Cintly Guzman

Annotated Bibliography

Description of topic: Topic assigned was peer education and sexual victimization. My groups
focus is on creating a program for new UTC students that will educate them on healthy and
unhealthy relationships.

Hypothesis: Young adults are not aware fully aware of what unhealthy relationships consists of,
but programs created to enlighten adults on the aspects of healthy relationships have been
successful.

APA Citations:

Carlson, E., Bonnie (1996). Dating Violence Student Beliefs About Consequences.
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 11(1).
This study was designed to learn about student views regarding dating violence,
its impact, and the response. The participants consisted of graduates and
undergraduates from a public university. The method consisted of vignettes,
questions after the vignettes, and a modified version of the Conflicts Tactics
Scale. Their findings were interesting as most students thought the person in the
vignette should end the relationship if the person was in a violent relationship,
however, it contradicts reports on their own relationships. One preventive
measure we can include in our programming can be for students to learn to use
the pros and cons system to analyze their relationship. Victims seek counseling
only in the aftermath therefore; we should teach that although pushing, slapping,
and threats do not cause injury, they do cause psychological harm and counseling
should be sought if these are consistently present in the relationship. The
definitions of what violence is should be expanded to include not only extremely
harmful acts, but less severe ones that lead to more severe acts. Lastly, because
gender differences affect the perception of violence of students, the study suggests
directing programming for female/ male only groups.
Carlson, R. G., Barden, S. M., Daire, A. P. and Greene, J. (2014). Influence of
Relationship Education on Relationship Satisfaction for Low-Income Couples. Journal of
Counseling & Development.

The journal focuses on the effectiveness of CRE (Couple and Relationship

Education) programs in married couples. The CRE programs concentrate on
increasing communication, effective conflict resolution, understanding
commitment, learning adaptive behaviors and attitudes in a group setting. Their
procedure consisted of a treatment and a wait-list group and they separated
couples so that they would not be influenced by each other. Although our focus is
on UTC students, the program the study used was shown to be effective for these
 couples and thus can be used for the program we are trying to develop. The PREP
program, a type of CRE, has been proven to be effective in identifying
communication dangers signs, problem solving, and forgiveness. My group can
analyze this program and select activities that are appropriate for our participants.
What is interesting to note is that between the studys participants, females were
eager to participate, but males were more hesitant which means we should
highlight to our male students the importance and benefits of actively learning
from our program. One of the limitations of the study was that there is no
presence of homosexual couples in the study.

Florsheim, P., & Moore, D. R. (2008). Observing differences between healthy and
unhealthy adolescent romantic relationships: Substance abuse and interpersonal process.
Journal Of Adolescence, 31(6), 795-814.
The study focuses on adolescent relationships, particularly those who had a
partner with substance abuse. 30 heterosexual teenagers were recruited by
advertisements. The couples were asked to discuss a recent disagreement and try
to come up with a solution. The study was interested on how couples
communicate in stressful situations. The observational data was coded using
SASB which describes hostility in exchanges. They found that high level s of
interpersonal hostility and low levels of interpersonal warmth are associated with
substance abuse disorder. Also, females who reported higher levels of support
from their partner were observed to be less hostile during the task. In our
programming, we can explain the potentially harming effects of substance abuse
to not only their health, but to their romantic relationships. The limitations of this
study were the predominant white, heterosexual, middle class participants.

Lawson, D. M. (2003). Incidence, Explanations, and Treatment of Partner Violence.

Journal Of Counseling & Development, 81(1), 19-32.
This article gives some important statistics about partner violence and clears some
misconceptions on women and men violence. Women usually initiate violence in
couple fights, but male-on-female violence results in greater negative outcomes.
The difference between the use of violence is that men tend to use violence to
control their partner while women use violence to express their frustration or for
self-defense. The research done by Lawson also points out that homosexual
partners experience the same amount of violence compared to heterosexual ones.
His research describes the different treatments available to address this violence:
Cognitive Behavioral/ Feminist Models, Psychodynamic/ Interpersonal Models,
Group Treatment, Couple Counseling, and Integrated Treatment Orientations. The
main points we can use for our program is anger management, conflict and
resolution training, defining physical abuse, creating a safe plan, and improving
 communication skills. The method of Group Treatment Modality can be
especially helpful we are focusing on educating large groups of students.
Testa, M., Hoffman, J. H., & Leonard, K. E. (2011). Female intimate partner violence
perpetration: stability and predictors of mutual and nonmutual aggression across the first
year of college. Aggressive Behavior, 37(4), 362-373.

This study was intended to test the hypothesis that mutual IPV is more common
than female perpetrated IPV and can include a higher frequency of psychological
and physical aggression compared with asymmetrical IPV. Their method
consisted of a 3 wave-longitudal study of graduating female high school seniors
selected at random. They were sent a questionnaire booklet and then sent an
intervention booklet about alcohol only, alcohol and relationships, or neither.
They measured stress, partner substance abuse, partner antisocial behavior, heavy
episode drinking, partner psychological/ physical aggression, relationship
satisfaction, and past witness of parental violence. Their results showed that
mutual aggression is more common than asymmetrical aggression and that
marijuana was associated with aggression as well as heavy drinking. The
hypothesis failed in that violence in couples did not escalate. One interesting fact
was that low relationship satisfaction was not associated with IPV because college
students may accept IPV as a normal part of relationships. We can use this
information to educate females in our program to emphasize that it is not normal.
The study also noted that psychological aggression was more problematic than
physical aggression thus; we must focus on educating students on how to identify
psychological aggression and highlight its severity. The limitation of this study
was the short time frame studied and female only view.