Say, a daughter has an physically abusive Dad growing up. Instead of trying to avoid dating these types of men, she will be attracted to these abusive guys.

My hypothesis to this is that as human beings we seek protection. The daughter, knowing only an abusive father will try and seek out abusive guys because that is the only type of person they know. They will be safe from outside harm, not from the abusive boyfriend though.

Your thoughts, and revisions?

I assume you are heavily into evolutionary psychology?

The problem with this thesis is it assumes that the father is the only predominant male figure that she has.

Second, if human beings seek protection and if the male figure is abusive - then logically she would avoid figures like that, not be attracted to them. If she seeks protection and a source of danger is from her father, then logically she would probably have a fear of males or at least those resembling the characteristics of her father.

If the daughter seeks protection, then it is only natural she would seek protection from the abusive father. Thus whatever she sees as a protector from the danger (her father) one would assume she would be attracted to the protector instead of the danger.

I don't really get where this whole theory comes from. It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. If the daughter seeks to avoid danger, then the last place she would go to for protection is that which brings her harm.

I think the point is the daughter would assume the male dominant role is one of aggression and its 'normal' for a relationship to be like that. Although thats not the original hypothesis at all.

I have a old friend whose father beat and abused his mother all his childhood. His father got the name Psycho, and he was regularly heard shouting expletives in the corner of the local pub. The father was so abusive that his mother left him many many times for a battered wifes home/shelter. She would always come back though, which I found strange. When my friend was too old to go with his mam, he was left with his father. One day his dad came home with his uncle, and after the dad tried to control his son with vengeful words, and didn't get the required response, him and the uncle kicked seven shades of shit out of my friend. He ended up living at mine for a fortnight til his mam came home.

This turned around a couple of years later when a similar thing happened and my friend snapped and broke his dads ribs and jaw. He was in hospital for quite a while. He hated him and everything he did.

His dad later died of a heart attack, and now my friend wont have anything bad to say about him. He was burned badly in a housefire, and what with his childhood abuse and his fathers alcholism he's picked up all his nasty habits.

My friend has always been demanding to his mother, to the point of abuse, and absolutely following his fathers lead. This behaviour has tended to bleed into his friendships although the response he's recieved from his demands has always been "Fuck off, we're not your mother".

Now people just keep away from him. He also has major issues with women, saying things like 'can I put my arm around you?', 'can i kiss you?' etc. My favourite so far has to be:
'Can I give you a kiss?'
'No'
'Can we just have full sex?"
LOL. Always makes me laugh bless him.

I'm fairly certain that this behaviour would be replaced with the same abuse he has seen in his
parents relationship, as soon as some girl agrees to be with him.

I know this is not the same situation as the OP posted, but its very relevant.

Well I think evolution has selected people to look for traits that are similar to those found in their opposite sex parent when selecting a mate. So a daughter would look for traits in a male that are similar to her father. A son would look for traits in a female that were similar to his mother. Its weird, but studies done in animals indicate that this is the case (at least for male offspring). I can't find the research, but somebody else gives the basic idea inthe post below.

au.answers.yahoo.c*m/answers2/frontend.php/question?qid=20071231185325AAiFKGG

Now in animals it doesn't appear to occur for the female offspring. However in humans, researchers have found that daughters prefer a mate with similar qualities to their father if they had a good relationship with him. So it is quite possible that a daughter might seek out the very same traits in her mate (such as abuse) as those that are found in her father. If the relationship between father/daughter was good, it would be more likely to happen than if the relationship was bad. So if the father was abusive to the mother but not the daughter, then the daughter might be more likely to seek out partners who also had that specific trait. Just my own personal speculation, though.

oldandsold.c*m/articles09/sexual-emotion-46.shtml

Personally I believe the phenomenon can be explained like this: an abusive father in childhood creates a feeling of lack of control. As an adult the individual then seeks other abusive people essentially trying to recreating their childhood trauma to try to gain control over the situation; however, they are not successful and create a cycle of abuse. In this way it is possible for sources of fear in childhood to become sources of attraction latter on in life.

What do you think? Plausible?

Possibly, like trying to recreate their childhood trauma because its 'normal'.

I'm going to jump in here if I might.

Many times you have a boy who watches his father get drunk and beat up his mommy for years. Later in his life he is getting drunk and beating up his own wife. Like father like son. Why is this behavior repeated, one might ask?

I've really decided recently that this have everything to do with intelligence. And I don't mean IQ or book learning, (I don't think IQ tests measure anything btw, and I'm not going to get into THAT issue in this thread).

So intelligence. It's sort of a nonsense-word is it not? Ask 10 people what the word means and get 11 answers. Am I right?

I, and many people in my "camp", define intelligence as adaptive behavior. The wife-beating drunk mentioned above repeating his father's behavior patterns can be said to not be adapting his behavior. And that's what it all comes down to. Intelligent people can stop engaging in habits and change their behavior. Unintelligent people cannot.

I mean you can tell me that I'm being overweening or over-generalizing here. But I've always said that a true IQ test that actually measures your "intelligence" (in the biological sense) would not be a happy little test on pencil and paper taken over the course of 45 minutes. To really create a true IQ test you would have to be put through an ordeal somewhat on par with basic training in the marine corps. This process would take your brain through a whirlwind ride of pain and emotional trauma. But I'm gonna stop right there to keep myself from digressing this thread into an "IQ Test" thread. So there.