The purpose of this study is to explore factors to affect the battered women's decision going back to the abused relationship. There must be more factors, but three factors were examined in this study, such as learned helplessness, social support, and violence risk. The respondents were 65 female battered women who visited shelters to avoid domestic violence. The results of this study were as follows. First, it was found that the more the learned helplessness was, the greater the risk of domestic violence became. Also, the more severe the domestic violence was, the less likely the battered women could escape from the abused relationship. However, the effect by social support was not so significant. In conclusion, this study attempted to confirm the relations among learned helplessness, social support, domestic violence level and a decision to terminate the abused relationship. This study can help to understand why battered women who experience severe domestic violence might stay home in spite of danger of their lives.
This study aimed at finding out how integration and differentiation of public and private selves would relate to subjective well-being in women. A total of 148 women over 18 years old participated. The participants performed an adjective judgment task that was designed to measure the degree of differentiation and integration of public and private selves, and then completed a subjective well-being scale and a demographic questionnaire. As a result, it was found that a higher level of integration between public and private selves led to a higher level of life satisfaction and a more frequent experience of positive emotions whereas a lower level of integration between public and private selves led to a more frequent experience of negative emotions. Limitations of the present study as well as directions for future research on the relation between self-integration and subjective well-being in women are discussed.
This study was aimed to determine whether the period of refugee experience both in the course of escaping from North Korea and during transit through third countries has a direct effects on psychological symptom of North Korean refugee women. The sample comprised female refugees from North Korea in the Settlement Support Center, commonly known as Hanawon and were stratified by the length of time in exile. We assessed the women's mental health status at two time points in their beginning of Hanawon program and right after completion of the program using the Brief Psychological State Inventory for North Korean Refugees (BPSI-NKR), which is well developed and validated. Significant positive correlations were found between that the length of time in transit through third countries and psychological symptom such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, alcohol problem and family issue. The comparison between short-term group that arrived in South Korea within one year (n=153) and long-term group that arrived in the South with more than 7 years in exile (n=201) showed significant differences in their degree of psychological improvement and stability on symptoms such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, somatization, anger, psychosis and alcohol problem. Improvement of psychological symptoms of the long-term group is higher than that of the short-term group. The forcible repatriation experience back to North Korea affects significantly on somatization. However, the identity of the variables between forcible repatriation experience and the duration of refugee situation was not relevant, nor was any interaction. This research has its significance in the point that the period of stay in transit countries affects psychological symptoms of North Korean refugee women. However, this study had some limitations which were not considered other risk factors such as occupation, residence area, personal experience in third countries within our findings.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effects of psychological well-being and social support between parenting stress and parenting behavior among mothers of children with autistic spectrum disorder. Participates were 127 mothers of children with autistic spectrum disorder who have children receiving treatment from special schools, hospitals, and/or treatment institutes in Seoul and Gyeong-gi do. For the purpose of study, authors conducted frequency analysis, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. The findings were summarized as follows: First, parenting stress was significantly negatively correlated with psychological well-being. social support and affectionate parenting behavior. However parenting stress was significantly positively correlated with rejective and permissive parenting behavior. Both social support and psychological well-being were significantly positively correlated with affectionate parenting behavior, yet significantly negatively correlated with rejective and permissive parenting behavior. Second, psychological well-being partly mediated parenting stress and affectionate parenting behavior. Third, social support partly mediated parenting stress and affectionate parenting behavior. The study further discusses its significance and limitations based on these findings.