PERSONALITY TYPES, STRESS LEVELS AND COMMUNICATION STYLES AS CORRELATES OF SPOUSAL ABUSE AMONG MARRIED ADULTS IN NIGERIA
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Date
2018
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UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN
Abstract
Spousal abuse, divorce and unhappiness after marriages are increasing steadily among married adults in Nigeria necessitating the need for improved communication among married adults for family happiness. Therefore, the study investigated Personality Types, stress levels and communication styles as correlates of spousal abuse among married adults. The objectives of the study were to determine: (i) the personality types; (ii) stress levels; (iii) communication styles; (iv) spousal abuse index of married adults; and (v) correlation coefficient of gender and length of years in marriage with personality types of married adults in Nigeria.
Descriptive design of correlation type was adopted for the study. The population was all literate married adults who are civil servants in Nigeria. Using the Research Advisor, at confidence of 95%, a total of 1,537(males and females) respondents were drawn from the six geo- political zones in Nigeria. Multistage sampling procedure involving simple random, purposive and stratified sampling techniques were employed. The study employed a researcher- designed questionnaire which was content validated by experts. The reliability was determined by the use of test-retest reliability (r) that yielded 0.74 for Personality Types, 0.71 for Stress levels, 0.73 for Communication Styles, 0.76 for Spousal Abuse respectively. Percentage, Multiple Regression Analysis and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation were used to analyze the data.
The findings of the study were that:
i. High percentage made up of 82.21 % of the respondents were Type A (extroversion) while 16.80 % were Type B (introversion);
ii. 78.42% had high stress levels, while 3.40% had moderate stress levels and 18.1.% of the respondents had low stress levels;
iii. 82.62% used appropriate communication styles while 17.41% of respondents used inappropriate communication styles;
iv. 79.90% exhibited more spousal abuse in their marriage while 20.12% exhibited less spousal abuse in their marriage;
v. There were significant relationships among personality types, stress levels, communication styles and spousal abuse of married adults in Nigeria; personality type had a Beta weight (β) of .229, t =3.940, p< 0.05; stress levels had a Beta weight (β) of .422 t =4.641, p<0.05 and communication styles had a Beta weight of (β) .397, t = 9.508, p < 0.05.
vi. Gender and length of years in marriage had significant correlation coefficient with spousal abuse of married adults in Nigeria (r=0.365; p<0.05 and r=0.983, p<0.05) respectively.
The study concluded that married adults faced the problem of spousal abuse in Nigeria that might be as a result of personality types, stress levels and communication styles. The implication of the of the study is that counsellors should sensitise the married adults on how to use positive communication skills to enhance marital stability. It was therefore recommended that married adults need counselling with the aid of Logo therapy as counselling technique to ameliorate the problems of married adults on their personality types; stress levels and communication styles in order to stem the tide of spousal abuse.
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Keywords
PERSONALITY TYPES, STRESS LEVELS, COMMUNICATION STYLES, SPOUSAL ABUSE, MARRIED ADULTS, NIGERIA