Introduction

Introduction

As Burns (2000:3) points out,research is a systematic investigation to find answers to a problem.This system includes steps,techniques,exercises and events that will benefit researchers' understanding of the world in which they live (Wysocki,2004).Within this system,analysis is one of the pillars of social research (Babbie,2001).Such analysis allows researchers to turn a general idea for a research topic into useful and valid measurements in the real world.This is an essential part of the process.

Research can be seen as including seven major interrelated stages:definition of the research problem,statement of the hypothesis,research design,measurement,data collection,data analysis,and generalisation (Frankfort-Nachmias,1996).In the previous parts or chapters,I have described,explained and discussed my research concerning the first five research steps.This part will analyse my research data of both the in-depth interviews and the questionnaires and discuss their outcomes.

As Chapter 1 has shown that psychological violence is a very common aspect of domestic violence (Hanmer et al.,2000,Horley,1988;Kelly,1998;Mooney,2000;Smith,1989;Yan,2004).Chinese academics have started to pay attention to its exploration although this term is newer in China (Wang,2004).In exploring this,they found that the phenomenon of such abuse appears to be especially prominent in comparison with physical and sexual violence.According to the survey by the China Law Society (Yi,2006),psychological violence appears to be widespread in families probably occurring in over 60 per cent of Chinese families.Sixty-five per cent of women suffered language abuse (Zhang,2002).The Police Report Centre in Dalian reported that 70-80 per cent of 834 cases dealt with psychological violence(Tang,2003).

Chinese studies tend to focus on general prevalence but usually not on specific aspects concerning gender,husbands/wives,and impacts of abuse.Such studies may not usually ask how much psychological violence specifically occurs between wives and husbands,what forms of psychological violence are used more frequently between couples,what types of such violence is likely to occur in intellectual and non-intellectual families or whether there is a difference in such violence between them.How do wives and husbands specifically experience psychological violence? Why do wives/husbands like to use psychological violence (e.g.verbal or nonverbal violence) to abuse their partners? Is there gender inequality in psychological violence between wives and husbands? My research aims to explore these questions.

Social science research,as Babbie (2009) states,is about discovering the patterns and rules governing the ways people interact with one another in society,namely what actually is.Apparently,what is measured is as important as how it is measured in the social science.As far as my research is concerned,I measure whether there are different attitudes,experiences and emotions towards marriage and the family,domestic violence between wives and husbands and why such differences occur between them.And I also measure what impacts will influence them.The process of my measurement includes description and explanation.

As elaborated in Part II,I carried out my data collection within the framework of qualitative and quantitative approaches.Specifically,my data were collected through these two instruments:an in-depth interview and a self-completion questionnaire.Based on the results from both the in-depth interviews and questionnaires,this part of the thesis will focus on discussing the gender processes involved in psychological violence occurring between wives and husbands.

This part therefore includes four chapters.Chapter 8 will mainly present the interview data in relation to opinions on what is seen as the basis of a happy marriage and family by the interviewees,which may reveal that their concept of marriage and family is still affected by the traditional culture.Chapter 9 will firstly talk about how the interviewees conceptualise communication between wives and husbands in the home then this chapter will also present what types of communication in relation to verbal and non-verbal behaviour appear prominently in conceptualisation of communication by the interviewees.Chapter 10 will firstly focus on how the respondents experienced psychological violence in relation to verbal/non-verbal abuse in the home and then will go on to explain why there is a difference in this violence as experienced by wives and husbands.This analysis takes different educational levels into account.Chapter 11 will discuss different impacts of psychological violence on the respondents,mainly in relation to negative emotions and health problems.Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data,we can see that gender issues appear prominently in these chapters.

Before the analysis and discussion are presented it is important to reiterate my research questions which were being explored through the survey and in-depth interviews:

·To investigate experiences of psychological violence principally between intimate partners.

·To investigate the types of psychological violence such as verbal and non-verbal behaviour that are used by wives and husbands.

·To investigate how psychological violence impacts on the victims.

·To investigate whether psychological violence occurs differently between intellectual and non-intellectual families.

As mentioned in Chapter 4,intellectual and non-intellectual families are categories that have emerged in China after the 1980s (Li,2007;Xiao,2004).Chinese people may therefore be likely to use them in their daily lives.However,what are the intellectuals and non-intellectuals? How are these terms defined simply or theoretically?

As Zheng (1997) suggests,the intellectuals are those who have a high educational degree,including college,undergraduate and postgraduate levels,while the nonintellectuals are those who have only school education.He therefore states that everybody has knowledge but the intellectuals have more knowledge than the nonintellectuals.This reflects not only in amount of knowledge but also actually in its quality.

Hang (2006) said that there are thousands and thousands intellectuals in China.Generally,those people who have Secondary Special Technical Education and beyond College Education and professional titles are named as intellectuals,whereas those below these educational levels are named as non-intellectuals.

Chen (2006) emphasises that intellectuals are deeply involved in ideas,books,and the life of the mind and they have high status in society.Their occupations cover teachers,lawyers,engineers,doctors,officials,journalists and suchlike are admired and respected.However,non-intellectuals lack deep knowledge and they have low status in society.Their occupations cover workers,peasants,waiters/ waitress,salesmen/saleswomen,drivers,cleaners,porters and suchlike are looked down upon.

According to these definitions,we can see that a difference between both groups mainly focuses on three points:1) educational degree;2) knowledge;and 3) occupations.Because of this difference,two groups have a different status in society.According to the feature of these two groups,we need to ask whether does domestic violence,specifically psychological violence occur between them differently? This will also be explored in this part.

Before providing my interview data,I need to explain that in what follows the 53 individuals who were interviewed will be divided into three groups:

(1) Wives (W^[1]) and husbands (H^[2]) – from eight couples,numbered from W1 to W8 and H1 to H8 respectively.

(2) Married women (F^[3]) and men (M^[4]) who were interviewed as individuals rather than as part of a couple:15 married women and 9 married men,numbered from F 1 to F 15 and M 1 to M 9 respectively.

(3) Professionals (P^[5]) - 13 professionals,numbered from P 1 to P 13.

Questionnaire results provided in this part of the thesis will be shown in tables,graphs and pie charts,while interview data will be shown in original quotes.

【注释】

[1]W is a short form of wife and will be used in my thesis.

[2]H is a short form of husband and will be used in my thesis.

[3]F is a short form of female substituting for women and will be used in my thesis.

[4]M is a short form of man and will be used in my thesis.

[5]P is a short form of professional and will be used in my thesis.