Domestic violence is a social scourge that we find in all cultures, countries and social strata. Although women may also be the perpetrators of abuse, they are more often the victims. According to the WHO, around 35% of women in the world have suffered physical and / or sexual violence from a partner or by third parties at some point in their life. It is clear that with these data, domestic violence is a global problem that requires attention from institutions and also, why not, from the more scientific field.
In this sense, investigations are carried out that try to understand and explain what it is that leads a human being to attack those with whom he lives. Among other things, it seems that the cognitive functioning of domestic aggressors could be different from that of non-violent people, with special relevance to what we know as executive functions. One of these investigations has been carried out at the University of Jaén, in Spain.
In this research, the performance in an executive functioning test of a group of domestic abusers was compared with that obtained by other groups of offenders: sexual, violent and non-violent. A control group composed of non-delinquent participants was also included. The assessed task is known as the Trail Making Test and has two parts. In its part A, the individual must draw a continuous line that joins the numbers from 1 to 25 presented disordered and within two circles on a sheet of paper. In part B, circles with numbers or letters are presented and the activity requires alternating each number with its corresponding letter alphabetically until reaching the last element.
More problems with mental flexibility
The results, published in the scientific journal Medicine, Science and Law , showed that, indeed, domestic aggressors present altered executive functioning. Both they and the group of sex offenders needed more time to complete part B of the test. On the other hand, the group of violent aggressors showed more errors in that part of the test, understood as more failures in the control of impulsivity.
What the author concludes is that the data seem to suggest that both domestic and sexual offenders seem to show more problems in mental flexibility and executive control, which could partly explain the interrelationships that exist between these types of violence. Mental flexibility is what allows us, for example, to adjust to changes and unforeseen events, or to be able to take different points of view when faced with a situation or problem. We hope that all this knowledge will serve to better work with these people and their families, and above all to be able to prevent such aberrant behaviors as much as possible.
In Spain
According to the balance of the Spanish Ministry of Equality, 2018 ended with 47 women murdered by their partners or ex-partners, which represents the lowest annual figure since there is official data, that is, since January 1, 2003. They already total almost 1,000 since they began to be counted.
Fighting against gender violence is everyone’s business and making visible the condemnation of this social scourge as well, therefore, we encourage you to participate another year in our 6th Race against gender violence.
