The Relationship Between Battered Women’s Causal Attributions for Violence and Coping Efforts

This study investigates the relationship between battered women’s causal attributions for the violence they experience and their subsequent coping efforts. Causal attributions related to partner blame, excusing the violence, and the combination of partner blame and excusing the violence were regressed on six categories of coping strategies: placating, resistance, formal help source, informal help source, safety planning, and legal strategies. Of the 793 women approached outside of a battered women’s shelter and the district court, 406 women completed the baseline measure. It was found that women who hold their partners accountable for abuse are more likely than women who excuse the violence to utilize more overall coping strategies. Also, women who blame their partners for the abuse utilize both more active and more public coping efforts. After accounting for the effects of ethnicity, violence severity, and excusing the violence, the percentage of blame attributions endorsed predicted informal (R 2 = .077, p = .001) and safety planning (R 2 = .054, p = .014) strategies. After controlling for ethnicity, violence severity, and blaming, the percentage of excuse attributions predicted placating (R 2 = .103, p = .016) strategies.