
low self-esteem, and external locus of control attributed to male
batterers. These results indicated that both battered women and
male batterers have likely developed learned helplessness through
their histories of family of origin violence.
Additional results included patterns of motivation for the
battered women matching the attributes of post-traumatic stress
syndrome. The male batterers showed two patterns of motivation
positive, passive, and pessimistic pattern and passive, pessimistic
with self-centered and malicious motivation, which match the
typical, and the narcissistic/anti-social types found for batterers in
other research.
This study, though exploratory in nature, contributes clarity to
a vast and unwieldy theory on wife battering by revealing the
underlying motivation of batterers and battered wives, and by
exposing the correspondence of differing theoretical views to the
same motivation patterns. Therefore the common motivation
patterns found in this study provided a more clear analysis of the
problems in living for battered women and male batterers. These
motivation patterns can provide guidance regarding the dysfunction
of these clients that can be utilized by clinicians in designing
effective treatment for the problems of male batterers and of
battered wives. Additionally the motivation patterns revealed
through the TAT and story sequence analysis are effective and
efficient means for accessing tacit self-knowledge that calls for
further research.
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