Typologies of Adolescent Dating Violence

Abstract

Acts scales, the most common way of measuring partner violence, have been criticized for being too simplistic to capture the complexities of partner violence. An alternative measurement approach is to use typologies that consider various aspects of context. In this study, the authors identified typologies of dating violence perpetration by adolescents. They conducted in-depth interviews with 116 girls and boys previously identified by an acts scale as perpetrators of dating violence. They provided narrative descriptions of their dating violence acts. For boys and girls, many acts considered violent by the acts scale were subsequently recanted or described as nonviolent. From the narratives, they identified four types of female perpetration that were distinguished by motives, precipitating events, and the abuse history of the partners. One type of perpetration accounted for most acts by boys. The findings are discussed relative to dating violence measurement, prevention and treatment, and development of theory.

Controversies Involving Gender and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States

“…Further work will be needed to determine which, or how many, of the unidirectionally violent couples are experiencing intimate terrorism and which are experiencing other types of intimate partner violence. Unidirectional violence by women may be even more heterogeneous in nature than unidirectional violence by men (Foshee et al 2007). Nonetheless, it is asserted in the current paper that whether or not the violence is occurring bi-directionally is likely to be an important factor on which to determine subtypes of violent couples.…”

“…In contrast, a more recent trend has been for researchers to develop typologies that can describe both male and female perpetrators; to delineate typologies that are specific to violent women (Babcock et al 2003;Monson and Langhinrichsen-Rohling 2002;Swan and Snow 2002); or to make typologies that are functional and dyadic in focus such as is being proposed below and is in keeping with Johnson's focus on differentiating intimate partner violence subtypes based on the dyadic context in which the violence is occurring. Dyadic typologies are also likely to better incorporate the data that dyadic processes predict the occurrence of males' and females' psychological and physical aggression over time, as least as measured in general samples of adolescent dating relationships (e.g., Foshee et al 2007;O'Leary and Slep 2003).…”

Youth Experiences of Family Violence and Teen Dating Violence Perpetration: Cognitive and Emotional Mediators

“…This priming effect can be overridden given sufficient time, cognitive capacity, and motivation (Fazio 1990); however, these are often lacking in the circumstances surrounding dating violence, which tends to occur ''in the heat of the moment'' (Foshee et al 2007). Intense emotion in particular interferes with cognitive processing, rendering reappraisal increasingly unlikely.…”

TREAD: A Promising Change-Target for Partner Abuse Prevention with Adolescents

“…Indeed, maximizing TREAD is important for boys at risk of perpetrating harm against a partner because young men typically report aggressing in response to WSBs by their partner (Crime Research Center 2001;Foshee et al 2007;Miller and White 2003). However, in the current study, a convenience sample of secondary school girls was recruited primarily because it was assumed that girls would have a greater interest than boys in volunteering their free-time (i.e., during school lunchtimes) to complete questionnaires on this topic.…”