Mutuality, severity, and chronicity of violence by Father-Only, Mother-Only, and mutually violent parents as reported by university students in 15 nations☆
Section snippets
Importance of dyadic measurement of inter-parental violence
Identifying whether the child was exposed to violence by both parents, or by only one, whether it was the father or mother, needs to be taken into account in theories about the effects of exposure to parental violence and in prevention and treatment efforts. Yet, as was mentioned, few studies obtain this information, and it is virtually absent from the theoretical and clinical literature. Therefore, one objective of this article was to give the phenomenon a convenient name (DT), identify
Severity and chronicity
Although an essential first step is to determine if the aggression is Father-Only, Mother-Only, or Both-Assault, as previously noted, information about other characteristics of the inter-parental violence are important and often mentioned but rarely empirically investigated. For this study, we investigated the severity and the chronicity of the assaults perpetrated by parents in each DT. Chronicity is the frequency of assault among those who assault.
A study which did distinguish between severe
Studies of children's exposure to dyadic perpetration types
Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al. (2012) identified 48 studies which reported the percent of couples in each of the three categories of DTs. None used the term Dyadic Type because it only recently appeared in the literature. Few were studies in which the issue of interest was whether the child was exposed to inter-parental violence. However, we located seven with this focus. They provided 11 distributions of DTs. The column headed Father-Only in Table 1 indicates that the percentage in this dyadic
Research questions
For the reasons given in the introduction to this article, we believe there is a need for additional research to provide researchers and practitioners with basic descriptive information about the prevalence of the three DTs and the severity and frequency of violence which characterizes each of the types. An article now in preparation will provide additional information on the extent to which these three aspects of exposure to inter-parental violence have different effects on children. The
Method
The data for this study were obtained as part of the International Parenting Study (IPS) conducted by a consortium of researchers located in 15 nations between October 2007 and March 2010. Each IPS consortium member used the same core questionnaire, except for the final section, which was for each member to add questions about issues of specific local or theoretical interest. A description of the study, including the questionnaire and all other key documents can be obtained at //pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2
Prevalence of assaults between parents
Entire sample. The first pair of rows of Table 3 is for the total sample. The upper row of the pair is for any assault regardless of severity. It shows that 3.5% of students reported their father had assaulted their mother when they were 10 years old, and 10% reported that the mother had assaulted their father that year. Combining these indicates violence in the relationship of the parents of at least 14% of the students in this study. This is remarkably close to the prevalence rate found by
Discussion
Most prior research on children exposed to violence between parents has focused exclusively on assaults by fathers. For example, Grip, Almqvist, Axberg, and Broberg (2013) defined partner violence as “self-reported behaviors directed to the mother by a current or former male partner” (p. 239). This study gives equal consideration to two other DTs: Mother-Only and Both-Assault. It did so by investigating the prevalence of physical assaults perpetrated by the mothers and the fathers of university
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2023, Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'AdolescenceA critique of the revised Conflict Tactics Scales-2 (CTS-2)
2017, Aggression and Violent BehaviorCitation Excerpt :However, Straus' (2008) study of international dating violence in 32 nations highlighted that the male-only DCT was not the most prevalent category (even in the minor and severe violence categories). For the prevalence of psychological aggression and sexual coercion, similar findings have been identified (Straus & Michel-Smith, 2014; Michel-Smith & Straus, 2015). Overall, the predominant pattern found was that both partners were violent.
Dyadic concordance and discordance in family violence: A powerful and practical approach to research and practice
2015, Aggression and Violent BehaviorCitation Excerpt :However, with simple additional steps, within-type variation can be examined using techniques such as analysis of variance. For example, the study of the exposure of university students to violence between their parents when they were children (Straus & Michel-Smith, 2014) used analysis of variance to determine the degree to which mothers and fathers in the Both parents assaulted. By definition, both assaulted, but one might have done it a lot more than the other.
Does adolescent's exposure to parental intimate partner conflict and violence predict psychological distress and substance use in young adulthood? A longitudinal study
2014, Child Abuse and NeglectCitation Excerpt :An earlier Australian population study found that 23% of women had ever experienced IPV (Mulroney, 2003), with perhaps 60% of these women having children in their care, and that some 66% of these children had witnessed the violence (Linacre, 2007). Although a recent study conducted among convenience samples of university students in 15 nations found that males and females were almost equally likely to perpetrate intimate partner violence, especially in North America (Straus & Michel-Smith, 2013), other studies suggest that the prevalence of male perpetrated IPV is much higher and more severe than the prevalence and severity of female perpetrated violence (Feder & MacMillan, 2012; Halford, Farrugia, Lizzio, & Wilson, 2010; MacMillan & Wathen, 2014; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). Our study focuses on the consequences for offspring of parental IPV against the mother using maternal reports of male-partner violence toward them.
Gender differences in the link between intimate partner physical violence and depression
2014, Aggression and Violent BehaviorCitation Excerpt :These results were found to apply to severe as well as minor assaults, to estimates based on data provided by women as well as by men, regardless of the instrument used to measure intimate partner physical violence, and to studies conducted in many nations. The multi-nation applicability of Dyadic Types was recently confirmed by a 15-nation study (Straus & Michel-Smith, in press). Considerable evidence of gender symmetry exists in the etiology of intimate partner physical violence.
Effect of perceived parent child relations on adjustment of young women exposed to mutual intimate partner violence during childhood
2019, Aggression and Violent BehaviorCitation Excerpt :In other words, it is instigated and perpetrated equally by women and by men (Archer, 2000; Johnson, 2016). For some authors, mutual violence is the most common form in violent couples (Archer, 2000; Jonhson, 2008; Straus, 2011; Straus & Michel-Smith, 2014). This type of violence, commonly referred to as situational couple violence, usually arises out of the dysfunctional couple's relational dynamics, when unresolved conflicts escalate into violence (Johnson, 2011; Lapierre et al., 2015).
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Revision of a paper presented at the International Family Violence and Child Victimization Research Conference, Sheraton Harborside Hotel, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, July 8–10, 2012. This article is one of a series reporting results of the International Parenting Study directed by Angele Fauchier [email protected], and the Dyadic Types Research Program. Papers can be downloaded from http://pubpages.unh.edu/∼mas2. The work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant T32MH15161, and the University of New Hampshire.