The Effects of Parental Marital Violence on Young Adults: An Exploratory Investigation

There is some evidence that both marital discord and marital violence have deleterious effects on the emotional health of witnessing children. Little attention has been paid to the effects of such turmoil on young adults, despite some evidence that negative effects may persist into adulthood. Standardized self-report measures of aggression, depression, and anxiety were administered to three groups of college students: (a) those who had viewed parental violence (n = 44); (b) those who had viewed nonviolent discord (n = 43); and (c) those whose parents were satisfactorily married (n = 77). Students who themselves had been abused by their parents were excluded. Results indicated that students who had viewed parental marital violence were significantly more anxious than those from satisfactory relationships, and that women who had viewed violence were more depressed and more aggressive than women in either of the comparison groups. Methodological and theoretical implications of these significant findings are discussed.