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

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 Camano and Bordon, 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 social problem, and in a lower rate as a courtships' problem.