Psychological violence in courtships of university students from Mendoza (Argentina)

Violencia psicológica en la relación de noviazgo en estudiantes universitarios mendocinos (Argentina)

Objective: to describe the characteristics of psychological violence in university students´ courtship, with respect to their perception, modalities, and response to it, in students of the Psychology Faculty of the Universidad del Aconcagua. Materials and methods:quantitative research, descriptive study, cross-sectional design with surveys. The intentional sample was integrated by 452 students from two careers: Psychology and Childhood, Adolescence and Family, of both sexes, with an average age of 22 years old, that had maintained or were maintaining a courtship. Instrument: The Psychological Violence Questionnaire in courtships (Marchiori, Lucientes de Funes, Puente de Camaño and Bordón, 2013). Results: presence, in a variety of frequencies that goes from occasionally to always, of twenty three attitudes or behaviors related to psychological violence. The most frequent behavior reported by the participants was oppositions (72,1%) and the less frequent was death threat (3,1%). The 56% of participants experienced anguish because of this kind of behaviors, 50% sadness and 49% anger. Remarkable differences were found between the emotions experienced by men and women of the sample; and also in respect to the behavior and attitudes they received from their partners. Conclusions: the behaviors or attitudes related to psychological violence have affected the participants, and this type of violence is considered, mostly, as a courtships´ problem, and in a lower rate as a social problem.