** This article was presented as abstract in XVI. European Conference on Social and Behavioral Sciences to be held in Prizren, Kosovo on May 10-12, 2018.

INTRODUCTION

Although the term violence is considered as an action with observable physical results as the definition that comes to mind first, the limits of the definition are much wider. Studies have shown that “violence” is perceived as physical violence (Saban and Akbulut, 2012; Yurtal and Artut, 2008). There are psychological, sexual, economic, cultural, and social dimensions of violence as well as the physical dimension (Güleç et al., 2012; Yildiz and Sağlam, 2017). According to the definition of the World Health Organization, violence is “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either result in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation” (WHO, 2002). Violence is described as the situation by Karataş and Kiliçarslan (2013) in which individuals sometimes feel in the form of pressure on the individual, impulsively or indirectly, whose physical and psychological effects cannot be determined. In other words, violence is the various pressures that are felt directly and in a concrete way, whose physical and psychological effects in individuals cannot be measured exactly. The causes of violence are diverse and multidimensional. Cultural and social norms also support violence. The characteristics and pressure of the social structure are accepted as important elements shaping violence (Shonkoff and Garner, 2012; WHO, 2010).

According to the World Report on Violence and Health (WHO, 2002), violence was classified into three groups as self-directed violence, interpersonal violence, and collective violence. It is an inevitable fact that these three different forms of violence are closely related to each other. The society consists of individuals. The individual is affected by society and the society from the individual. In addition, individuals are emotionally affected by all kinds of violence. Although the emotional violence experienced by the individual is often ignored, it has implications not only for the individual but also for the whole society.

Emotional violence mostly manifests itself in the form of humiliation, yelling, calling insufficient, jealousy, intimidation (Kocacik and Çağlayandereli, 2009). According to Vissing et al. (1991), all kind of situations such as humiliation, disrespect, discrimination, ridicule, obstruction, display, forcing (to a job) that affect the person’s values, qualifications, self-confidence, and mental structure is described as psychological violence. According to Özgentürk et al. (2012), all kind of action is emotional violence applied to isolate one from society with the aim of controlling or punishing, to exploit and humiliate emotionally, to conduct systematic psychological pressure against. Işiloğlu (2006) defines it as all of the acts impairing the mental health implemented without physical pressure that are neglecting emotional needs such as affection and support, denying of beliefs attributed to religion, race, language, cultural group or history or forcing to act against them, humiliating and hurting pride in front of others, threatening physical violence, restricting the freedom of the person to express their feelings and thoughts, prohibiting the conversation and communication with relatives, restricting the freedom of dressing as desired.

Çetiner (2006) reports that there is a close relationship between psychological/emotional violence and physical violence, and the degree of physical violence is directly related to the degree of psychological/emotional violence, and although physical violence decreases, psychological/emotional violence usually continues and it continues to be as a threat of the physical violence. For this reason, approximately three-quarters of women who experience physical violence feel that emotional violence has a more negative effect than physical violence. Şahin and Türk (2010) state that psychological violence is more dangerous than physical violence because psychological violence may have permanent psychological and psychosomatic effects. Westhues (2002) emphasizes that violence is experienced at a more intense level than it is known, or that a greater number of people than it is anticipated are exposed to violent attitudes and behaviors with them being aware or not. Although there are no physical symptoms, emotional violence is one of the most difficult to treat health problems.

The factors that cause emotional violence can be grouped under six headings.

1. Parent attitudes and types of punishment: Parents of children who use physical punishment tend to apply similarly aggressive behavior (both physical and emotional) in their relations with others. Parents of boys exposed to violence and abuse are also treated the same by their parents (Tuzgöl, 2016). Şahin (2008) argues that aggressive behaviors are more common in children raised by excessively oppressive and authoritarian attitudes and unbalanced and inconsistent parent attitudes. Yildiz and Sağlam (2017) say that sexual, emotional, and verbal violence by means of punishment methods for child discipline that causes child abuse may lead to many physical and psychological harms from sleep, eating, and developmental disorders, drug addiction, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders to suicide.

2. Lack of supportive environment in the pre-school period: In some pre-school children, externalization problem symptoms such as impulsivity, anger outbursts, opposing are observed, while in others, internalization problem symptoms such as anxiety, introversion, and timidity can be observed (Keenan and Wakschlag, 2004). Repetti et al. (2002), states in children who have difficulty regulating their emotions such as furiousness, anger, and fear to the environment, the risk of more severe behavioral disorders occurring over time increases with lack of a supportive environment, considering the long-term negative consequences of emotion regulation difficulty and lack of social skills, children at risk should be identified as early as possible.

3. Exposure to bullying behaviors during adolescence: Bullying behavior is defined as “a child putting other children under pressure by physical and psychological means and acting on them in a way that hurts them” (Şahin et al., 2010). Kurtyilmaz et al., (2017), points out during and after adolescence, the relations between the young people gain great importance and these relationships have an important role in the social and psychological development of young people. Those who are positive in these relations prepare the way for a successful self-identity and living in harmony with the society, while negative experiences such as aggression they see from their peers can harm the emotional, social, and psychological development of the individuals.

4. Lack of interpersonal problem-solving skills: The interpersonal problem is defined as “a situation where at least one of the interacting parties perceives a difference between the current form of interaction and the ideal form of interaction, feels tension due to this difference, attempts to eliminate tension, but their attempts are prevented” (Öğülmüş, 2001). D’Zurilla et al. (2004) discuss social problem-solving as “self-directed cognitive and behavioral processes in identifying or adapting the problems encountered in a person's daily life or finding effective solutions”. Morera et al. (2006) puts that psychological adjustment is important for social problem solving because they are widely adaptable and the ability to understand and identify the problems faced by the individual in daily life and to find effective solutions to these problems affect the way of coping with stress in the process of adjustment.

5. Lack of empathy: According to Koç and Kavas (2015) individuals having positive characteristics such as being understanding, respectful, accepting, constructive, open in their expressions in the communication with the other party develop empathy, and in contrast, behaviors like to seeing himself superior or humiliating the other, looking down, mocking manners that may cause conflicts with effects in the form of blocking, forcing, or oppressing creates lack of empathy and has a destructive effect on relationships.

6. Lack of communication skills: It is important for the person to be confident and to evaluate events with different points of view in a good communication skill. Conrad (2014) says humans want to be rational, correct and reliable, honest, sincere in their communications and expect logical and convincing answers as well as talking and effective listening that is necessary for effective communication. However, individuals whose communication skills are underdeveloped can evaluate the warnings or criticism directed at them in the negative events, with only a single point of view. Kaya (2018) concluded that communication skills and problem-solving skills were closely related. From this, it can be predicted that those who have good communication skills will be able to solve their problems more easily and they will be less exposed to emotional deterioration.

University life is a period in which social interaction is at a high level (Akdemir et al., 2018). During this period, university students spend more time with their friends than other periods of their lives. In university life, students share a lot with their friends not only in school but also in their private life. Sharing the same environments with students from different cultures of different regions is one of the biggest difficulties of university life in the first stage (Tang et al., 2018). Rose-Redwood (2013) stated that university students from groups within themselves. There are many reasons why students experience communication problems in the university environment. Studies in the literature (Liu and Potenza, 2010; Moreno et al., 2015; Peng, 2008) indicate that one of these reasons is depression due to excessive use of internet and the fallacies that come with physical problems. Moreover, university students are worried that the money spent by their families for their education will be wasted and to disappoint their family that is expecting academic success (Fischer, 2015; Kim et al., 2005; Yan and Berliner, 2013). Besides, university students have concerns about finding a job in the future (İnce-Aka and Yilmaz, 2018; Hamurcu et al., 2018). In addition to these studies other researches (Eisenberg et al., 2007; Misra and McKean, 2000; Shamsuddin et al., 2013) show that levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and success of university students are closely related. It is seen that studies related to violence in the literature are related to the physical dimension and it is not common to go to the research direction of emotional violence (Diaz et al., 2002; Gielen et al., 1994; Yildiz and Sağlam, 2017). From this point of view, it can be said that the emergence of an emotional violence in the relations of friendship with each other in the process of university students is inevitable. Therefore, in this study, the levels of university students exposed to emotional violence were tried to be determined. Furthermore, the emotional violence levels that university students were exposed by their friends were examined according to their demographic characteristics.

METHOD

This research is a survey model study which determines the level of exposure of university students to emotional violence in their friend environment. Quantitative data collected in the study were used.

Participants

The participants of this study consist of 701 (415 females and 286 males) university students who are studying in different departments in the 2017-2018 academic year. Table 1 provides information on the features of the participants.

Data Collection Tool

In the study, Emotional Violence Scale developed as a data collection tool for this study was used. As the first step in the process of developing the scale, 18 students who are studying in various departments of B University were asked open-end questions such as “What are the situations you are exposed to by your friends that upset you in your university life?”, “What events do you experience in your university environment that wear you out?”, “What would you like not to be done by your friends in your university life?”, etc. In the direction of the answers and expert opinions (5 academicians and 1 Turkish language specialist working in the psychology and educational sciences departments of different universities), the 5-point Likert type (“Very frequent 5”, “Frequent 4”, “Medium frequency 3”, “Rare 2”, and “Never 1”) questionnaire developed that forms the pilot version of the scale. The pilot version of the developed scale was applied to 701 university students studying in different universities and departments in the 2017-2018 academic year. The validity and reliability analyzes of the collected data were performed with SPSS 17. According to the results of the analysis, the last version of the scale consisting of 29 items occurred. The first sub-dimension of the scale was named as “frustration” with 9 items, second sub-dimension as “threatened” with 5 items, third sub-dimension as “abasement” with 6 items, fourth sub-dimension as “harmed” with 6 items, and fifth and final sub-dimension as “verbal fray” with 3 items. In addition, the reliability analysis of the scale was performed and Cronbach Alpha value was found to be quite high as .92. According to the results of the analysis, it can be said that Emotional Violence Scale is a valid and reliable data collection tool. When it is considered that the last version of the scale is a 5-point Likert type scale composed of 29 items, it can be said that the highest score is 145 and the lowest score is 29.

In order to test the accuracy of the 5-factor structure resulting from the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) based on the structural equation model was performed and presented in Figure 1. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the fit indices for the model fit Χ2/df = 3.32, TLI = .86, CFI = .88, and RMSEA= .058. It was observed that the fit values were at acceptable levels for good fit (Browne and Cudeck, 1993).

Figure 1. CFA Results of the Scale

Analysis of the Data

The Emotional Violence Scale was applied to the participants of the study. The data were analyzed with SPSS 17 and in this context, arithmetic means, standard deviation, t-Test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were applied. In the case of a significant difference in the results of the analyses, the homogeneity of the variances was checked to determine which groups have the difference between them. Tukey HSD test was used from multiple comparison tests as the results are homogeneous.

Limitations of the study

This study is limited by the emotional violence that university students are exposed to by their friends.

This study is limited to the data obtained from the five-dimensional scale.

This study is limited to participants of the study.

FINDINGS

Level of Exposure to Emotional Violence of University Students

In order to determine the level of exposure to emotional violence of university students, the arithmetic means and standard deviations of the scores they received from the “Emotional Violence Scale” were calculated for the overall scale and sub-dimensions of it. Besides, as the numbers of items of the sub-dimensions of the scale are not equal, the item averages of the dimensions are calculated while the interpretation is made. The findings are presented in Table 2.

When Table 2 is examined, it is seen that the students get the score of 1.66 from the “Emotional Violence Scale”, 1.98 from the “frustration” sub-dimension, 1.27 from the “threatened” sub-dimension, 1.46 from the “abasement” sub-dimension, 1.65 from the “harmed” sub-dimension, and 1.78 from “verbal fray” sub-dimension.

Levels of Emotional Violence of University Students by their Gender

Arithmetic mean and standard deviations were calculated to determine whether the level of exposure to emotional violence of university students differed by gender. The t-test was used to determine whether the difference between arithmetic means was significant. The results are presented in Table 3.

As seen in Table 3, male university students scored higher (X= 50.55) than female students (X = 46.65) in all sub-dimensions and in the whole scale. According to the results of t-test to determine whether the difference between arithmetic means is significant or not [p = .00; p < .01], the difference in the whole scale and all other sub-dimensions except verbal fray were statistically significant.

Levels of Emotional Violence of University Students by their Age

Arithmetic mean and standard deviations were calculated to determine whether or not university students’ exposure to emotional violence varied according to their age. In order to determine whether the difference between arithmetic means is significant, one-way ANOVA was performed. The results are presented in Table 4.

When Table 4 is examined, it can be seen that the higher the ages of university students, the higher the arithmetic means. There is a significant difference in the level of exposure to emotional violence among university students in the entire scale and all sub-dimensions of it according to the age variable [.00 ; p < .01]. In order to determine whether the difference between arithmetic means is significant or not, one-way ANOVA was performed, and then, presented in Table 5.

Tukey HSD multiple comparison tests was used to determine the meaningful differences among the age groups. According to the Tukey HSD test results, the differences in the “students aged 24 and over” were found to be more significant when compared with all other age groups. This finding may be interpreted as the increase in the level of exposure to emotional violence as age increases.

Levels of Emotional Violence of University Students by their School

Arithmetic mean and standard deviation values were calculated in order to determine whether the level of exposure to emotional violence of university students differed according to the school they study and one-way ANOVA was performed to determine whether the difference between the arithmetic means was significant. The results are presented in Table 6.

When Table 6 is examined, it is seen that the difference between arithmetic means of exposure to emotional violence of university students in different schools has changed. In order to determine whether the difference between arithmetic means is significant, one-way ANOVA is performed and presented in Table 7.

If Table 7 is examined, it is observed that the level of exposure to emotional violence of the students in universities in metropolitan cities is significantly higher than the students studying in small city university. This finding shows that the students who are studying in metropolises have increased levels of exposure to emotional violence compared to the students studying in smaller cities.

Levels of Emotional Violence of University Students by whether they Get Psychological Support before and after the University or Not

When Table 8 is examined, it is seen that students who received psychological support before starting university had higher scores on the whole scale and sub-dimensions than those who did not get psychological support. According to the t-test results that conducted to see whether the difference between the arithmetic means was significant or not, the difference was found to be statistically significant [p= .00; p<.01]

If we look at Table 9, it is seen that the students who get psychological support after starting university had higher scores in the whole scale and sub-dimensions than those who did not receive psychological support. According to the t-test results that conducted to see whether the difference between the arithmetic means was significant or not, the difference was found to be statistically significant [p= .00; p<.01].

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The aim of this research is to reveal the level of exposure to emotional violence of the university students. In addition, the levels of exposure to emotional violence of university students -by their peers- in terms of gender, age, the school they were studying, and whether or not they received psychological support before and after the university were tried to be determined. In the scope of this research, the following results have been reached.

It can be said that university students are exposed to emotional violence by their peers according to their score of Emotional Violence Scale (1.66) is at a level of rare. This can be interpreted as university students are exposed to emotional violence by their friends at a low level. They received a score of 1.98 from the “frustration” sub-dimension of the scale, and 1.27 from the “threatened” sub-dimension, 1.46 from the “abasement”, 1.65 from the “harmed”, and 1.78 from “verbal fray”. It was concluded that university students were exposed to emotional violence by their peers rarely in all sub-dimensions of the scale. University students are exposed to emotional violence with the highest level at sub-dimension “frustration”, while the second most was “verbal fray” and the lowest was “abasement”. While in this study, “verbal fray” was found to be the second highest way of emotional violence, Tatlilioğlu and Küçükköse (2015) found it as the highest dimension by 53% in a study they conducted about violence against women in Turkey between 2005-2010. The findings of the study conducted by Çamur et al. (2007) that only 11.1% of the university students found to be exposing emotional, physical, or sexual violence against their friends coincides with the findings of current study that university students’ subject emotional violence to their peers even less than rare level.

According to the gender variable, male university students scored higher (X = 50.55) on the overall scale and on the sub-dimensions than female university students (X = 46.65). This shows that male students are exposed to emotional violence more than female students. Bjorkqvist (1994) and Eroğlu (2009) reported that males have a higher degree of verbal aggression, which supports the findings of the present study that there was a statistically significant difference in male students than females in the gender variable. In the study conducted by Mert and Çatiner (2018), it was determined that the university students’ level of adaptation to university did not differ according to gender. In the research conducted by Yiğitalp et al. (2007), in order to determine the experiences of university students on violence and their opinions on this subject, the exposure to emotional violence was found to be 23.7% for women and 20.5% for men. In addition, the findings of women are more exposed to violence in the research done by İlhan et al. (2009) about violence and related factors in research assistants and interns working in medical faculty hospital do not coincide with the findings of this research. According to the report “Research on Domestic Violence against Women in Turkey” (TKYAİŞ, 2014), In Turkey, the proportion of women’s exposed to emotional violence/abuse in some period of their lives is 44%. Half of the women living in Western Anatolia and Central Anatolia stated that they were exposed to emotional violence/abuse at some time in their lives (www.tbmm.gov.tr).

According to the age variable, when the students’ levels of emotional violence by their fellows were examined, it was found that the levels of exposure to emotional violence increased as their age increase. According to the results of one-way analysis of variance, a significant difference was found from the levels of exposure to emotional violence among students aged 24 years and over to 18-19 years old. According to the Tukey HSD test results, the “students aged 24 years and over” had higher “Emotional Violence Scale” in all sub-dimensions. While a significant difference was found between university students aged “18-19” and “22-23” and “24 years and over”, a statistically significant difference in the positive direction was also found between “24 years and over” and “18-19” years old, “20-21” years old, and “22-23” years old university students. This finding can be interpreted that individuals become more aware of the emotional violence they experience as their age increases. Koç (2004) states that by the completion of the age of adolescence at the age of 21, individuals experience serious changes in their social, moral, and self-development and their awareness increase. Kocacik et al. (2002) found that women aged 23 and over experienced more mental/verbal violence than others, which is in the same line with the findings of the current study. The findings of the study by Kocacik and Çağlayandereli (2009) also support the results of this research.

According to the school variable, when the students exposed to emotional violence by their peers were examined, the level of exposure to emotional violence of students attending A University was found to be significantly different in a negative direction compared to those of B University, C University, and D University. The level of exposure to emotional violence of the students attending D University was found to be significantly higher in a positive direction than A University. It is concluded from the research findings that students studying at A University are exposed to emotional violence less than other universities. This finding of the research shows that the students who are studying in the metropolises have an increased level of exposure to emotional violence compared to the students studying in the smaller cities. This situation may be due to the problems of living in metropolises. In a study conducted by Ersöz, Ersöz, and Konuşkan (2016), the fact that university students living in metropolises have a more stressful attitude towards uncertainty supports the findings of this research. This result can be considered in terms of increasing awareness of individuals living in metropolitan cities, and hence, raising awareness of their exposure to emotional violence. New studies with more sample groups from smaller cities can eliminate the limitation in this research.

According to the variable of whether or not receiving psychological support, it was concluded that students who received psychological support before and after the university had a significantly higher score than the ones who did not receive psychological support in the whole scale and in all sub-dimensions. Based on the findings of the study, the reason that university students who receive psychological support get higher scores on Emotional Violence Scale can be interpreted as the students who receive psychological support are more vulnerable or have more awareness about the emotional violence. It is emphasized by İkiz and Otlu (2015) that psychological support for university students is important. Intercalarily Garzón-Umerenkova and Gil-Flores (2017) state that the provision of psychological guidance and counseling to university students in need positively affects academic achievement.

Karataş and Yavuzer (2016) underline the importance of bullying, anger expressions, hurtful words and behaviors among young people. Yildiz and Sağlam (2017) emphasize that the subject of violence, which is one of the most important problems in Turkey, is not adequately dealt with in the postgraduate studies, and point the importance of the parents, teachers, friends, social media, and other people in their environment in young people showing aggression and violence. In general, emotional violence, exposed at every stage of life with or without awareness, should be investigated in more depth. It is very important to raise awareness of the society about what emotional violence is, how it is applied, and how its effects can have negative consequences. Providing the awareness in the family, environment, school, work, etc. through media (public service ads) or individual and collective training and taken more seriously is very important for preventing emotional violence at every stage of human development. Additionally the scale used in this study may be recommended to researchers in different sample groups. Emotional violence to which university students are exposed by their friends can be investigated through qualitative studies. Also studies investigating the reasons of the findings obtained in this research can be done in detail.