ONLINE-Quiz for Weeks 3 & 4

Chapter 9: Abusive Heterosexual Partners: Primarily Males

Lecture Outline

I. Male-to-Female Intimate Partner Violence

a. Sociodemographic Characteristics of Batterers

i. Age

1. women 18–54 years of age comprised 85% of spousal violence victims

ii. Gender

1. current/former intimate partners are the most likely to be involved in a homicide-suicide events, with females the most likely victims and males the most likely offenders

2. females were 50% of spouses, but 84.3% of family violence victims

3. 57.1% of males arrested for MFIPV did not subsequently admit it

iii. SES

1. significantly higher male partner violence rates for women with annual incomes less than $7,500

2. seven times higher than those for women with the highest incomes, $75,000 or more

b. Definitions of Battering

i. Government: is beginning to incorporate the instigation of fear in the victim as part of the definition, and some are focusing on partner-control as the pre-eminent aspect of psychological abuse

ii. Factor Analytic definitions of battering

1. humiliation/blame and control accounted for 17.38% of the variance

2. Male-to-Female Intimate Partner Violence (MFIPV) is far more than physical abuse alone; partner-control is an element of intimate partner violence

iii. Patterns of IPV

1. Cycle of Violence: a theory developed by Lenore Walker (a pioneer in MFIPV) in 1979

a. MFIPV not only intensifies in degree and frequency over time, but binds the people involved into a repetitive pattern of behavior

b. violence increases in severity and frequency over time until the woman is killed, injured, or escapes

c. 74.2% typified their abuse as escalating

d. three phases of the Cycle of Violence”

i. tension building—minor incidents of violence may occur along with a buildup of anger; may include verbal put-downs, jealousy, threats, and breaking things, and can eventually escalate

ii. acute or battering—major violent outburst occurs with actual physical violence

iii. honeymoon phase—perpetrator is remorseful and afraid of losing his partner he promises her anything, begging forgiveness, buying gifts, and basically seeming to be “the man she fell in love with”

iv. Evidence Countering the Cycle of Violence theory: quantitative research findings did not substantiate the cycle of violence

1. IPV does not uniformly escalate

2. IPV actually ceases in some cases

3. while one form of abuse stops, another may persist

4. male physical aggression decreased in 54% of the couples together after two years, emotional abuse persisted

5. all forms of abuse ceased in 7% of the couples

c. Estimates of IPV

i. Homicides/Suicides/Familicides

1. Homicide

a. It is the least likely outcome of a domestic assault (IPV), but the most feared

b. It is the primary basis for formulating criminal justice policy

c. It is the most objective source of data because it does not depend on self-report

d. Of known assailants, women committed 19% of the spousal homicides, and men committed 81% (SHR, 2008)

2. Suicide of the IPV perpetrator

a. partner-violent men evidence significantly elevated rates of suicidal behavior

b. male perpetrators were significantly more likely to commit suicide than nonperpetrators

c. they were more likely to be separated from a domestic partner at the time of suicide

3. Familicides: killing oneself as well as the partner and/or children

a. current/former intimate partners are the most likely to be involved in a homicide-suicide event

b. females are the most likely victims and males the most likely offenders

ii. Sexual Assaults Within Violent Relationships

1. Narrow definition

a. define sexual behaviors as rape only if the assault included force (i.e. saying “No” is not enough)

b. sexual assault and rape occur frequently in violent marital relationships

c. intimate rape is much more common than stranger rape

d. rape by an intimate partner evokes far more psychological damage than rape by a nonpartner or ex-partner

e. abusive male partners may also try to interfere with birth control and/or refuse to wear condoms

2. Estimates of sexual assaults

a. 87.4% reported that their husbands thought it was their right to have sex with their wives even against a wife’s will

b. 22.9% of the victims were 18–20 years old and 22.8% were 21–29 years old (NCVS, 2008)

c. 39.1% by strangers and 60.9% were perpetrated by intimates (NCVS, 2008)

d. 53% of men had sexually assaulted their female partner at least once (NWAWS, 1998a, 10998b, 2000b)

e. 40% of men emotionally coerced their female partner to have sex against her will (NWAWS)

f. 8% threatened to withhold money unless she had sex

g. 17% raped their partner while she was asleep (NWAWS)

h. 28% used physical force to rape her (NWAWS)

i. 13% threatened to physically harm her if she did not have sex (NWAWS)

j. 15% frequently forced her to have sex after a fight

k. suffered from various forms of extreme, sexually-related degradation (NWAWS)

i. having objects inserted (28.6%)

ii. being sexually abused in front of their children (17.8%)

iii. 46% had been coerced into having sex immediately after being discharged from a hospital (often after giving birth)

iv. forced anal intercourse (52.8%) actually occurred more frequently than vaginal rape

iii. Psychological/Emotional Abuse

1. Psychological abuse

a. most common form of partner abuse

b. two major types (as measured by Tolman’s PMWI, 1989)

i. dominance-isolation

ii. emotional-verbal

2. Control of one’s partner: a process whereby one member of an intimate relationship experiences vulnerability, loss of power and control, and entrapment as a consequence of the other member’s exercise of power through the patterned use of physical, sexual, psychological, and/or moral force

a. controlling behavior is especially typical of male batterers

b. control is a human rights violation because entrapping women through intimidation, isolation, and control robs them from developing their personhood

c. Coercive control – Instrumental control: a method of getting one’s way; 78.4% female victims report being controlled by their male partners in this way

d. Making decisions for oneself and one’s partner can be viewed as a form of controlling behavior

i. both violent husbands and wives use decision-making power

ii. decision-making power in nonviolent marriages was more equally shared than in violent marriages

iii. level of male aggression was highly associated with wives’ making fewer decisions

e. Feeling powerless abusive men reported higher levels of powerlessness (felt powerless) compared with nonabusive men

f. Need for power/control/dominance: a need to be dominant and to exercise power over another, fueled by a strong sense of patriarchal rights

i. male perpetrators typically perceive female partners who do not follow their commands to perform certain chores as not obeying their rules

ii. wives who fail to follow orders deserve abuse for challenging their male partner’s authority as head of the household

3. Economic exploitation: involves restricting access to resources, such as bank accounts, spending money, funds for household expenses, telephone communication, transportation, or medical care

iv. Nonlethal Assault Estimates

1. females experienced five times as many incidents of nonfatal violence as did males ( Rennison & Welchans, 2000)

2. women were the victims in about 85% of the cases (NCVS – Greenfeld et al., 1998)

3. separated women tend to be victimized at a rate 3 times higher than the rate for divorced women and 25 times higher than the rate for married women (Greenfeld et al., 1998)

4. 22.1% experienced abuse by an intimate as did 74% of men (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998a, 1998b, 2000b)

5. [See also NIBRS, 2005 – Idaho for 7 years – p. 425]

d. Attitudes & Classifications of Batterers

i. There is a surprising amount of social approval of MFIPV

See the case history of Kree Kirkman on p. 427

ii. Male batterers almost uniformly blame their female victims, especially for not obeying their orders

iii. Johnson’s 4-Categories of Violent Couples

1. Situational Couple Violence

a. most frequently occurring type of IPV

b. low-level (not severe) and is perpetrated by both members of a couple

c. one individual is violent, but neither the individual nor the partner is both violent and controlling

d. gender symmetric and occurs most often in general populations

2. Mutual Violent Control

a. both the individual and the partner are violent and controlling

b. violence is gender symmetric

3. Violent Resistance

a. self-defensive form of IPV

b. the person is violent but not controlling

c. most common in agency samples (e.g., shelter agency) and is perpetrated almost exclusively by women

4. Intimate Terrorism

a. only one partner is violent and controlling

b. most common in shelters, other agencies, and forensic samples

c. perpetrated almost exclusively by men

d. frequent and often injurious

iv. One study was able to verify the two anchor points: SCV and IT

v. Gender dissimilarities (Weston, Temple, & Marshall, 2005) (See Box 8.1)

1. women’s FMIPV is not equal to men’s MFIPV

2. Within the so-called gender symmetric group

a. 36% of IPV is low-level, gender symmetrical only one partner is violent and controlling

b. 54% is primarily perpetrated by males most common in shelters, other agencies, and forensic samples

c. 11% primarily perpetrated by females

e. Traits of Batterers

i. Denial and Minimization

1. abusers tend to downplay or minimize the significance and seriousness of their violence, claiming they did not really hurt their female partner

2. they often totally deny having hurt their partner in any way

3. they tend to blame their own aggression on nearly anyone or anything but themselves

4. 50% claimed self-defense as a reason for their MFIPV

5. 72% denied that their MFIPV harmed victim/children

6. 38%-53% faked answers on tests to look good

7. 63% denied accuracy of current police report

8. 66% blamed partner more than themselves

9. 54%-59% denied aspects of current offense

ii. Anger, Hostility, and Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)

1. Anger

a. Types

i. a trait (i.e., a relatively stable characteristic)

ii. a state (i.e., temporary feelings elicited by a specific situation)

iii. both

b. Motives

i. may function as a motive for male assaults

ii. violent partner abuses experience more trait anger than nonviolent partner abusers

iii. perpetrators are angrier and more hostile than non-MFIPV perpetrators

iv. majority of perpetrators do not have anger disturbance, but perpetrators had moderately higher levels of anger and hostility than nonperpetrators

v. men’s anger (or hostility) may motivate them to perpetrate MFIPV

1. anger may be a precursor to violence

2. anger/hostility does not inevitably lead to MFIPV

c. Classifying angry men

i. low anger

ii. moderate anger-inexpressive

iii. high anger-expressive: about one-third of the men suffer dysfunctional levels of anger and lack effective strategies for dealing with it

2. Hostility

a. an attitude reflecting one’s dislike and negative evaluation of others

b. anger has more than one connotation and is more of an emotion than an attitude

c. partner-violent men were more hostile overall than men in any of the other groups

d. men reported more general anger than spouse-specific anger (anger toward wife)

e. angriest, most hostile men were those in two groups: the borderline/dysphoric group and the generally violent group

3. Intermittent explosive disorder (IED)

a. IED is psychiatric condition of periodic, dangerous assaultive actions that represent extreme responses to stressors and is not attributable to other mental disorders or the effects of psychotropic drugs

b. over two-thirds of individuals with a history of partner violence suffered an IED episode during an anger attack

iii. Depression, Self-Esteem, Shame, Guilt, and Humiliation

1. Depression

a. male perpetrators are substantially more depressed than nonperpetrators

b. partner-violent men perpetrating minor violence registered significantly higher levels of major depression than did their female counterparts

2. Self-esteem

a. batterers have significantly lower self-esteem scores compared with nonpartner-violent men

3. Shame, guilt, and humiliation

a. parent-to-child shaming and guilt inducement correlated with chronic adult anger, trauma symptoms, IPV, and borderline personality organization (BPO)

b. shame developed through parental punishments and childhood abuse was the central precursor to men’s adult abusiveness

c. men’s recollections of being shamed by parents were linked with adult anger, abusiveness, trauma symptoms, and BPO

d. shame in adult batterers is linked with anxious attachment during childhood

iv. Lack of Awareness/Automaticity/habit

1. some batterers have stopped thinking about their battering and simply strike out automatically with or without any provocation by the victim

2. they frequently are unaware of anger, worthlessness, depression, and fear that underlie their behaviors

3. they have automatic cognitive biases that lead them to misinterpret events

4. there might be certain cues (similar to fear cues) that set off their anger automatically

5. they have usually repressed many painful childhood memories that become apparent in the form of dissociative coping styles

a. dissociative coping style allows perpetrators to carry out extremely violent assault

b. dissociation—an extreme experience falling at the high end of a continuum from nonawareness, to suppressed awareness, to denial, to repression, and finally to dissociation

v. Empathy

1. empathic responses might inhibit aggression

2. mirror cells within a brain fire when a person executes some specific action and also when he/she observes another executing the same specific action

vi. Attachment Difficulties and Emotional Dependence

1. partner-violent men are more emotionally dependent than other men

2. male IPV perpetrators have profound dependency needs and are very sensitive to themes of abandonment

3. Attachment

a. adults who felt safe and secure with their caretaker during infancy are likely to feel secure in their adult partner’s presence and enjoy being close to him or her

b. insecure attachment in childhood may lead to feeling in adulthood of anxiety, anger, and fear of abandonment which may fuel an assault against an adult intimate partner

vii. Regulating closeness

1. when one member of a couple desires more intimacy and the other member does not, a frustration response may escalate into IPV

2. people adopt a set of commonly used emotional and physical strategies for regulating levels of proximity

3. individuals whose attachment patterns are primarily preoccupied usually sought high levels of dyadic closeness and used pursuit strategies to achieve greater proximity

4. individuals whose attachment patterns are primarily dismissing or fearful typically wanted to avoid too much closeness, and they tended to use distancing strategies

5. one partner might have a predominantly preoccupied pattern leading to a desire for more proximity, while the other partner might have a dismissing pattern leading to a desire for greater distance, which creates attachment: this type of conflict sometimes that produced frustration and then sometimes escalated to intimate violence

viii. Predicting both male and female IPV (pp. 437-438)

1. a females’ anxious attachment predicts IPV

2. an interaction between male avoidance and female anxious attachment patterns predicts IPV

3. when female anxious attachment was followed by male battering (mediator), female responsive violence occurred

ix. Attachment, jealousy, and borderline traits

1. Jealousy (Recall the case history of Kevin and Kim and the lint trap)

a. Jealousy can be studied as a trait. Attempts to operationalize the trait have been elusive – There are several different jealousy scales

b. jealousy is significantly higher for partner-violent men than for partner-nonviolent men

c. combined dominance/jealousy was one of the strongest predictors of both male and female partner aggression

2. Gender differences? Unclear

a. evolutionary theory: explanations for gender difference in jealousy

i. mate guarding: evolutionary forces have prepared males to mate-guard in order to ensure paternity

ii. females may mate-guard to ensure male provisions of resources for raising offspring

b. women rated their levels of reactive, anxious, and possessive jealousy higher than men did

3. Relationship implications

a. Is jealousy a sign of love? - positive feeling (e.g., valuing a partner) or is jealousy a sign of insecurity - negative feeling (e.g., fearing loss of a partner

b. Jealousy might be a sign of positive possessiveness (i.e. mate-retention tactic) vs. negative possessiveness (i.e. a tactic to control the partner’s behavior)

c. Jealousy can have positive consequences (i.e. increasing intimacy) or negative consequence (i.e. fostering violence)

4. Relationship quality: jealousy and lack of interpersonal trust have a bearing on attachment disorders and dependency needs in partner-violent men

5. Homicide and jealousy

a. intimate partner’s extreme jealousy poses a risk for possible fatal violence, even if there has been no previous violence

b. 41 % of male-to-female murders were motivated by jealousy, compared with 7% of female-to-male

x. Marital Dissatisfaction/Satisfaction Levels and Correlations

1. marital dissatisfaction is a strong predictor of MFIPV

2. marital discord plays an important role in predicting male battering recidivism

3. marital dissatisfaction is significantly related to wives’ low decision-making power

4. marital dissatisfaction is correlated with some forms of insecure attachment

5. association between relationship satisfaction and jealousy is significant and negative

6. association between jealousy and relationship satisfaction is significant and negative, but can be positive if the jealous partner loves his/her partner

7. general marital adjustment measures are significantly and negatively associated with trait anger and hostile cognition measures

f. Causes of Battering

i. Socialization seems to contribute to battering - plays a large role in the transgenerational perpetration of IPV

1. Childhood socialization - cognitive or attitudinal variables may allow or encourage partner aggression (e.g., hostility)

a. ineffective problem-solving strategies learned in childhood carry over into adult relationships and precipitate IPV

b. proneness to shame learned in childhood with adult marital abusive behaviors

c. fear of abandonment and emotional dependency stemming from childhood experiences may also mediate

d. abandonment fears are realistic because female victims seem to be more desirous of ending their relationship than male partners

e. socialized expectations for men generate specific types of masculine gender role stress

2. Childhood abuse also contributes to IPV

a. harsh treatment in childhood may lead to development of an antisocial orientation that in turn is associated with chronic partner violence

3. Exposure to parental battering and power-assertive punishment were linked with perpetration of adult IPV

4. Childhood attachment

a. insecure romantic attachment status of fathers is closely associated with the self-reported insecure attachment status of their children

b. adults who were insecure and fearful during infancy are likely to worry about abandonment when interacting with a partner who is cold and rejecting

5. Childhood trauma

a. traumas cause fear, terror, helplessness, or even dissociation

b. childhood trauma has been shown to be connected with adult dissociative experiences

6. Childhood trauma such as childhood exposure to parental IPV predicted two types of personality disorders, which partially mediated adult IPV by both sexes

a. Cluster A: Paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal traits – mistrust of others, suspiciousness, cognitive distortions, jealousy

b. Cluster B: borderline, antisocial personality disorder and borderline-narcissistic disorder

ii. Male gender socialization

1. Masculinity-Femininity

a. male offenders scored in undifferentiated (neither male nor female), lacking both positive masculine skills (e.g., leadership) and positive feminine skills (nurturance)

b. batterers scored significantly lower on masculinity and femininity and were more undifferentiated

2. Approval of aggression: men who held proviolence attitudes exhibited more MFIPV than those who did not

3. Entitlement

a. feelings of entitlement to power and their use of dominance in marital conflicts to control female partners hinge on sex-role socialization

b. patriarchal socialization confers upon males the roles of primary wage earner, head of the household, dominant marital partner, and the right to exert power and control, through the use of force if necessary

iii. Verbal skills as Precursors to MFIP: conflict theory - poor communication might trigger a quarrel that eventually ended in physical abuse

1. Assertion deficits

a. inadequacy in stating one’s views forcefully or in making requests appropriately

b. deficits are associated with greater verbal hostility

c. lack of assertiveness may be a risk marker for intimate partner violence

d. MFIPV perpetrators tend to show the largest deficits in spouse-specific assertiveness

2. Misperception of communication by male partner abusers

a. partner-violent men underestimated the quality and number of caring gestures received from their wives

b. abusers felt like they were “doing more and getting less”

3. Problem solving skills of partner-violent men

a. partner-violent men are poor problem solvers

b. inability to utilize effective conflict resolution strategies and high marital distress may serve as mediating factors between childhood exposure to interparental violence and wife battering

c. exhibit particular difficulty generating adequate responses to situations involving jealousy and rejection by and challenges from their wives

d. without the necessary skills to resolve problems, a violent partner may turn to either verbal or physical aggression, or both

iv. Alcohol/drug abuse by partner-violent men

1. Alcohol

a. certain partner-violent men commit much more severe and frequent violence when intoxicated than when not intoxicated

b. probability of a dual diagnosis is high in MFIPV perpetrator groups (both MVIPV and alcohol abuse)

c. alcohol use is not predictive of either male-to-female or female-to-male IPV

d. although alcohol use may be associated with intimate violence, alcohol is not a primary cause of the violence

e. men who batter when they are drinking may also batter when they are sober

f. the vast majority of men who consume even large quantities of alcohol never batter female partners at all

g. 30% of women experienced IPV perpetrated by male partners who had no histories of drug or alcohol use

h. a third variable, such as antisocial personality traits, might account for the relationship between IPV and alcohol consumption

2. Marijuana

a. marijuana use/abuse was a stronger predictor of IPV among minorities than Caucasians

b. marijuana use/abuse increased psychological abuse, mutual yelling and insulting behavior, which mediated the drug’s effects on IPV

v. Stress, Emotions, Mood States, Trauma, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

1. Academicians do not uniformly define stress the same

a. Stress appears to be both a physiological and psychological response to stressors

b. Stress deregulates the immune system that compromises health

2. Stress and battering

a. perpetrators and victims of IPV suffer from a high level of debilitating stress that affects cognitions, emotions, and physiology

b. negative life events are significantly associated with male IPV

c. using proxy measures of male spouses’ stress made by female spouses yielded several findings: younger age (in adulthood), unemployment status, and violence toward nonfamily members were all predictors of MFIPV – stress is a precursor to MFIPV

d. in one study, perceived stress was first linked with anger expression, and that anger expression was then linked to aggression

3. Trauma and PTSD

a. As described previously, traumatized persons exhibit many symptoms such as startle reactions, problems concentrating, flashback, that is PTSD

b. profiles of men with PTSD indicated that partner-violent men were not just stressed but had higher scores for antisocial personality

c. partner-violent males’ trauma symptoms were significantly related to retrospective reports of parental treatment, especially rejection and physical abuse

4. Masculine gender-role stress (MGRS): is based on male gender-role perceptions that encompass socially mandated expectations and rules prescribing appropriate and inappropriate male behaviors

a. Stressors for males along five dimensions

i. physical inadequacy

ii. emotional expressiveness

iii. subordination to women

iv. intellectual inferiority

v. performance failure

b. high levels of MGRS are associated with problematic behaviors, such as physical health problems (including heart disease), psychological problems, problems in interpersonal relationships, and MFIPV

c. MGRS is associated with specific types of MFIPV Example: an abuser prone to using sexual coercion against his female partner may suffer from feeling physically inadequate

5. Emotions and mood states play a strong role in IPV

a. anger can serve as a motive for both male and female IPV

b. fear may be a hallmark of female victimization by male partners

c. fear also plays a role in trauma reactions and PTSD

d. psychotropic drugs may be appropriate in cases of IPV related to emotions and mood states

vi. Biology and Genetics

1. There is a need for biopsychosocial models of violence and other behavior

a. because behavior is not the result of either nature or nurture alone

b. brain chemicals drive behavior and victimization (e.g., childhood abuse) can influence brain chemicals

2. Biological hormone studies

a. greater aggression in males relative to females

b. aggression takes different forms in men and women

c. social factors moderate testosterone’s influence

d. testosterone was significantly associated with verbal and physical levels of violence

e. alcohol consumption moderates aggressive responses

f. [therefore a biosocial model best explains behaviors such as IPV]

3. Genetic studies

a. testosterone level is highly heritable

b. individual genetic inheritance of criminal behavior is 11% to 17%

c. researchers have not yet identified a gene-violence relationship

d. there is significant heritability for antisocial personality disorder

e. results of genetic studies of antisocial personality disorder may apply to maritally assaultive men

f. research has identified genetic contributions to traits characterizing male partner assaulters

4. Sex differences in the brain – different brain structures

a. sex differences in the structures of the brain

b. females have smaller amygdalas (locus of strong emotions and anger) than males and some larger brain areas in the prefrontal cortex (restrains the amygdala’s aggressive impulses

c. women possess a larger hippocampus (emotional memory center) than men

d. men get angrier than women and have a harder time controlling their aggression

e. men may not remember such events as well as women might when answering questions about their aggressive behavior

5. Brain dysfunctions may characterize MFIPV perpetrators

a. frontal lobe dysfunction in some criminal and violent individuals

b. psychopaths have interpersonal/affective deficits that may be related to an information-processing deficit in hemispheric arousal

c. alcoholic batterers showed evidence of decreased metabolism in the right hypothalamus and reduced relationships between cortical/subcortical brain structures

d. Borderline Personality Disorder individuals have brain circuits that foster extreme emotional oversensitivity and an inability to see that people have both positive and negative attributes

vii. Personality Disorders: a group of disorders involving pervasive patterns of perceiving relations to and thinking about the environment and the self that interfere with long-term functioning, not just isolated incidents

1. Psychopathology

a. mental illness exacerbates interpersonal conflicts

b. relationship discord and mental disorders commonly co-occur

c. 88% of their batterer populations as suffering from some level of psychopathology

i. passive dependent/compulsive

ii. narcissistic/antisocial

iii. schizoidal/borderline

d. there are arguments against attributing battering to psychopathology

i. half the men classified as male IPV offenders test in the normal range

ii. serves as an abuse excuse for batterers

e. reducing the psychopathology of male perpetrators will not inevitably eliminate their violent partner abuse

viii. Similarities and Differences Between Partner-Violent-Only Men and Other Violent Men

1. Differences in targets among violent men

a. 67% had been violent only toward their wives

b. 23% had been violent only toward persons outside their families

c. 10% had been violent toward both wives and nonfamily individuals

2. Social and behavioral differences

a. men charged with domestic homicide experienced more behavioral problems in childhood (e.g., truancy) and had disturbed childhoods (e.g. missing parent

b. most dangerous wife assaulters are very likely to be generally violent men who have prior arrest records - destructive drug use and impulsive rages render them practically unfazed by arrest

3. Typologies of Male IPV Perpetrators

a. family only batterers—low level of violence, little pathology, and little violence outside the family

i. men in the more severely partner-violent group engaged primarily in sexual coercion

b. borderline/dysphoric group of batterers—unwell, unhappy/normality mixed with abnormality

c. low-level antisocial group

d. generally violent/antisocial batterers—violent/little sense of responsibility, morality, concern for others

4. responsivity principle—the hope was that matching treatments to the specific needs of subgroups (e.g., borderline-dysphoric) would enhance treatment effectiveness

5. Is there a sexually-violent only group of men? So far such a “group” has not been identified. Men in the generally violent/antisocial group engaged more frequently in threatened/ forced sex rather than sexual coercion

6. Testing Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart’s study

a. 9 studies found convergent evidence with the model

b. there are still numerous discrepancies to accept the model as totally valid

II. Female-to-Male Intimate Partner Violence (FMIPV)

a. Self-Defense is a Strong Motive for FMIPV

i. much of FMIPV is self-defensive, reacting to what is being done to them, rather than initiating confrontations

ii. violent resisters—80% of female perpetrators asserted that they were reacting to ongoing male abuse

iii. 60% of women who provided attributions for their female aggression against men cited self-defense

b. Other Motives of Female-to-Male Intimate Partner Violent (FMIPV) Perpetrators (Table 9.5, p. 464)

i. higher women’s status in a society and the greater the amount of individualism allowed, the higher the rate of FMIPV

ii. some women are the true primary aggressors in a relationship

iii. some women use FMIPV to demand attention or to punish the abuser

iv. Anger

1. society considers anger to be unfeminine

2. nevertheless anger was significantly correlated with FMIPV

v. Violence provocation of imprisoned FMIPV perpetrators

1. violence was a reaction to perceived threats to the violent women’s status as good mothers or faithful partners.

2. motives for much female abuse were jealousy, male violence by the male victim, and mutual violence

3. frequently directed their violence at either the men they thought were unfaithful or at other women deemed threatening to their relationships

vi. Female-to male Partner Control

1. female aggression did not appear to be a true female power strategy, but a reaction to male batterers

2. women’s control attempts did not work – improve their decision-making capacity

3. women’s controlling behaviors were significantly correlated with both male violence and their own violence

vii. Childhood abuse as a correlate of FMIPV

1. childhood abuse helps explain not only women’s perpetration of female aggression, but also its severity - exposure to IPV and power-assertive punishment

2. childhood socialization factors increased the risk of antisocial personality disorder, which elevated the odds of adult female-partner violence

3. women’s unfortunate childhood environments tended to be repeated in adulthood, including poverty, substance abuse, early parenting, single marital status, and various types of mental illness – generated stress probably contributes to FMIPV

4. Table 9.6 (p. 466) displays categories of women’s FMIPV

viii. Jealousy

1. jealousy may be more troublesome for women than men

2. violent women may be equally or even more concerned about sexual infidelity than men

3. women are more likely than men to try purposely to evoke jealousy in their partner

4. women rated both their levels of reactive and anxious jealousy higher than men did, and tended to rate themselves higher on possessive jealousy as well

5. women were more likely than men to compare themselves with other same-sex persons in terms of a rival’s jealousy-evoking traits

6. women rated physical attractiveness of a rival as more jealousy-evocative than men did of their rivals

ix. Powerlessness – FMIPV women felt significantly more powerless than non-FMIPV women

x. Suicide/Depression: female perpetrators are at greater risk for suicide than are male perpetrators

xi. Attachment: females’ anxious attachment, and the interaction between male avoidance and female anxious attachment patterns predicted IPV for both men and women

c. Battered Women Who Kill

i. when women kill, they most often kill male intimates

ii. many women who kill male partners are female victims: they killed their abusers to stop the violence (i.e., self-defense)

iii. Lenore Walker postulated battered woman syndrome(BWS)

1. BWS is probably a subcategory of PTSD

2. BWS is a condition of learned helplessness in the female victim caused by noncontingent, uncontrollable, cyclical nature of a perpetrator’s violence coupled with a belief that there is no other way to escape causes BWS

3. BWS women always kill out of fear for their own life and/or for their children’s safety