The Greek adage `Demo quod non habet’ which means that `one cannot give what one does not have, implies that one’s behaviour, actions and emotion expressed emerges from a learned act, consciously or unconsciously. The social learning theory of behaviour was developed by Albert Bandura, which implies the idea that behaviour is a learning process (Hyde-Nolan & Juliao, 2012; Wallace & Robertson, 2011).
One of the philosophical ideas that support social learning is behaviourism. Behaviourism, as an ideology, places pre-eminence on the potency of the acquisition of knowledge in shaping the human mind and behaviour. It believes that man mind from birth is like a tabula rasa (i.e. blank slate) upon which …show more content…
The motivation factor for the perpetrators violent behaviour is the power and control he or she is able to exert over the partner or members of the family. Such violent behaviours are intended to prohibit the less powerful members of the family from engaging in behaviour that the abuser does not want while establishing a demand for the abuser’s `desirable’ behaviour to occur (Hyde-Nolan & Juliao, …show more content…
The concept of gender symmetry was raised as a challenge to the gender-oriented explanations of DV and IPV which had been centered on the feminist theory. The concept of gender symmetry broadened the discourse of DV and IPV to include men and women to be investigated as both perpetrators and victims of DV and IPV, which is empirically evident. However, the gender symmetry theory does not explain the existence of the similar levels of perpetration and victimization among men and women. Similarly, social learning theory also shows that aggressive or violent behaviour is a learned and this implies that violent behaviour can be exhibited by both men and women. Human beings have the tendency to love, hate, be tender, violent and aggressive; there are no (gender) exceptions to this fact (Maguire, 2010). However, the social learning theory neglects structural factors and power dynamics responsible for these violent