Is All Dating Violence Equal? Gender and Severity Differences in Predictors of Perpetration

Abstract

The present study assesses the extent of perpetration of physical violence in predominately Hispanic high school students in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. The relationship between adverse childhood experiences, exposure to interparental violence, attachment, emotion regulation, and impulsivity on two distinct, mutually exclusive, categories of severity of physical teen dating violence (TDV) perpetration is further explored. Participants completed self-report measures as part of a larger, anonymous web-based questionnaire. Two categories (i.e., minor/moderate and severe) were created to discern the contextual variables associated with different levels of severity of physical violence perpetration by males and females. Eight-hundred and twenty-nine 14- to 18-year-old adolescents from four different high schools participated in the study, of whom 407 reported having been in a dating relationship in the last 12 months. The results demonstrate that when only the most severe item of TDV is taken into consideration, the rates of violence perpetration by males and females are almost equal and remarkably lower than those reported in the literature. However, when the assessment includes minor/moderate levels of violence, such as pushing, the rates of violence perpetration by females are twice those of males and are consistent with those reported in the literature. Furthermore, different variables are associated with different levels of severity of violence perpetration. The results support approaches that emphasize the need to take the context of the violence into consideration, since all levels are not equal. The need to take the severity of violence into account in studies assessing dating violence is highlighted.

Physical and psychological violence in dating with stress among adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…These findings are in line with research violence often occurs among dating partners, but they do not consider it a serious or even avoided problem [19]. Women are more likely to commit acts of physical violence to their partners [20]. Physical violence in the mild category significantly increases depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).…”

Dating Violence: A Bibliometric Review of the Literature in Web of Science and Scopus

“…It is necessary to offer a process of preventive intervention, which allows for a more effective and context-adjusted orientation according to the duration of the relationship, degree of commitment, parental influence, among others (Ravi et al 2020), as well as prevention programmes focused on the development of optimal emotional regulation and impulse control skills with emphasis on relationships (Ontiveros et al 2020).…”

“…Dating violence is understood as the threat or use of sexual, verbal or physical abuse by one partner against the other (Leen et al 2013;Rodríguez-Castro and Alonso-Ruido 2015;Rubio-Garay et al 2017), which means that to properly identify situations of violence, physical and/or sexual aggression must be assessed alongside other forms of violence such as verbal aggression and/or threats, affecting couples who have either been together for a long time or are starting a relationship (Ontiveros et al 2020).…”

A gender study of the social representations of dating violence in Chilean adolescents

“…So that the participants would be more at ease discussing the subject, single-sex groups were chosen. According to Morgan ( 1997 ), the number of groups required to reach empirical saturation ranges from 3 to 5, with 6 to 8 participants per group. In the present study, 12 groups (same number of groups of girls and boys, as well as of public and private schools) were composed with a mean of 4 participants per group.…”