Scottish Government

CHAPTER TWO MAIN FINDINGS

2.1 The main findings are summarised below. Reference is made to previous waves of research as appropriate. For reference, Wave 7 was conducted in February 2004, Wave 8 in February 2005 and Wave 9 in January 2006.

Experience of domestic abuse

2.2 Respondents were asked about their personal experience of domestic abuse, via a self completion part of the questionnaire. They were asked to indicate whether they personally, or their close friends or relatives, had ever been the victim of domestic abuse. Additionally, they were also asked whether they had ever personally been responsible for domestic abuse against their partner. Results are shown in figure 2.1 below.

Figure 2.1: Experience of domestic abuse
Base: All respondents

2.3 The proportion of respondents who had had any experience of domestic abuse has remained fairly stable over the last four waves, albeit with some fluctuation at Wave 8, currently standing at 40% at Wave 10. This mostly comprised people who had close friends or relatives who had been the victim of domestic abuse (36% at Wave 10), and to a lesser extent people who had personally been the victim of domestic abuse (15% at Wave 10) and those who had been responsible for domestic abuse (3% at Wave 10).

2.4 The definition of domestic abuse was broadened to encompass its non-physical forms at Wave 9, which may have been a contributing factor in the slight rise in abuse recorded after Wave 8.

2.5 It should be noted that higher scores do not necessarily represent an increase in behaviour, but could be a greater willingness to acknowledge such behaviour as domestic abuse.

Table 2.1: Experience of domestic abuse by demographics
Base: All respondents (Wave 8 - 951; Wave 9 - 1032; Wave 10 - 1008)

2.6 In analysing experience of domestic abuse demographically, 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 outlined below:

2.7 Females, those within the DE social grades, and those aged 25-44 were most likely to have personally been victims of domestic abuse or have friends or family members who were victims of domestic abuse.

2.8 Females and males, and those from each social grade, were generally equally likely to have been responsible for domestic abuse against their partner. Those aged 25-44 were more likely than any other age groups to be responsible for domestic abuse against their partner (although but note small base size).

2.9 Although figures recorded for domestic abuse of self as victim tend to have risen slightly in most demographic groups over the last three waves, within SEG levels have fallen for social grade AB and risen for social grades C1C2DE.

2.10 As the Elizabeth advert featured the impact of domestic abuse on children within the household, a new question was inserted at Wave 9 exploring whether children were living in the household when domestic abuse occurred. Only those who had been victims or had been responsible for abuse were asked this question. The results are shown in figure 2.2

Figure 2.2: Whether children were in the household when domestic abuse occurred
Base: Victims or those responsible for domestic abuse

2.11 Results show that children were present in two thirds of cases (66%) at Wave 10. Those respondents who personally had been the victim of domestic abuse were slightly more likely to report the presence of children than those who said they had been responsible for domestic abuse (67% compared to 60%).

Sectors of society where abuse is most common

2.12 To establish whether domestic abuse is perceived by the public as associated with any particular sectors of the population, 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

2.13 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 six percentage points since Wave 8 to 42% at the latest wave, as a result of fewer mentions of younger or middle aged people. In addition the perceived incidence of abuse for each age group has fallen individually over the last three waves. Overall, domestic abuse remains an issue which, in comparison to the other age groups, is not considered to affect older people as only 47% of respondents cited this age group, down from 52% at Wave 8.

2.14 The proportion of both males and females saying that domestic abuse affects all age groups has fallen by six percentage points over the last three waves. Women were still more likely to associate domestic abuse with all age groups, although the level has declined at the latest wave, whereas the figure for men mentioning all age groups has risen slightly since Wave 9.

2.15 Perceptions of the frequency of domestic abuse in relation to SEG are shown in Table 2.3.

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

2.16 Although six in ten (60%) respondents felt that domestic abuse affects people from all social classes, this measure has fallen over the last three waves, as have mentions for each class individually. Females were significantly more likely than males to believe that domestic abuse affects people from all social classes (67% versus 52%), although again the slight decline at Wave 10 occurred amongst women. Domestic abuse is still perceived by a majority of respondents (87%) to be most prevalent amongst the working classes.

2.17 Overall, the trend is towards fewer people seeing no barriers in respect of age and class in the incidence of domestic abuse.

Awareness of advertising or publicity about domestic abuse

2.18 The proportion of people spontaneously aware of advertising or publicity about domestic abuse has been consistently high at more than seven in ten over the last four waves. However, the high of 78% at Wave 9 has not been achieved at Wave 10 - where 70% spontaneous awareness was recorded. Indeed, the latest figure was lower than the level of 72% recorded at Wave 8 when TV advertising was limited to Channels 4 and 5. It is worth noting that the level of awareness was slightly lower for women (68%) than for men (71%).

2.19 Those claiming to be aware of advertising and publicity about domestic abuse were asked where they had seen or heard this. In the chart below, figures have been re-percentaged on the total sample in each case to provide a more meaningful comparison of the impact of the different media across waves.

Figure 2.3: Sources of spontaneous advertising awareness
Base: All respondents

2.20 Although television continued to be the main source of advertising recalled ⁴, the proportion of those citing this medium dropped considerably to 59% at Wave 10. This could be attributed to a lower spend on TV advertising and an underperformance in audience delivery within this. However this is unlikely to be the full explanation, as advert recognition remained consistent (see 2.28 below), and there may be an issue in how the advert itself was performing.

2.21 Levels of recall of programmes on TV, outdoor posters, radio and advertising in newspapers remained fairly consistent across the most recent waves.

Content recall from television advertising

2.22 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.

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

2.23 Just under one in five (19%) of those who recalled having seen a TV advert about domestic abuse could describe specific aspects of the Reminder advert - a decrease in recall from 25% at Wave 9. Specific aspects described included a woman shopping / buying different things e.g. dress / meat (4%), her partner's voice comes into her head always criticising her (5%), and mental rather than physical abuse (4%). Consistent with lower recall overall, the number of mentions of these key themes has dropped by several percentage points since Wave 9.

2.24 The adverts which ran prior to Reminder continue to maintain some residual awareness, demonstrating how memorable these adverts were. Doll's House was mentioned by 8% at the latest wave, along with Coming Home by 6%, and Bruised Face by 8%. Behind Closed Doors was mentioned by 2% at this wave, showing a small residual awareness.

2.25 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.

2.26 The specific details of the Reminder execution were recalled by females (23%) slightly more than males (16%). Respondents who had personally been the victim of domestic abuse had higher recall than the total sample on this occasion (27% compared to 19%) although at Wave 9 there was little difference in response (26% compared to 25%).

Reach of current campaign

2.27 Prior to Wave 9, a photo-prompt of frames from the TV advert was shown to respondents as stimulus and they were asked whether they had seen it on TV recently. Multimedia CAPI was used to play radio adverts at Wave 8, and radio and TV adverts at Wave 9. At the present wave, both the TV advert ( Reminder) and the radio adverts ( Elizabeth and Listener) were played in full to respondents.

2.28 The level of TV reach ⁵ was 67% - two percentage points lower than the level seen at Wave 9. This relatively high reach coupled with lower spontaneous awareness indicates that the advert has been seen but is less frequently front-of-mind. The trend of females being more likely to have seen the advert than males noted at previous waves continued at Wave 10, with almost three quarters of females (73%) claiming to have seen the advert compared to just over three in five males (61%). 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 (79%).

2.29 Respondents who recognised having seen the advert before were asked what the main message of the advert was. The results are shown in Table 2.5.

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

2.30 Almost half (49%) of respondents thought that the advert sought to communicate mental / psychological / emotional aspects of abuse - a slight rise from 46% at the previous wave. Specifically respondents mentioned that domestic abuse is not just physical, it can be verbal / mental / psychological (26%) or that mental abuse is as bad / worse than physical abuse (14% - a rise of six percentage points since Wave 9). At this wave, fewer respondents described the narrative of the advert - a man undermining the woman's confidence (3%), and a woman being emotionally / mentally abused (1%). Just over a quarter of respondents (26%) felt that the message was no excuse - zero tolerance, whilst a further 10% mentioned help is available.

2.31 Generally, the intended communication points for the TV advert were successfully communicated.

2.32 When respondents were played the Elizabeth and Listener radio adverts used in the latest campaign, 36% claimed to have heard each before (in combination a total reach of 47%). This level of reach compares favourably with the levels of reach found for the radio adverts Waiting (33%) and Little Things (31%) played at Wave 8 when the total reach of radio was 45%. There was a small gender difference for the level of reach at Wave 10 - males (49%) slightly more likely than females (45%) to have heard one of the adverts. Those who had personally been responsible for domestic abuse (57%), knew victims of domestic abuse (54%) or had personally been victims of domestic abuse (49%) were slightly more likely to have heard the adverts than the total sample.

2.33 Combining the reach figures for TV and radio gives a total reach for the campaign as a whole. At this wave the campaign achieved total reach of 79%, which is one percentage point higher than at Wave 9 and compares favourably to other social campaigns monitored by TNS System Three. However, as explored previously, exposure to the advertising does not necessarily correlate with impact and retention of the message.

Attitudes towards domestic abuse

2.34 The ongoing communications campaign focuses public 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, using a five point scale of agree strongly to disagree strongly for rating purposes ⁶. Figure 2.4 and 2.5 present a summary of levels of agreement with each statement among the total sample.

Figure 2.4: Attitudes towards Domestic abuse
Base: All respondents

2.35 This graph indicates no significant change in attitude between the two waves, and the public continue to agree that domestic abuse is unacceptable. As attitudes in relation to domestic abuse tend to be firmly held, this leads to little significant change year on year. The role of advertising in this case is to maintain these beliefs.

2.36 Although not significant, there appears to be a slight softening of attitudes on some measures, for example people who escape from domestic abuse at home can go on to make a new life for themselves afterwards and there are lots of places women in Scotland can go for help if they are assaulted by their partner - perhaps because these are not emphasised in the current campaign. Equally, the measure, anybody who hits their partner should be treated with contempt has fallen by six percentage points over the last four waves.

2.37 Psychological or mental abuse where one partner controls, threatens or intimidates the other is just as bad as actual physical abuse - the main message of this campaign - is one of the strongest and most consistently held beliefs overall, which indicates that this message is not 'new' to respondents.

2.38 Since Wave 9, the strength of agreement that sometimes women can have a good reason for hitting their partner has fallen from 26% to 18%, indicating that any violence is becoming increasingly unacceptable. However, the idea that sometimes men can have a good reason for hitting their partner is even less accepted (only 7% agreeing).

2.39 As was seen at previous waves, those who were aware of having seen the advertising campaign held stronger 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. For example, those who have seen/heard advertising are less likely to agree that it is ok to hit your partner once in a while (-1.82 versus -1.7) and people who suffer from domestic abuse just have to learn to live with it (-1.8 versus -1.6). (See figure 2.5)

Figure 2.5: Attitudes towards Domestic abuse (2)
Base: All respondents

Additional Questions

2.40 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 / exploitation of women, which were new secondary research aims in 2006. Due to the sensitive nature of these questions, respondents aged 16-17 were excluded.

2.41 The first measure asked all respondents 18+ whether they regarded prostitution or pornography as exploitation of women. The results are shown in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6 - Whether regard pornography or prostitution is exploitation of women
Base: All respondents aged 18+ (992)

2.42 The majority of respondents thought that pornography (60%) and prostitution (66%) were exploitative. In each case, just under one in five were unsure, suggesting this is not a clear cut issue for some.

2.43 There were notable demographic differences in opinion towards pornography. As at Wave 9, females (67%) were significantly more likely to regard this as exploitative than men (52%) and those aged 35+ were significantly more likely to regard pornography as exploitative than those aged 18-34 (70% compared to 37%). Differences in opinion by demographics were less marked for prostitution, although men (with 63% agreeing that it was exploitative) were slightly more accepting of this than women (69% agreeing that it was exploitative).

2.44 The second measure concerned three actions that could be seen as exploitation or violence against women. All respondents aged 18+ were asked how acceptable or unacceptable they thought each action was. The results are shown in Figure 2.7.

Figure 2.7 - Level of acceptability
Base: All respondents aged 18+ (992)

2.45 The majority of respondents thought the actions were unacceptable in each case, and there has been some change between Waves 9 and 10. There has been a significant shift in attitudes towards purchasing or viewing pornographic materials with the mean score indicating that this activity is becoming less acceptable.

2.46 Pressuring a woman to take part in sexual activities if she says she doesn't want to was the least accepted action, with more than four in five (81%) saying that this was totally unacceptable and a further 13% that it was unacceptable; the mean score ⁷ of -1.67 reflected this.

2.47 The remaining two actions included higher numbers of respondents who were either undecided or thought that these were acceptable. Thus whilst around two thirds (67%) said paying someone for sex was unacceptable, 22% were undecided, and 10% thought it was acceptable. The mean score for this activity was -0.94 - a marginal change from -0.90 at Wave 9.

2.48 Similarly, six in ten thought purchasing or viewing pornographic materials was unacceptable (60%), around a quarter (26%) were undecided and 14% thought it was acceptable. The mean score in this case of -0.78 made purchasing or viewing pornographic materials the most accepted of the three actions, however as the mean score was -0.66 at Wave 9 this indicates that it is becoming a less accepted activity. In relation to the stability of the previous measure on pornography as exploitation of women, it seems this is not correlated with perceived exploitation of women, but could be related to general publicity around the subject.

2.49 Demographic differences in opinion continue to exist for purchasing or viewing pornographic materials. Males (21%) were more likely than females (8%) to view this as acceptable, and similarly the younger age groups were also more likely to view this as acceptable (36% of those aged 18-24, and 21% of those aged 25-34).

2.50 The 45-54 age group were most likely to think that paying someone for sex was acceptable (17%).

2.51 A new question was added at Wave 10 to explore attitudes towards rape, and how responsible respondents felt a woman was for being raped in various circumstances. The results are shown in Figure 2.8.

Figure 2.8 - Level of responsibility for rape by circumstance
Base: All respondents aged 18+ (992)

2.52 A clear majority of respondents felt very strongly that women were not responsible for rape in any circumstances, with 68% feeling that a woman was not responsible if she is flirting, 73% not at all responsible if she is drunk, 74% not at all responsible if she is dressed in revealing clothing and 82% not at all responsible if she is known to have had many sexual partners. In each case, only 5% felt that a woman was totally or mostly responsible, and for the first three circumstances around one in five thought a woman was partly responsible for being raped.

2.53 Men were more likely than women to think a woman was in any way responsible for being raped (i.e. 30% as opposed to 25% if she is drunk, and 34% as opposed to 29% if she is flirting), and the younger age groups generally attributed less responsibility than the older age groups (see figure 2.9).

Figure 2.9 - Level of responsibility for rape by age
Base: All respondents aged 18+ (992)