Two new measures of attitudes about the acceptability of teen dating aggression.

Abstract

Aggression in dating relationships is associated with attitudes that justify its use. Attitudes about dating aggression are targeted by prevention efforts, contributing to a need to measure these attitudes sensitively, accurately, and multidimensionally. We describe two new measures of attitudes about aggression, each tapping different attitudinal components, and compare their psychometric properties with an existing scale. The 1st assesses attitudes about physical aggression in provocative situations. The 2nd taps attitudes about verbally aggressive, controlling, and jealous tactics against a dating partner. Data from 2,313 high school students were factor analyzed and cross-validated for each new scale. Compared with an existing measure, the scales had comparable levels of reliability and validity and improved response distributions. A 2nd-order factor analysis lends support to a multidimensional view of attitudes about dating aggression.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Intimate Partner Violence: Differentiating Correlates in a Random Community Sample

“…Further, traditional gender role attributions and reporting positive attitudes toward the use of violence in interpersonal relationships have been correlated with IPV (Santana et al 2006), may mediate the intergenerational transmission of violence (Alexander et al 1991), or may altogether be better predictors of violence in adult relationships when compared to family-of-origin factors (Stith et al 2000(Stith et al , 2004. When considering the acceptance of interpersonal violence specifically, research has demonstrated that perpetrators have a tendency to hold attitudes that validate their aggressive behavior (Slep et al 2001), believing it is appropriate to use violence as a means of conflict resolution in both general and romantic relationships (Riggs and O'Leary 1989). Likewise, alcohol use has played a significant role in violence against women generally (see Koss et al 1994), and IPV more specifically (see Jasinski 2001 for a review; see also Luthra and Gidycz 2006).…”

A Brief Motivational Intervention for Physically Aggressive Dating Couples

“…Acceptance of psychological aggression was assessed using the Justification of Verbal / Coercive Tactics Scale (JVCT; Slep et al 2001). The JVCT elicits the degree of acceptance of verbally aggressive, controlling, and jealous tactics for both men and women in dating situations.…”

Risk models of dating aggression across different adolescent relationships: A developmental psychopathology approach.

“…Attitudes that support aggression as a justifiable solution to conflict among couples have often been linked to reports of dating aggression (O' Keefe, 1997;Riggs & O'Leary, 1989). However, in comparison with the strong influence of antisocial peer involvement and the proximity of dyadic characteristics to dating aggression, the relationship between attitudes and aggressive behavior is more modest (Bookwala et al, 1994;Cano, Avery-Leaf, Cascardi, & O'Leary, 1998;Foo & Margolin, 1996;Riggs & O'Leary, 1996;Schumacher & Slep, 2004;Slep, Cascardi, Avery-Leaf, & O'Leary, 2001). Thus, although it is unlikely that attitudes represent a mediating role between contextual influences and dating aggression, we hypothesized that attitudes would alter or moderate the influences of peer and dyadic characteristics.…”