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Chapter Two Main Findings

2.1 The main findings from the research are summarised below. Reference is made to the two previous waves of research as appropriate. Wave 7 was conducted in February 2004 and Wave 8 in February 2005.

Experience of domestic abuse

2.2 In addition to exploring attitudes, questions in the self-completion section of the interview sought to establish the extent of personal experience of domestic abuse within the sample, either as perpetrator, victim, or friend or relative of a victim. Findings are shown in Figure 2.1:

Figure 2.1 - Experience of domestic abuse
Bases: Wave 7 - 1009; Wave 8 - 951; Wave 9 - 1032

2.3 The level of experience of any⁷ type of domestic abuse rose at Wave 9: 39% had experience of any type of abuse, compared to 36% at Wave 8 and 38% at Wave 7. This increase reflects a change in the number of respondents claiming to know close friends or relatives who have been victims of domestic abuse (37% at Wave 9, compared to 33% at Wave 8 and 35% at Wave 7). The broadened definition of domestic abuse, which emphasises its non-physical forms (see paragraph 1.6), may have influenced the level of abuse reported at Wave 9, with some respondents perhaps more inclined to answer in the affirmative due to this.

2.4 Experience of domestic abuse on each level within demographic sub-groups was as shown in Table 2.1. Figures are shown as row percentages - that is, the percentage in each sub-group with the relevant experience of domestic abuse at the more recent waves.

Table 2.1 - Experience of domestic abuse by demographics
Bases: Wave 7 - 1009; Wave 8 - 951; Wave 9 - 1032

2.5 Smaller base sizes within sub-groups increase the scope for movements in percentages between waves, and this should be taken into account in comparing results within age and SEG in particular. Therefore, attention should focus on patterns rather than absolute percentages. The main points are as follows:

• Females continued to be aware of, and subject to, domestic abuse to a greater level than males at this latest wave. The level of both males (29%) and females (44%) claiming that friends or relatives had been victims of domestic abuse however increased at Wave 9. For women this reversed the decline in those claiming to have friends or relatives who were victims in the last wave (42% at Wave 7, 38% at Wave 8).
• Those most likely to have family or friends who had been victims of domestic abuse were females, and also those within social classes C2DE and those aged 25-44.
• Similarly females, those within the C2DE social classes and those aged 35-54 were most likely to have personally been victims of domestic abuse.

2.6 Reflecting the change of focus in the new 'Elizabeth' advert which featured the impact of domestic abuse on children within the household, a new question was inserted at Wave 9 looking into whether children were living in the household when domestic abuse occurred. Only those who had been victims or had perpetrated abuse were asked this question. Results show that children were present in two-thirds of cases (68%) overall. Those respondents who personally had been the victim of domestic abuse were only marginally more likely to report the presence of children than those who said they had been responsible for domestic abuse (68% compared to 64%).

Sectors of society where domestic abuse is more common

2.7 To establish whether domestic abuse is associated with any particular sectors of the population in public perception, respondents were asked to identify, in general terms, the age groups and social classes in which they thought domestic abuse happens most often. The results are shown in the tables that follow, with an additional score for those who mentioned all age groups or all social classes in each case. Results are also shown in relation to sex, as well as for the total sample.

Table 2.2 - Age groups in which domestic abuse happens more often
Base: All respondents

2.8 One of the key aims of previous Domestic Abuse campaigns was to challenge pre-conceptions about what types of people experience domestic abuse. The evaluations of the campaigns have continued to monitor these attitudes. The number of respondents saying that domestic abuse is something that affects people from all age groups has fallen by 5 percentage points since Wave 8 to 43% at the latest wave. In addition the perceived incidence of abuse for each age group has fallen individually at Wave 9. Overall, domestic abuse remains an issue which is not seen to affect older people: just 48% of respondents cited older people, down from 52% at Wave 8.

2.9 Looking at differences by gender, it is male rather than female respondents who have had a larger change in opinion regarding domestic abuse being frequent in all age groups. Less than 1 in 3 (32%) males at Wave 9 said this, down from 40% at Wave 8. Female respondents in contrast had just a 2 percentage point fall at Wave 9 (53%) compared to Wave 8 (55%).

2.10 Perceptions of the frequency of domestic abuse in relation to socio-economic grouping are shown in Table 2.3.

Table 2.3 - Social classes in which domestic abuse happens more often
Base: All respondents

2.11 Whilst over three-fifths of respondents continued to perceive domestic as something that affects all classes (61%), this has fallen steadily since Wave 7 (67%) and Wave 8 (64%). Domestic abuse is however, still perceived by a majority of respondents (89%) to be most prevalent in the working classes.

2.12 Looking at the responses by gender it is again male respondents who have had a larger change in opinion regarding domestic abuse being frequent in all classes, compared to females. Just over half of males (51%) at Wave 9 mentioned all classes, down from 57% at Wave 8, a fall of 6 percentage points. Female respondents in contrast had just a 1 percentage point fall at Wave 9 (70%) compared to Wave 8 (71%).

Awareness of advertising or publicity recently on domestic abuse

2.13 The profile achieved by the domestic abuse campaign activity has continued to remain high over recent years. Since the first post-campaign research was undertaken in April 1999, claimed spontaneous awareness of advertising or publicity on this subject has been high, in the 72-76% range. The figure for claimed spontaneous awareness at the latest wave - 78% - exceeded this, suggesting that domestic abuse advertising was an even more salient issue for respondents at Wave 9.

2.14 The main sources of advertising seen or heard amongst those who were aware of advertising or publicity are shown in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 - Where seen or heard advertising or publicity on domestic abuse
Base: Seen or heard advertising or publicity

2.15 Television, as has been seen at previous waves, continued to be the main source of advertising recalled (91%). TNS System Three's experience has shown repeatedly that television dominates public recall as the main perceived source of advertising, due to its impact and the high public profile of the medium ⁸.

2.16 The key movement at this latest wave was recorded for advertising on radio, the main secondary medium used in the latest domestic abuse campaign. Advertising on radio increased from 5% at Wave 7 to 8% at Wave 8 to 12% at the present wave - a consistent build in prominence over the three years reflecting its role in the campaign media schedule.

Content recall from television advertising

2.17 Respondents who said they had seen advertising on the subject of domestic abuse on television were asked to describe what they had seen. The main details recalled are shown in Table 2.4, whilst full details can be found within the appended data tabulations.

Table 2.4 - Details recalled from television advertising
Base: All seen television advertising on domestic abuse recently

2.18 One in four (25%) of those who recalled having seen a TV advert about domestic abuse could recall Reminder specifically. Aspects respondents recalled included a woman shopping / buying different things e.g. dress / meat (11%), her partner's voice comes into her head always criticising her (10%), and mental rather than physical abuse (8%). Arguably, some of the mentions such as women being abused, and help is available/places to go may be references to this advert, but as they are more generic mentions, they have not been deemed to be specific to Reminder within this analysis.

2.19 The advert which ran prior to Wave 9, Behind Closed Doors, was mentioned by 4% at this wave, showing a small residual awareness. Doll's House, which ran at Wave 6, was mentioned by 13% at this latest wave, demonstrating strong residual awareness that remains for this advert. Coming Home and Bruised Face, two adverts which ran prior to Doll's House, continued to be mentioned by around one in eight respondents (7% and 8% respectively), demonstrating how memorable these adverts were when they launched the domestic abuse campaign initially.

2.20 Overall, the level of content recall for Reminder was not particularly high compared to some other executions following initial exposure. For example Doll's House achieved 51% content recall at Wave 6 within similar levels of TV ad awareness. This may be due to a variety of factors however, including the relative weight of exposure and the 'clutter' of previous ads against which it is competing.

2.21 There were some notable differences in content recall relating to the Reminder execution by gender. Females had considerably better content recall levels than males, with 30% recalling any details compared to just 19% of males. This may reflect the stronger female orientation of the execution. Respondents who had personally been the victim of domestic abuse did not have higher recall than the total sample (26% compared to 25%).

Reach of current campaign

2.22 Prior to Wave 9, a photo-prompt of key frames from the TV advert was shown to respondents and they were asked whether they had seen it on TV recently, giving a measure known as 'reach'. Given the importance of radio within the campaign at Wave 8, multimedia CAPI was used to play the 2 radio adverts in full then. At the present wave, both the TV advert ( Reminder) and the radio advert ( Elizabeth) were played in full to respondents.

2.23 The level of TV reach was back up to the level seen at Wave 7, having fallen significantly at Wave 8 (the advert not appearing on the main ITV channels for that phase of the campaign). Specifically, the level at the latest wave was 69%, compared to 70% at Wave 7 and 47% at Wave 8. The trend of females being more likely to have seen the advert than males noted at previous waves continued at Wave 9. With almost 4 in 5 females (77%) claiming to have seen the advert compared to 3 in 5 males (61%) however, this disparity was larger than has been seen previously. The female orientation of the execution at the present wave may have influenced recall by gender. Those respondents who had personally been the victim of domestic abuse were also more likely than the total sample to recall having seen the advert (76%).

2.24 All those who recalled having seen Reminder were asked what the main message of the advert was. The results are shown in Table 2.5.

Table 2.5 - Main message recalled from Reminder
Base: All seen Reminder TV advert

2.25 Of those who claimed to have seen the advert, almost half (46%) recognised that the advert sought to communicate mental / psychological / emotional aspects of abuse. Specifically respondents mentioned that domestic abuse is not just physical it can be verbal / mental / psychological (24%) or that mental abuse is as bad / worse than physical abuse (8%). Other respondents fed back the vignette used in the advert, describing a man undermining the woman's confidence (7%), and a woman being emotionally / mentally abused (6%).

2.26 Just over a fifth of respondents (21%) took out that the message was no excuse - zero tolerance, whilst a further 13% mentioned help is available - both intended communication points for the advert. Some 3% mentioned making people aware of domestic abuse. Very few people who claimed to have seen the advert described a message which could not be attributed to the messages of the domestic abuse campaign.

2.27 When respondents were played the Elizabeth radio advert used in the latest campaign, 35% claimed to have heard it before . This level of reach compares well with the levels of reach found for the radio adverts Waiting (33%) and Little Things (31%) used at Wave 8. There was only a small gender difference for the level of reach at Wave 9, with females (37%) slightly more likely than males (32%) to have heard the advert. Those who had personally been victims of domestic abuse were slightly more likely to have heard the advert (41%) than the total sample.

2.28 Combining the reach figures for TV and radio gives a total reach figure for the campaign as a whole. At this wave the campaign achieved total reach of 78%, which compares favourably to other social campaigns monitored by TNS. With TV reach so high (69%) people at this wave were more likely to have seen/heard both the TV and radio advertising. This is in contrast to the previous wave where a higher proportion of people had seen/heard either the radio or the TV advertising.

2.29 Continuing previously noted differences by gender, females were significantly more likely to have seen or heard campaign advertising (84%) than males (72%). Those who had personally been victims of domestic abuse were also more likely to have seen or heard campaign advertising (88%) than the total sample (78%).

Attitudes towards domestic abuse

2.30 The ongoing communications campaign focuses the public's attention on the issue of domestic abuse as unacceptable. Part of the evaluation of the campaign therefore investigated respondents' attitudes to domestic abuse. Respondents were asked to indicate the strength of their agreement or disagreement with a series of attitude statements relating to domestic abuse. A five point scale of Agree strongly (+2) to Disagree strongly (-2) was used for rating purposes, with the figures in brackets denoting the range of values ascribed to ratings in calculating mean scores. Table 2.6 appended presents a summary of the statements used, percentage ratings recorded on each and also the relative mean scores for the total sample, as well as for males and females separately at each wave.

2.31 As was seen at previous waves, those who were aware of having seen the advertising campaign held more forthright attitudes on the subject of domestic abuse, compared to those who had not seen any advertising. This indicates that the advertising campaign is contributing to these views. Some of the key findings are shown in the following paragraphs, with the remainder shown within the appended data tabulations.

2.32 One of the most significant movements at this latest wave was those agreeing that sometimes women have a good reason for hitting their partner which fell from 26% at Wave 8, to 18% at Wave 9. Indeed, this was largely driven by the number disagreeing strongly with this statement which rose 7 percentage points at Wave 9 to 60%. Those who had seen campaign advertising were more likely to disagree with the statement (76%) compared to those who had not (67%), suggesting a campaign effect⁹..

2.33 The statement domestic abuse between adults doesn't really affect children in the household in the long term which has been used for the previous 8 waves of research was updated at Wave 9, so that there was no reference to a time frame ( domestic abuse between adults doesn't really affect children in the household). Levels of agreement did not change a great deal; 6% agreed with the statement at Wave 9 compared to 8% at Wave 8. There was however a shift in the number of respondents disagreeing strongly with the statement, which was up 4 percentage points from 85% at Wave 8 to 89% at the present wave. This movement in the strength of opinion suggests that dropping reference to the 'long term' may have influenced responses to the statement. Disagreement for those respondents who had heard the Elizabeth radio ad, which focused on the impact of domestic abuse on a child, was marginally stronger than for the total sample (91% disagreeing strongly compared to 89% for the total sample). This difference was not large enough however to attribute a campaign effect. Assessing the pattern of response for this statement at future waves will allow firmer conclusions to be drawn about how rewording has influenced agreement.

2.34 The statement mental abuse where one partner threatens the other with his or her behaviour is just as bad as actual physical abuse was also updated at Wave 9 to reflect the latest TV execution Reminder as follows: psychological or mental abuse where one partner controls, threatens or intimidates the other is just as bad as actual physical abuse. Agreement at Wave 9 did not change despite this update however: at 92% agreement was comparable with levels found over the previous 3 years at Wave 8 (93%), Wave 7 (92%), and Wave 6 (93%). There appears to be strong agreement for this measure in spite of the wording change, suggesting that the zero tolerance message was salient for respondents when giving their responses over the past 4 waves.

2.35 The previous wave saw a significant fall in those agreeing that domestic abuse of one partner by the other is a common occurrence in Scotland, from 74% at Wave 7, to 67% at Wave 8. At Wave 9 this downward movement was reversed, with the level of agreement rising 2 percentage points to 69%. It is likely that the increased TV reach at the latest wave will have contributed to this change. Respondents who had not seen the TV advert at this wave were significantly less likely to agree with the statement (54%) than those who had seen the advert (75%), suggesting the advertising was acting to maintain the profile of the issue within the public arena.

2.36 A new statement was inserted at Wave 9 - it's okay to pressure your partner to take part in sexual activities if you're in a relationship, even if they don't want to. This statement was added to give a baseline figure of attitudes towards sexual abuse, to allow comparison should this become a focus of domestic abuse campaigns in the future. The vast majority of respondents (89%) disagreed with this, including 81% who disagreed strongly. The fact that even a small minority of respondents (7%) agreed that sexual coercion was acceptable, including 6% who agreed strongly, perhaps should be of concern given the remit of the domestic abuse campaign.

2.37 Endorsement levels of the remaining statements remained fairly constant over recent waves.

Additional questions

2.38 An additional set of questions was added to the tracking questionnaire at Wave 9 to investigate perceptions of the public in relation to wider forms of violence against and exploitation of women, which were new secondary research aims for 2006. The data from these questions will provide baseline attitudinal figures. This will, again, allow comparison should of wider forms of violence against women become a focus of domestic abuse campaigns in the future. Due to the sensitive nature of these questions, respondents aged 16-17 were excluded.

2.39 The first measure asked all respondents 18+ whether they regarded prostitution or pornography as exploitation of women. The results are shown in Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3 - Whether regard pornography or prostitution as exploitation of women
Base: All respondents aged 18+ (1008)

2.40 The majority of respondents thought that pornography (60%) and prostitution (64%) were exploitative; of the remainder approximately a fifth disagreed (22% and 18% respectively saying that each was not exploitative) and a further fifth were unsure (18% in each case saying they didn't know). The proportion stating 'don't know' in each case was not insignificant, suggesting that this was not a clear-cut issue for many respondents.

2.41 There were notable differences in opinion towards pornography by demographics. Females (68%) were significantly more likely to regard this as exploitative than men (52%). Similarly, those aged 35+ were significantly more likely to regard this as exploitative than those aged 18-34 (74% compared to 41%). Differences in opinion by demographics were less marked for prostitution, although men (with 61% agreeing that it was exploitative) were more accepting of this than women (67%).

2.42 The second measure concerned three activities that could be seen as violence against women. All respondents aged 18+ were asked how acceptable or unacceptable they thought each activity was. The results are shown in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.4 - Level of acceptability
Base: All respondents aged 18+ (1008)

2.43 The majority of respondents thought the activities were unacceptable in each case. Pressuring a woman to take part in sexual activities if she says she doesn't want to was the least acceptable activity, with almost 4 in 5 (78%) saying that this was totally unacceptable and a further 16% that it was unacceptable; the mean score ¹⁰ of -1.65 reflected this. Only a small minority were unsure (2%) whilst 3% thought this was totally acceptable.

2.44 The remaining two activities included larger numbers who were either undecided or thought that these were acceptable. Thus whilst two thirds (65%) said paying someone for sex was unacceptable, almost a quarter were undecided (24%), and around 1 in 10 thought it was acceptable. The mean score for this activity was -0.90. Similarly over half thought purchasing or viewing pornographic materials was unacceptable (55%), a quarter (25%) were undecided and almost a fifth (19%) thought it was acceptable. The mean score in this case of -0.66 made purchasing or viewing pornographic materials the most accepted of the three activities.

2.45 Pronounced demographic differences in opinion existed for purchasing or viewing pornographic materials. Overall almost 1 in 5 (19%) said that they thought it was acceptable. This level of acceptance however rose to almost 1 in 3 (32%) for those aged 18-34 and for single respondents (29%), and to 1 in 4 for males (25%). The variations in opinion by age - with young people being more likely to view these activities as 'acceptable' may have implications for future campaign strategy. Demographic differences were less pronounced for the other activities.

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