Examining the role of self-regulatory strength in family violence

Abstract

This chapter proposes that self-control, people’s capacity to control impulses, and regulate thoughts, behaviors, and emotions, is one key to unraveling the ill effects of family violence. It begins by conceptualizing self-control and its importance for wellbeing and presents the self-regulatory strength model of family violence and illuminates the role of self-regulatory strength in the perpetuation of family violence and its detrimental effects. The self-regulatory strength model of family violence proposes that impairments of self-regulatory strength increase as a function of the severity and chronicity of family violence and associated stressors, which is often accompanied by a shortage of opportunities to replenish self-control strength. Exposure to family violence and associated stressors can have devastating consequences for victims’ personal and social wellbeing. These consequences include, but are not limited to, elevated rates of depression, physical illness, alcohol and drug use, unemployment, mortality, perpetuating violence in their own relationships, teenage pregnancy, social isolation, and divorce.