address the cyclical pattern of abuse.
The social learning model, Dutton (1995a, 1995b) reports, also fails on the grounds that empirical research supports more factors as influencing wife assault than simple parental modelling. In other words, simply watching a father model abuse is not sufficient for learning the behavior. Also, the strong emphasis of the model on immediate, external rewards provides a fairly passive characterization of the abuse that is incompatible with the descriptive features provided by victims who state that abusers often respond to internal stimuli.
Thus, review of the major historical models of wife assault shows that they are, at best, incomplete. What is needed is a model that is more comprehensive in scope. Donald Dutton (1995a, 1995b) presents such a model, one that relies heavily on theory and research on wife assault presented by Lenore Walker (1979) and theory and research on BPO presented by John Gunderson (1984). So that Dutton's model may be fully understood, this foundation
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