The Psychological Impact of Domestic Violence on Children: An Essay

This essay examines the profound psychological effects of domestic violence on children, exploring how children internalize violent behavior through observation and conditioning. The essay utilizes the psychological theories of Albert Bandura and Ivan Pavlov to explain the cycle of domestic violence, highlighting how children learn violence and potentially perpetuate it in their own lives. It discusses the impact of witnessing domestic violence and child neglect, emphasizing the long-lasting physical and psychological implications for victims. The essay references Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment and Pavlov's classical conditioning to illustrate how children acquire and internalize violent behaviors. The essay ultimately emphasizes the importance of understanding and addressing the cycle of violence to protect children's psychological well-being.

Running head: EFFECT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN
EFFECT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1EFFECT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN
Domestic violence is not just a crime as per legal definitions, but is also a crime in the
social setting as well which has far reaching consequences beyond the ones facing it. The most
vulnerable one being the children or the child of the spouses, whose psychological health can be
seriously devastated on having witnessed domestic violence being perpetrated on either of their
parents by the other. In this particular essay the discussion shall be upon explaining the cycle of
domestic violence and also to provide the psychological effects of domestic violence on children.
Why is domestic violence a cycle, is a matter of consideration and has a lot to determine
its effects on the children. Just like most other activities of the world which children learn by
means of acquiring them through their perceptions and thereby internalize it, domestic violence
is also an activity which is acquired by children by means of seeing their parent indulge in it.
Hence domestic violence is a cycle which is never ending. This particular aspect of indulging in
domestic violence can be explained by means of providing the psychological theories provided
by Albert Bandurra and Ivan Pavlov, both of whose psychological theory of learning can be used
to explain the cycle of domestic violence and the psychological effects of domestic violence on
children.
Albert Bandurra had in his Bobo Doll theory explained that violence is a learned
behaviour. Bandurra had conducted an experiment through which involved showing a piece of
audio visual content to young children having violent content and were then left in a room with a
Bobo Doll unto whom the children had unleashed tremendous amount of violence. Bandurra had
thus concluded that violent behavior is thus a learned behaviour. When one applies this logic of
Bandurra to the psychological effect of domestic violence on children, then it stands that the
children are likely to internalize the violent behaviour and impose it on their own spouses or
intimate partners later on in their lives (Bandura, 1961).

2EFFECT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN
Ivan Pavlov had conducted his concept of Classical Conditioning on the basis of the
experiment which he had conducted on his dogs, which all were taught to salivate at the sound of
the bell as they knew it was time to have their food. Later on the dogs had become so habituated
to salivate at the ringing of the bell, which they had started to do so at every instance of the
ringing of the bell. From this experiment it was concluded that learning is a matter of
conditioning and if a child is accustomed to witnessing domestic violence in their home as a
normal affair, they are likely to internalize it as well (McLeod, 2007).
Thus this is how by means of internalizing domestic violence, the psychological make-up
of the children tends to normalize it and perpetrate it on their own partners or spouses forming a
cycle which is endless and has been carried forward down the generations.

3EFFECT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ON CHILDREN
References
McLeod, S. A. (2007). Pavlov's dogs. Simply Psychology.
Bandura, A. (1961). Bobo doll experiment. Retrieved October, 6, 2012.