BCTR Talks at Twelve: Deinera Exner-Cortens

Thursday, May 10, 2012 at 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Beebe Hall, Conference Room 2nd fl.

“Why Would You Wanna Be in a Relationship Like That When You Could Be in a Healthy One?": A Qualitative Investigation of Adolescents’ Beliefs About Dating
Violence and Aggression. In order to investigate the importance of context in aggressive interactions, this study examined adolescents’ thoughts on violence and aggression in dating relationships. High school students in Ithaca, NY in grades 9-12 (n=21) participated in a 40-minute semi-structured interview, and were asked for their thoughts on dating, dating violence and psychological aggression in dating relationships. Five main themes emerged from this analysis, as well as a list of 13 actions that the participants felt constituted psychological aggression. Actions listed by males and females in the sample differed in both frequency and perceived severity. In her talk, Deinera will discuss how the findings from this study that support efforts to include assessments of context in studies of dating violence, and the application of this work to future research.

Deinera Exner-Cortens is a third year doctoral candidate in Human Development. She holds an MPH in Social and Behavioral Science from Boston University (2009), and a BSc in Cellular, Molecular and Microbial Biology from the University of Calgary (2007). Deinera's research focuses on understanding interpersonal violence in intimate relationships. Past and current projects in this area include media framing of domestic homicides in Botswana, intimate partner violence in the lives of Canadian Aboriginal women, prevalence of sexual violence in gay, lesbian and bisexual populations in the United States, longitudinal outcomes of teen dating violence victimization and the evaluation of a campus-based sexual violence prevention program. Currently, Deinera is working on her doctoral dissertation, which focuses on teen dating violence. The goal of this project is to provide practitioners with an improved understanding of how psychological aggression is used in teen dating relationships, as well as to highlight how depression and substance use may contribute to risk for re-victimization. Upon completion of her doctoral degree, Deinera plans to return to Canada, where she hopes to work in the public sector as an applied researcher.