1. Introduction
Domestic violence is a worldwide crime recognized as a severe violation of Human Rights (
Almeida et al. 2023;
Soeiro et al. 2023;
WHO 2013,
2021a,
2021b), which includes Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). It is defined as any violent behaviors, such as physical, psychological/emotional, sexual, and stalking acts committed by an actual or ex-intimate partner (
Neves and Almeida 2020;
Almeida et al. 2023;
Soeiro et al. 2023). Physical violence included being battered, pushed, slapped, throwing objects at the partner, stabbed, burned, strangled, and even attempted or committed murder (e.g.,
Du et al. 2021;
WHO 2013). Psychological/emotional violence aims to cause harm to the partner’s self-esteem through verbal abuse and power/control actions (e.g.,
Coker et al. 2002;
Day et al. 2003;
Poehacker et al. 2017). Sexual violence includes coercion and violent acts occurring during intended or further sexual contact (e.g.,
Black et al. 2011;
Pöllänen et al. 2018;
WHO 2013). Stalking is related to unwanted communication, following, or threatening that can intentionally create a sense of fear in victims (e.g.,
Ferreira et al. 2014). In this sense, IPV is a transversal issue in many socioeconomic, religious, and cultural communities (
Baldry 2003;
Geffner 2016;
Machado et al. 2006;
Paulino-Pereira et al. 2017;
Treves-Kagan et al. 2019;
Tsirigotis and Luczak 2018;
WHO 2005).
IPV constitutes one of the most reported types of crime to the authorities. As a result, Governments have approved new structured policies that allow the Criminal Justice System to achieve this problem through the definition of measures for victim protection, offenders’ intervention, professional know-how, and the reinforcement of victim support physical structures and networks, in the development of policies that allow facing this sociocultural issue. In the European Union (EU), an inter-country survey was designed to analyze this problem in the 28 Members, finding that the Eastern-European cultures are the ones where IPV is most prevalent (e.g., Lithuania) (
Nevala 2017).
Thus, what kind of variables might explain the IPV numbers? One of them that is relevant to study is IPV beliefs that may explain or predispose the violent conduct, understanding the cultural and social framework where they occur to promote the behavioral and mindset change and minimize the impact of this crime (
Machado et al. 2006). Some studies (e.g.,
Neves and Almeida 2020;
Machado et al. 2006) intend to search for explanations for these behaviors. The sociocultural issues of society and beliefs (e.g., exposure to violence in early childhood) have a significant influence on the maintenance and perpetuation of these behaviors through the decades being this statement is unanimous among the literature (
Godbout et al. 2019;
Machado et al. 2006;
Pournaghash-Tehrani 2011).
Nonetheless, some studies (e.g.,
Cinquegrana et al. 2022) underscore that unless there is a fundamental shift in societal attitudes that facilitate, tolerate, and perpetuate IPV, we cannot expect to effectively combat this issue and significantly reduce its alarming prevalence rates. Therefore, if the goal is to curb the incidence of IPV, a primary focus for public education initiatives should be on combatting sexism.
2. Sociocultural Issues and Gender
The studies remark that the asymmetries in the social relations between men and women result in domination dynamics (
Amâncio and Santos 2021;
Guedes et al. 2009). It is accepted that the hegemony of masculinity is observed, suggesting that the exercised domination results in offending toward their partners (
Oliveira and Fonseca 2014). On the other hand, this indicates that the feminine role is for obedience and subordination (
Gillum et al. 2018;
Heise and Kotsadam 2015;
Oliveira and Fonseca 2014). Thus, attitudes that approve or excuse IPV are common in sexist societies, which is an understanding that the main authority figure is men, supporting the idea that “men rules” suppress women, and violence has been perceived as “normal” (
Cabral and Rodriguez-Díaz 2017;
Evcili and Daglar 2020). When analyzing the dynamics between gender and violence, several researchers have shown that power dynamics is a complex phenomenon that can derive from individual, situational, cultural, and social factors (
Vieraitis et al. 2008;
Neves and Almeida 2020). These studies have shown that men’s domination and IPV tolerance and legitimation are a more prominent presence in the male gender due to the existence of patriarchal societies, where the belief that men have a social and cultural ascendant over women favors the development and maintenance of beliefs favorable to IPV (
Almeida et al. 2021;
Carlson and Worden 2005;
Machado et al. 2014).
A meta-analysis examining the correlation between power (defined as control and dominance) and IPV against women, carried out by
Ubillos-Landa et al. (
2020), established that IPV is fundamentally about control, originating from entrenched patriarchal norms of male dominance within heterosexual relationships. This perspective often results in an evasion of accountability on the part of the offender, as cultural norms legitimize violence and allow men to shift the blame for the violence against the victim. The endorsement of a belief system that affirms men’s entitlement to certain privileges within their relationships with women enables the offender to deflect accountability and rationalize the ongoing use of control and dominance (
Ubillos-Landa et al. 2020).
3. Beliefs, IPV, and Gender
Belief can be defined as a thought, a feeling, or a predisposition to accept that some idea is accurate. Usually, beliefs are considered involuntary, shaped by evidence, independent of context, dependent on what is considered true, and characterized to varying degrees. It could be seen as a tendency to be influenced by one’s knowledge about the world in evaluating conclusions and to accept them as true because they are believable and logically valid. Belief bias is often assessed with syllogistic reasoning tasks in which the believability of the conclusion conflicts with logical validity (
APA 2020). Violence is a consequence of dysfunctional beliefs, constituted a result of socialization and internalized from an early age, influencing behavior. Thus, it is essential to acknowledge how violence is interpreted by individuals, bearing in mind that this dimension is associated with cultural norms that influence self-perceptions.
The beliefs related to violence influence the perception of people and the considerations we make about the environment. Therefore, this aspect has a significant role in the behavior (
Machado et al. 2006) and is crucial to indicate dysfunctional beliefs and thoughts among offenders and the general population (
Ferrer-Pérez et al. 2019). Thus, beliefs and attitudes have a base role in the perpetration of IPV (e.g., sexist, patriarchal, and sexually dysfunctional attitudes against partners) (
Husnu and Mertan 2017). Nevertheless, victims frequently appear to have beliefs related to the relationship dynamics (e.g., guilty feelings, subservient conduct, and beliefs related to the marriage) (
Bosch-Fiol and Ferrer-Pérez 2012;
Megías and Montañés 2012;
Puente-Martínez et al. 2016). This belief may restrain the victims from seeking help, which constitutes a barrier to the policies that prevent IPV because these behaviors are still culturally legitimized (
Almeida et al. 2023;
Alves et al. 2019;
Barocas et al. 2016;
Shen 2014). For example,
Mendes and Cláudio (
2010) observed that the legitimation of violence mainly results from dysfunctional beliefs that excuse abusive behaviors, which have been internalized since very early influencing behavior (
Gonçalves et al. 2021;
Silva 2017). According to
Machado (
2010), the complexity of human relations has a strong contribution to the main conceptions of violence, making it difficult to define and agree about externalization as being violent or not (
Ventura et al. 2013). Based on the importance of beliefs and attitudes in abusive relationships, it is essential to identify irrational beliefs and cognitive distortions in criminal and non-forensic populations. Thus, reliable and valid assessment tools are essential for research and intervention purposes (
Ferrer-Pérez et al. 2019) because often, research conflates attitudes with social norms or employs attitudes as a proxy for social norms due to the limited availability of valid measures (
Shakya et al. 2022).
That is why it is important to study IPV beliefs and attitudes among the general population but also among professionals who could directly or indirectly influence the community against this kind of crime (
Table 1).
Regarding gender differences and looking at studies on the general population (e.g.,
Bucheli and Rossi 2019;
Machado et al. 2014;
Vandello and Cohen 2008), the results show that men tend to have more beliefs favorable to IPV when compared with women. Additionally, the studies with offenders (e.g.,
Capaldi et al. 2012;
Graham-Kevan 2007), mainly with male samples, revealed accentuated IPV beliefs. Such beliefs can be equally accentuated by age and tend to be a central element in a traditional base belief and in devaluation/trivialization situations that support the protection of family privacy and a consequent lack of responsibility of the offenders for causes external to his will (e.g.,
Band-Winsterstein and Eisikovits 2010;
Bucheli and Rossi 2019;
Neves and Almeida 2020).
Mookerjee et al. (
2021) observed that individuals who hold beliefs rationalizing “wife beating,” regardless of gender, tend to increase the likelihood of experiencing IPV. However, it is noteworthy that women endorsing such beliefs face a higher risk of IPV compared with their counterparts who do not, and the impact of a woman’s beliefs appears to have a more significant influence than that of men’s beliefs in this regard.
When studying gender differences in university samples,
Larsen (
2016) found that women tend to be more accurate in identifying this type of situation. Still, in this sample,
Larsen (
2016) verified that 55% of the participants believed this problem existed on their own University Campus. In Portugal,
Neves et al. (
2022), in a Portuguese university sample, found that men have more conservative beliefs about gender social relations than women.
Concerning beliefs among health professionals,
Briones-Vozmediano et al. (
2022) found that the training received on the phenomenon does not seem to be enough because they are not being prepared to deal with a social and emotional component (focused on the biomedical and pathological response resulting from situations of violence).
Jack et al. (
2021) admitted that this problem resides in pre-graduate training and during career development.
Briones-Vozmediano et al. (
2022) argue that, although training is not a single condition for the dilution of professionals’ beliefs, not least because these derive from their own experiences and personal development, they allow it to function as a barrier or potentiate the reduction of vulnerability arising from their perception of the phenomenon.
Martínez-García et al. (
2021) concluded that there are still some negative perspectives, referring to a view of the problem as a phenomenon of a particular and personal nature of women that the public health system should not treat.
Johnson and May (
2015) reinforce that beliefs are one of the most significant barriers to the adequate response of professionals during the care provided. In this line, how the system trains its professionals can help in the way in which the victims themselves are received and forwarded. An example of the usefulness of this training/intervention work with professionals is the study by
Arora et al. (
2021), which focused on the impact of a program on the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of these professionals on violence, first-line, social, and legal support through referrals. The intervention in this study also included training and changes at the system level to create a supportive ecosystem for professionals in this area, as
Sprague and The EDUCATE Investigators (
2019) advocates. The results were considered positive, with a direct demonstration of improvement in the performance of professionals in their work services.
At the same time, one of the other professional groups that had contact with IPV is the police, who are responsible for investigating the crime but also, as a result of this expertise, listening to victims and offenders. An optimistic note about these professionals’ perspective regarding crime is that
Russell (
2018) found in his study that the gender of those involved does not present significant differences in the attribution of responsibilities by the police (i.e., men and women). Women are investigated in the same way, depending on whether they play the victim or suspect in the crime), not attributing tremendous guilt to one over the other, valuing only the facts allegedly committed. However, other studies (e.g.,
Matos and Cláudio 2010;
Ferreira et al. 2022) suggest that male professionals tend to have higher legitimacy in the general context of security forces and criminal justice, leading to a more passive face of the crimes committed.
Many studies relate IPV and beliefs among the general population and professionals. In this sense, this study analyzed the relationship between gender and IPV beliefs in the general population, university students, and healthcare/safety/justice professionals in the Portuguese context.
5. Results
This study examined the relationship between gender and IPV beliefs in the general population, university students, and healthcare/safety/justice professionals.
To characterize IPV beliefs,
Table 3 represents the mean ECVC scores obtained by the total sample. Results show that the total mean score is above the scale middle point, thus showing a prevalence of beliefs that legitimize IPV in the current sample.
Comparing the mean ECVC scores between genders (men and women) shows that men have significantly higher levels of IPV legitimization than women (
Table 4), where the only factor without a significant difference is the legitimization of violence by the preservation of family privacy (Factor 4). Legitimizing and trivialization of minor violence (Factor 1) were the beliefs with the largest effect size, followed by the legitimization of violence by women’s conduct (Factor 2) and legitimization of violence by its attribution to external causes (Factor 3).
Analyzing how IPV level of legitimization varies with age, we found significant positive correlations between age and ECVC scores (
Table 5), which means that IPV legitimization increases from younger to older age. Analyzing how the IPV level of legitimization varies with age, we found significant positive correlations between age and ECVC scores.
Regarding the general population, university students, and healthcare/safety/justice professionals, the results suggest that there are significant differences in the ECVC scores (
Table 6). The general population presents the highest score for IPV legitimization total score in all the factors, followed by professionals and students.
The Welch test rejects the null hypothesis of equal population means (
Table 7), which means that ECVC factors differ significantly across samples.
Table 8 shows that there is a significant difference between the samples, confirming that the general population presents the highest score for IPV legitimization total score in all the factors.
6. Discussion
IPV is just part of a seriously widespread crime that relates to domestic violence. A practice firmly repudiated by the international community. It still encounters continuous challenges that go beyond the social policies of the central Governments of each country, but mainly in the resistance to change of a still accentuated fringe of the world population. In Western countries, positioned as socially developed, the lightness and banalization of some of the behaviors analyzed in this study contribute to the perpetuation of this crime that compromises the direct victims but also the entire community and the avoidance of accepting the severity and impacts of IPV.
This study focuses on the most representative element of the challenge for change, the structural belief associated with IPV behavior, and the way in which the individual understands its severity. Without moral scrutiny that disapproves of conduct of this nature, the behavior tends to remain fueled by the idea of impunity that society shares with someone who behaves in this way.
According to the results obtained, it was possible to verify an element that was already anticipated, given the number of studies developed in this area, which highlights the existence of dysfunctional beliefs that perpetuate and lead to justify or trivialize behaviors associated with violence in intimate relationships. These results are similar to those found in national (e.g.,
Machado et al. 2006) and international (e.g.,
Ferrer-Pérez et al. 2019) studies.
At the same time, when analyzing Hypothesis 2, which referred to “Older people tend to show greater legitimacy of violence”, this was also confirmed, being consistent with the international literature that suggests that beliefs favorable to violence in intimate relationships are especially pronounced in older people (
Band-Winsterstein and Eisikovits 2010;
Bucheli and Rossi 2019;
Neves and Almeida 2020). However, it should be noted that none of the analyzed studies (this study included) has a longitudinal research design. Thus, it does not allow us to objectively analyze whether this fact is related to an increase in the level of beliefs based on a multifactorial variable of a temporal nature or whether it is delimited to a historical, contextual, and cultural period that conditioned the maintenance and consolidation of beliefs of this type in older individuals. We believe that this could be a relevant line of research, which will make it possible to understand the impact of measures to prevent and combat the phenomenon of IPV and to identify possible fluctuations in the level of beliefs throughout the life cycle.
Hypothesis 3, and the last one, referred to a central element of our research, where we sought to understand whether the training and performance of professional functions that may have a direct or indirect influence on the reduction (e.g., teachers) and/or combat (e.g., lawyers, police) of the IPV with the community. For this purpose, Hypothesis 3 was formulated, “Professionals and students have lower levels of beliefs compared to other participants in the general population”. At this point, framed with the reviewed literature review (e.g.,
Ferrer-Pérez et al. 2019), we found that the hypothesis is confirmed, with the general population appearing with a higher score, followed by healthcare/safety/justice professionals and, finally, university students. It is in these last two that the analysis can be directed to the need for future clarification. Some studies (e.g.,
Arora et al. 2021;
Johnson and May 2015;
Sprague and The EDUCATE Investigators 2019) have already stated that the training of various professionals who directly deal with victims of IPV, such as health professionals, tend to be trained for issues of a clinical and technical-scientific nature, bleaching the elements related to the approach to the victim, psychological first aid or even interviewing techniques appropriate to the context. Thus, given the evidence that professionals have a higher level of beliefs than students, the question is extended to another framework previously discussed: Is it the chronological age of the participants that negatively influences their perspective on the IPV or the desensitization towards the theme, given the gap between basic training and field practice? Could other variables associated with the performance of the profession accentuate these beliefs? We understand that the extended analysis of these variables, consolidating a more concrete identification of theparticipant’s level of social and psychological training and the development of relational and interpersonal skills, could accentuate the levels of awareness of professionals and students, potentially having positive impacts on the general population, given the positions these professionals occupy in society. Thus, other factors (e.g., exposure to violence in early childhood) can have a significant influence on beliefs and attitudes (
Godbout et al. 2019;
Machado et al. 2006;
Pournaghash-Tehrani 2011). Despite the results obtained, we are aware that this investigation has some limitations, namely the use of a self-reporting tool because people feel vulnerable to provide personal information and tend to respond according to social desirability. The sampling method did not assure the representativity of the study sample as a whole, nor all groups that work directly or indirectly with IPV, and cross-cultural studies are needed for a better understanding of IPV beliefs. Another limitation is the age range as well as the lack of other explanatory variables (e.g., personality, exposure to violence, cognitive factors). In conclusion, it is important to mention that although there are no clear indications of the COVID-19 pandemic period affecting the participants’ perspective on IPV, future result analyses should exercise added caution, in line with any empirical knowledge that may emerge, to minimize the potential for bias. Despite these limitations, the results do provide important contributions to the study of IPV beliefs.
7. Conclusions
Domestic violence is a phenomenon that occurs in different spheres of society. Violence-related issues focus on the differentiation of gender roles in a society where patriarchy is especially present. Although legal and social advances have been witnessed, the differentiation of opportunities and how men and women behave continue to be seen and accepted, or not, equally influencing career choices, career access and development, and influence on the family nucleus. Also, in accessing and selecting professions and their training, there are differences in how men and women see and treat the profession and how they approach and relate to the crime of domestic violence and, consequently, IPV. The contact of some professionals with this reality is also anchored in personal beliefs and their evolution and maintenance throughout their professional lives. Given the results obtained in our study, which are parallel to others obtained internationally and nationally, it is urgent to define action plans in the training curricula of professionals. These programs should not be limited to interventions focused on the professional’s technical skills; they should also reinforce the soft skills training that could be central factors in providing better quality services to direct and indirect victims. Intervention in the psychosocial dimension emerges as an act of collective citizenship, which cannot start only from political initiative but mainly from an individual will. This should be promoted from pre-school to adulthood, which may mean adapting training curricula in a college context in the case of more qualified professionals. Results show that we need to work hard with social evolution in men’s and women’s beliefs about IPV, shedding light on how women may be particularly vulnerable to victimization and men to offending, thus reinforcing the importance of targeting IPV prevention by gender. Greater awareness may not be enough to counteract the rise in IPV statistics, but it works in favor of an increase in reporting, gradually giving voice to a once-silent crime. Despite the results of this study, we think it is important to look at the future and study other important variables that can explain beliefs and attitudes in age, profession, and gendered perspectives, such as cognitive factors, personality, attachment, and other social issues. Given the evolution of community intervention programs, it seems appropriate to consider understanding their impact on beliefs that legitimize IPV. Therefore, a longitudinal study (with specific milestones) related to the training of healthcare/safety/justice professionals may provide a more suitable perspective on the impacts of current public policies.