This study examines the potential association between witnessing paren
tal violence as a child and Eater adult depressive symptomatology with
in a population that has received limited attention in the scientific
literature, namely, incarcerated women. The Conflict Tactics Scale and
the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale were administ
ered to 60 women incarcerated in a maximum security prison in North Ca
rolina. A majority of the women reported that they had witnessed verba
lly aggressive or physically violent interactions among the adult memb
ers in their families. Seventy percent of these women suffered from cl
inically relevant levels of depressive symptomatology. Stepwise multip
le linear regression analysis revealed that increasing levels of reaso
ning conflict resolution strategies used in the women's families of or
igin were associated with decreasing levels of depressive symptomatolo
gy of the women, whereas increasing levels of physically violent confl
ict resolution strategies were associated with increasing levels of de
pressive symptomatology.