This document provides an overview of a session on domestic violence that includes understanding gender roles and emotions. It discusses how gender roles and stereotypes are learned from a young age and influence behaviors. Emotions help guide actions in important situations and each emotion provides a readiness to act. Emotional intelligence involves self-awareness of emotions and managing them appropriately. Children learn emotional skills from their family environment and parenting styles can influence a child's long-term emotional well-being. Unresolved trauma can lead to emotional addictions as the brain's limbic system dominates and unhealthy behaviors are used to cope with emotions.

1. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
SESSION 4
Facilitated by Natalie Rascoe

2. Agenda
• Gender roles
• Emotions
• Emotional Intelligence
• Emotional Addictions

3. Understanding Gender Roles

4. Gender Roles & Stereotypes
• Gender differences based on social behavior and personality:
- Men are more physically aggressive
- Women show more guilt, but can be aggressive when they feel justified
- Women discuss feelings more often
- Women are more attune to verbal and nonverbal expressions
- Men more often engage in casual sex
- Women are more interested in sex with a romantic relationship
- Men become jealous sexually
- Women’s jealousy stems from infidelity
- Men are more competitive
- Women value connections with others
- Women evaluate self more harshly
- Men more likely to judge self above average

5. Gender Differences in Cognition
• WOMEN excel in language
• MEN excel in math, science, spatial
intelligence
• WOMEN are academically labeled as
“hard-workers”
• MEN are labeled “gifted”
• IQ tests actually show about equal in
learning ability
• Many gender differences are small and
declining
• May reflect sociocultural influences

6. GENDER
• Gender identity– the sex one perceives oneself
to be
• Biological influences
• Chromosomal X or Y from male
• Hormonal- 7th week of gestation will determine
whether a Y chromosome is present or not, then
male/female sexual organs begin to form accordingly
• Asexual- without any sexual organs

7. Developmental Gender Roles
• Gender behaviors are learned (from environment)
• Observation, socialization, rewarded behaviors
• Ex. Pink vs blue, dolls vs trucks, different play, etc.
• Learned gender behaviors become part of one’s schema
• Schema is a set of ideas about how men and women should
act

8. Developmental Gender Roles
• Between 2-3 years old
• Acquire gender identity
• Sense of male or female
• Between 4-5 years old
• Gender stability
• Will remain same sex for life
• Between 6-8 years old
• Gender constancy
• Understand gender does not change regardless of
activities people engage in or clothes they wear

10. WHAT ARE EMOTIONS FOR?
• Our emotions guide is in the face of predicaments and tasks too
important to leave to intellect alone
• Danger, painful loss, goals, frustrations, bonding, building a family
• Each emotion offers a distinctive readiness to act
• Emotions point us in the direction that has worked well in the
past

11. “All emotions are, in essence, impulses to act, the
instant plans for handling life that has been instilled
in us… a tendency to act is implicit in every emotion.
That emotions lead to actions is most obvious in
watching animals or children; it is only in “civilized”
adults we so often find great anomaly in the animal
kingdom, emotions– root impulses to act – divorced
from obvious reactions.”
(The Emotional Brain)

12. Emotions help us move
• Each emotion plays a role to help us move towards or away from
something
• Emotions are attached to biological identifiers
• Anger is accompanied by a surge of blood to the hands and heart increasing
our hormones and adrenaline
• With fear– the blood goes away from our face and to the large skeletal
muscles to aid with fight or flight response

13. The mind—body connection
• The mind/body (emotional/rational) operate in tight harmony
• They help us balance and work together for maximum effect
• Amygdala- stores emotional memory
• More than affection is tied to it – all passion depends on it
• The emotional brain controls rage and compassion
• The prefrontal cortex is responsible for working memory
• Connected to limbic brain which sometimes means strong emotions create
static for our working memory
• This is why when we are emotionally upset we can’t always “think straight”
• And continual emotional distress can create deficits in child’s
learning abilities

14. Emotional Intelligence
• Knowing one’s emotions– self awareness, recognizing and feeling as it
happens is the keystone of emotional intelligence
• Managing emotions– handling feelings so they are appropriate, builds on
self-awareness
• Motivating oneself– marshalling emotions in the service of a goal is
essential for attention, motivation, creativity, and mastery
• Emotional self-control, delayed gratification, stifling impulsivity underlies
accomplishment
• Recognizing emotion in others: empathy builds on self-awareness,
fundamental “people skill”, more attuned with subtle signals
• Handling relationships– the art of relationships is a skill in managing
emotions in yourself and others

15. Emotional Intelligence in men & women
Men who are high in emotional intelligence:
• Socially poised, outgoing, and cheerful
• Not prone to fear or worry, comfortable with themselves
• Notable capacity for commitment, responsibility, ethical outlook
• Sympathetic and caring in relationships
Women who are high in emotional intelligence:
• Assertive and express themselves directly
• Feel positive about themselves, life holds meaning
• Outgoing, gregarious, expressive, adapt well to stress
• Social poise lets them easily reach out to others
• Playful, spontaneous, open to sensual experience
• Rarely feel anxious or guilt

17. Where we learn emotional intelligence
• Family moments where each person is participating in struggles,
arguments, interactions of pain and misunderstanding
• We learn how to feel about ourselves and others’ reactions, how to
think about those feelings, and what choices we have in reacting from
our family environment
• The way parents treat their children has deep and lasting
consequences for the child’s emotional life
• Recent research shows having an emotionally intelligent parent is an
enormous benefit to a child

18. The 3 most inept parenting styles
• Ignoring feelings altogether
• Parents treat emotional upsets as trivial or a bother
• Fail to use emotional moments as a chance to get closer to the child
• Don’t help the child learn lesson in emotional competence
• Being too “laissez-faire”
• notice the child’s feelings but hold views that however the child handles emotional storm is
fine, even if involves hitting and creaming
• Rarely step in to try to show the child appropriate emotional response
• Try to soothe away all upsets by bribing and bargaining
• Being contemptuous
• Showing no respect for the child’s feelings
• Disapproving or harsh in feedback, criticism, punishment
• Punitive at the least sign of irritability
• “Don’t you talk back to me” or “Because I said so”

19. Try this instead
• Act as an emotional coach or mentor when child is upset
• Take your child’s feelings seriously
• Try to understand exactly what is happening in their life
• Emotional lessons should include how to distinguish feelings
• Understand differences such as sadness that comes from loss vs. being sad in
a movie
• The impact of parenting on emotional well-being starts in the cradle
• As the child grows, so do the emotional lessons

20. Your child will become…
• Better at handling their own emotions
• More effective at self-soothing
• Upset less often
• More relaxed biologically, lower levels of stress hormones
• More advantages socially with their peers

21. 7 CRUCIAL INGREDIENTS FOR GOOD
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
CONFIDENCE– sense of control and mastery of one’s body, behavior, and world
INTENTIONALITY– the wish and capacity to have an impact, related to sense of
competence & being effective
SELF-CONTROL– the ability to modulate and control ones own actions in age appropriate
ways, a sense of inner control
RELATEDNESS– the ability to engage with others based on the sense of being understood
by and understanding others
CURIOSITY– a sense that finding out about things is positive and leads to pleasure
COMMUNICATION– the wish and ability to verbally exchange ideas, feelings, and concepts
with others, sense of trust in others, and pleasure of engaging
COOPERATIVENESS–ability to balance one’s own needs with those of others in a group
activity

22. Trauma and Emotional Addiction
• Children learn to respond like miniature versions of their parents
• When physical abuse is received or crisis is happening in their life, the
brain’s limbic system takes a dominant role
• The emotional habits learned in these moments will begin to dominate
• When children witness trauma, PTSD is a normal outcome
• Vivid memories of trauma can become intrusive
• The memories become mental triggers
• The imprint of horror within the memory and resulting hyper-vigilance can
last a lifetime

23. Understanding the Addictive Cycle

24. FIRST– The Emotional Addiction
• The person feels the need for emotional comfort or social excitement
and uses something unhealthy to gain these needs
• The person feels better for a time as this need is filled
• But when the person gets in an uncomfortable situation s/he
connects relief with the act

25. SECOND– The Mental Addiction
• Over a short time, the act is equated with fulfillment of the need and
the person becomes mentally hooked
• s/he needs to commit this act to cope with his/her emotions
• Even the smallest visual, emotional, or olfactory cues associated with
the act, unconsciously reminds the person of comfort or the needed
excitement and s/he immediately becomes uncomfortable again
• Can become a social addiction by collecting people around him/her
who participate in the same or similar unhealthy behaviors

26. THIRD– The Physical Addiction
• The behavior becomes a physical or mental necessity in the body
• Over time the body gains tolerance to the act and needs more stimulation
• The act may have originally been used as a comfort or coping tool to
alleviate emotional discomfort
• To overcome tolerance in an addiction where excitement is the stimulus,
the person usually chooses to move on to a “more-exciting” and usually,
more unhealthy, behavior for adrenaline
• The emotional addict feels pain or guilt associated with the act or habit,
and may also experience withdrawal symptoms
• The whole process repeats because the person seeks relief from pain and
guilt by re-committing the act

28. Discussion Topics