Factors associated with acceptance of psychological aggression against women

Are emotionally aggressive conflicts perceived to be more unacceptable than conflicts involving verbal or baseline levels of psychological aggression? Participants (n = 189) read a hypothetical marital conflict that varied the husband's level of aggression. Results show that participants did not perceive the perpetrator's behavior in the emotional aggression condition to be any worse than the verbal aggression condition and, in most cases, no worse than the baseline condition. More traditional participants and participants who were perpetrators of psychological aggression had more positive perceptions of the perpetrator; just world beliefs and participant sex did not predict perceptions. This study suggests that people do not perceive emotional aggression to be nearly as harmful as it actually is.