Abstract
Personal narratives tell the stories of people’s lives as well as provide insight into the meaning of those experiences. These narratives both reflect and are influenced by the relationships within which an individual is embedded. In this study, autobiographical narratives for two groups of women were compared: women who had experienced habitual gender-based domestic violence in their couple relationships and women who had not. The language of narratives was analyzed by LIWC (Language Inquiry and Word Count procedure). Results showed that the language and structure of narratives by women with a history of domestic violence indicated greater stress and trauma, more incoherent space-time organization, and poorer relationship quality. Women who experienced violence wrote longer narratives that contained proportionately more negative emotion words and more references to cognitions and physical/body issues, and indicated more disorganized structure by means of incoherent use of verbal tense, more impoverished use of connectives, and greater use of negative sentence syntax and discrepancy words. They also included proportionately more pronoun references to ‘I’,‘You’,’ and ‘He’, indicating self vs. partner conflictual relationships. However, women who had experienced relationship violence for longer decreased their references to the emotions of fear and anxiety, suggesting adaptation to violence over time.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alvarez-Conrad, J., Zoellner, L. A., & Foa, E. B. (2001). Linguistic predictors of trauma pathology and physical health. Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15, 159–170. doi:10.1002/acp.839.
Bohanek, J. G., Fivush, R., & Walker, C. (2005). Memories of positive and negative emotional events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 51–66. doi:10.1002/acp.1064.
Bower, G. H., & Silvers, H. (1998). Cognitive impact of traumatic events. Development and Psychopathology, 10, 625–653. doi:10.1017/S0954579498001795.
Campbell, J., et al. (2002). Intimate partner violence and physical health consequences. Archives of Internal Medicine, 162, 1157–1163. doi:10.1001/archinte.162.10.1157.
Carpenter, G. L., & Stacks, A. M. (2009). Developmental effects of exposure to intimate partner violence in early childhood: a review of the literature. Children and Youth Services Review, 31, 831–839. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2009.03.005.
Chung, C. K., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2008). Revealing dimensions of thinking in open-ended self-descriptions: An automated meaning extraction method for natural language. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 96–132. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2007.04.006.
Cohen, A. S., St-Hilaire, A., Aakres, J. M., & Docherty, N. M. (2009). Understanding anhedonia in schizophrenia through lexical analysis of natural speech. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 569–586. doi:10.1080/02699930802044651.
Conway, M. A. (2005). Memory and the self. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 594–628. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2005.08.005.
DePrince, A. (2005). Social cognition and revictimization risk. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 6(1), 125–141. doi:10.1300/J229v06n01_08.
Dutton, J., Roberts, L., & Bednar, J. (2011). Prosocial practices, positive identity, and flourishing at work. In S. Donaldson, M. Csikszentmihalyi, & J. Nakamura (Eds.), Applied positive psychology: Improving everyday life, schools, work, health, and society (pp. 155–170). New York: Routledge.
Eberhard-Gran, M., Schei, B., & Eskild, A. (2007). Somatic symptoms and diseases are more common in women exposed to violence. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22, 1668–1673. doi:10.1007/s11606-007-0389-8.
Ellsberg, M., et al. (2008). Intimate partner violence and women’s physical and mental health in the multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence: an observational study. Lancet, 371, 1165–1172. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)60522-X.
Fivush, R. (2010). Speaking silence: the social construction of silence in autobiographical and cultural narratives. Memory, 18, 88–98. doi:10.1080/09658210903029404.
Fivush, R. (2011). The development of autobiographical memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 559–582. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131702.
Fivush, R., & Haden, C. A. (2003). Autobiographical memory and the construction of narrative self: Developmental and cultural perspectives. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Fivush, R., Edwards, V. J., & Mennuti-Washburn, J. (2003). Narratives of 9/11: relations among personal involvement, narrative content and memory of the emotional impact over time. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 1099–1111. doi:10.1002/acp.988.
Fivush, R., Sales, J., & Bohanek, J. (2008). Meaning making in mothers’ and children’s narratives of emotional events. Memory, 16, 579–594. doi:10.1080/09658210802150681.
Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E., & Target, M. (2002). Affect regulation, mentalization and the development of the self. New York: Other Press.
Freyd, J. J., DePrince, G. P., & Zurbriggen, L. Z. (2001). Self-reported memory for abuse depends upon victim-perpetrator relationship. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 2(3), 5–16. doi:10.1300/J229v02n03_02.
Garcia-Moreno, C., Jansen, H. A., Ellsberg, M., Heise, L., & Watts, C. H. (2006). Prevalence of intimate partner violence: findings from the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence. The Lancet, 368(9543), 1260–1269.
Gonzales, A. L., Hancock, J. T., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2010). Language indicators of social dynamics in small groups. Communication Research, 37, 3–19. doi:10.1177/0093650209351468.
Haj-Yahia, M. M., & de Zoysa, P. (2008). Rates and psychological effects of exposure to family violence among Sri Lankan university students. Child Abuse and Neglect, 32(10), 994–1002. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2008.05.001.
Hausmann, R., Tyson, L. D., & Zahidi, S. (Eds.) (2009). The global gender gap report. Colony/Geneva: World Economic Forum.
Hulette, A. C., Kaehler, L. A., & Freyd, J. J. (2011). Intergenerational associations between trauma and dissociation. Journal of Family Violence, 26, 217–225. doi:10.1007/s10896-011-9357-5.
International Institute for Population Sciences and Macro International (2007). National family health survey (NFHS-3) 2005–06. Mumbai: IIPS Press.
Ireland, M. E., Slatcher, R. B., Eastwick, P. W., Scissors, L. E., Finkel, E. J., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). Language style matching predicts relationship initiation and stability. Psychological Science, 22(1), 39–44. doi:10.1177/0956797610392928.
Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (2007). Indagine multiscopo sulle famiglie “Sicurezza delle donne” Anno 2006. ISTAT: Roma.
Jewkes, R. (2002). Intimate partner violence: Causes and prevention. The Lancet, 359(9315), 1423–1429.
Kaira, G., & Bhugra, D. D. (2013). Sexual violence against women: understanding cross-cultural intersections. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 55(3), 244–249. doi:10.4103/0019-5545.117139.
Labov, W., & Waletzky, J. (1967/1997). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press. Reprinted in Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7, 3–38.
Lorenz, T. A., & Meston, C. M. (2012). Associations among childhood sexual abuse, language use, and adult sexual functioning and satisfaction. Child Abuse and Neglect, 36, 190–199. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.09.014.
McAdams, D. P. (2006). The role of narrative in personality psychology today. Narrative Inquiry, 16, 11–18. doi:10.1075/ni.16.1.04mca.
McAdams, D. P., Anyidoho, N. A., Brown, C., Huang, Y. T., Kaplan, B., & Machado, M. A. (2004). Traits and stories: links between dispositional and narrative features of personality. Journal of Personality, 72, 761–783. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00279.
McLean, K. C., Pasupathi, M., & Pals, J. L. (2007). Selves creating stories creating selves: a process model of self-development. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 262–278. doi:10.1177/1088868307301034.
Nelson, K., & Fivush, R. (2004). The emergence of autobiographical memory: a social cultural developmental theory. Psychological Review, 111(2), 486–511. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.2.486.
Pasupathi, M. (2007). Telling and the remembered self: Linguistic differences in memories for previously disclosed and previously undisclosed events. Memory, 15, 258–270. doi:10.1080/09658210701256456.
Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8, 162–166. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00403.x.
Pennebaker, J. W., & Chung, C. K. (2007). Expressive writing, emotional upheavals, and health. In H. Friedman & R. Silver (Eds.), Handbook of health psychology (pp. 263–284). New York: Oxford University Press.
Pennebaker, J. W., Francis, M. E., & Booth, R. J. (2001). Linguistic inquiry and word count: LIWC 2007. Austin: LIWC.
Peterson, C., Bonechi, A., Smorti, A., & Tani, F. (2010). A distant mirror: memories of parents and friends across childhood and adolescence. British Journal of Psychology, 101, 601–620. doi:10.1348/000712609X478835.
Russel, B. (2010). Battered woman syndrome as a legal defense: History, effectiveness and implications. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.
Seider, B. H., Hirschberger, G., Nelson, K. L., & Levenson, R. W. (2009). We can work it out: age differences in relational pronouns, physiology, and behavior in marital conflict. Psychology and Aging, 24, 604–613. doi:10.1037/a0016950.
Sheikh, S., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (2010). Tracing the self-regulatory bases of moral emotions. Emotion Review, 2, 386–396. doi:10.1177/1754073910374660.
Sillars, A. L., Shellen, W., McIntosh, A., & Pomegranate, M. A. (1997). Relational characteristics of language: elaboration and differentiation in marital conversations. Western Journal of Communication, 61, 403–422. doi:10.1080/10570319709374587.
Simmons, R., Chambless, D., & Gordon, P. C. (2008). How do hostile and emotionally over-involved relatives view their relationships? What relatives’ pronoun use tells us. Family Process, 47, 405–419. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.2008.00261.x.
Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). How do I love thee? Let me count the words: the social effects of expressive writing. Psychological Science, 17(8), 660–664. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01762.x.
Smith, S., Anderson-Hanley, C., Langrock, A., & Compas, B. (2005). The effects of journaling for women with newly diagnosed breast cancer. Psycho-Oncology, 14, 1075–1082. doi:10.1002/pon.912.
Smorti, A. (1998). Il Sé come testo: Costruzioni di storie e sviluppo della persona. Firenze: Giunti.
Smorti, A. (2011). Autobiographical memory and autobiographical narrative: what is the relationship? Narrative Inquiry, 21, 303–310. doi:10.1075/ni.21.2.08smo.
Smorti, A., Massetti, I., & Pasqualetti, E. (2009). Memories of stressful events: A narrative approach. In P. Heidenreich & I. Pruter (Eds.), Handbook of stress: Causes, effects and control (pp. 14–47). New York: Nova Publisher.
Smorti, A., Panati, B., & Rizzo, A. (2010). Autobiography as tool to improve lifestyle, well-being, and self-narrative in patients with mental disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 198, 564–571. doi:10.1097/NMD.0b013e3181ea4e59.
Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (2007). The state of the art of stalking: taking stock of the emerging literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12, 64–86. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2006.05.001.
Tani, F., Bonechi, A., Peterson, C., & Smorti, A. (2010). Parental influences on memories of parents and friends. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 17(4), 300–329. doi:10.1080/00221325.2010.503976.
Tani, F., Smorti, A., & Peterson, C. (2015). Is friendship quality reflected in memory narratives? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 32(3), 281–303. doi:10.1177/0265407515573601.
Tausczik, Y. R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2010). The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized text analysis methods. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29(1), 24–54. doi:10.1177/0261927X09351676.
Vos, T., et al. (2006). Measuring the impact of intimate partner violence on the health of women in Victoria, Australia. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 84, 739–744. doi:10.2471/BLT.06.030411.
Wang, Q. (2013). The autobiographical self and time and culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams-Baucom, K. J., Atkins, D. C., Sevier, M., Eldridge, K. A., & Christensen, A. (2010). “You” and “I” need to talk about “us”: linguistic patterns in marital interactions. Personal Relationships, 17(1), 41–56. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2010.01251.x.
World Health Organization (2002). World report on violence and health. Geneva: WHO Press.
World Health Organization (2013). Global and regional estimates of violence against women: Prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. Geneva: WHO Press.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by a grant from the MURST-ex 60 % in 2013-2014. The authors are grateful to all of the women who participated in the study. They would also like to thank student researchers for their help with data insertion.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tani, F., Peterson, C. & Smorti, M. The Words of Violence: Autobiographical Narratives of Abused Women. J Fam Viol 31, 885–896 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-016-9824-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-016-9824-0