This study examines the factors that influence women's decisions to stay in abusive relationships, drawing from two main theoretical frameworks: Learned Helplessness and Exchange Theory. Learned Helplessness suggests that prolonged abuse leads to feelings of lost control, hopelessness, and limited options, while Exchange Theory focuses on decision-making within the constraints of life circumstances. While these theories differ in emphasis—one highlighting the absence of possibilities and the other the presence of limited ones—they collectively offer valuable insights into why women may stay in abusive relationships, encompassing both positive and negative reasons.
The study explores these reasons across three groups of women: those who have never been battered, those who were battered but not in the past year, and those who were battered within the last year. A 36-item scale was developed, based on theoretical and empirical research, to assess both positive and negative reasons for staying in abusive relationships.
A sample of 926 Israeli women, from a WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) society, was used. The findings revealed that: (1) Positive reasons for staying form a single-factor construct, while negative reasons consist of three factors: fear of failure, terrorism, and captivity (actual inability to leave); (2) Positive reasons are highest among women who were never battered and lowest among those battered in the last year; (3) Negative reasons are highest among recently battered women and lowest among those who were never battered; (4) A negative correlation exists between the level of positive reasons for staying and the level of negative reasons preventing leaving.
The study concludes with a discussion of its theoretical and practical implications.