[Domestic violence in Caracas: social and cultural predictors]

The article gives an account of the results of a research intended to know violence reported by individual between couples and towards children and also to establish the importance of social (sex, income, education, civil status, work status, gun license, alcohol abuse, attraction to violent TV programs) and cultural (social norms about aggression between couples and children punishment, and capacity to express anger and handle conflicts in a non-violent ways) predictors in such behavior. The information is based on a survey applied to Caracas Metropolitan Area (CMA) inhabitants between 18 and 70 years of age (n = 1,297) selected by probabilistic, biphasic, and tetra-stage sampling, and at random following the Politz method. The instrument was a questionnaire with on scale answers Likert type. The information was treated with multi-varying statistical analysis, using the association technique between two variables by means of the Chi-square test, with conditional independence log-linear for three variables. The results suggest relatively low violence levels between couples and towards children. Regarding children, women tend to be more violent with them, most probably explained by factors relating income and unemployment. It was found that the bigger the accord with the norm to discipline children with physical violence, the bigger the frequency of violent behavior towards them. On the contrary, the bigger the conviction to be skilled in handling situations without violence, the lesser the frequency of violent behavior. Regarding violence between couples no association was found with the sex variable, but one can certainly talk about violent couples, which is related to the way of coupling, unemployment, and lack of formal education. From the norm point of view, a relationship between belief in the norms and violent behavior is observed, although these norms and attitudes are measured by the ability of the couple of control himself/herself and act in a non-violent way.