Why I Hit Him: Women's Reasons for Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

This study examines motives for intimate partner violence (IPV) among a community sample of 412 women who used IPV against male partners. A "Motives and Reasons for IPV scale" is proposed, and exploratory factor analyses identified five factors: expression of negative emotions, self-defense, control, jealousy, and tough guise. To our knowledge, the study is the first to investigate the relationship between women's motives for IPV and their perpetration of physical, psychological, and sexual aggression, as well as coercive control, toward partners. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed participants' aggression was driven by complex, multiple motives. All five motives were related to a greater frequency of perpetrating IPV. Treatment programs focusing on women's IPV perpetration should address both defensive and proactive motives. KeywordsIntimate partner violence; motives; female perpetrators; Motives and Reasons for Intimate Partner Violence scale Increased rates of arrests of women for domestic violence offenses (Kernsmith, 2005;Swan & Snow, 2002) highlight the importance of understanding the reasons that women, as well as men, use intimate partner violence (IPV) . To develop effective interventions, researchers and service providers working with individuals who use IPV need to understand what the individuals themselves see as their reasons for committing aggressive behaviors. However, knowledge of these reasons for IPV, particularly for women, is hampered by a lack of empirical data (Hettrich & O'Leary, 2007;. The purpose of this study is to examine reasons and motives for IPV among a community sample of women who used IPV against male intimate partners. A "Motives and Reasons for IPV scale" is proposed, and exploratory factor analyses are conducted to identify the factor structure of the scale. The relationships between scale factors and women's IPV is examined, controlling for victimization the women received from their partners. The study is the first, to our knowledge, to investigate the relationship between a comprehensive measure of women's reasons and motives for IPV and their perpetration of physical, psychological, and sexual aggression, as well as coercive control, toward their partners. Women's Motives for Intimate Partner ViolenceMotives are defined as "underlying psychological processes that impel people's thinking, feeling, and behaving" (Fiske, 2004, p. 14). Motives for aggressive behavior in general have been conceptualized as reactive (responding to a perceived threat, such as defending oneself when attacked) versus proactive (aggression that is initiated with the goal of dominating, controlling, threatening, or bullying someone else) (Dodge & Coie, 1987). Similarly, women's motivations for aggression against intimate partners have been organized into two types: defensive or reactive motives (i.e., self-protective violence) and active motives, or those that go beyond simply defending oneself and are goal-oriented, such as anger, retaliation, and attempts to control the partner (Sw...

Psychosocial characteristics of men and women as perpetrators of domestic violence

“…The conviction that wives use violence towards their partners only when they are directly threatened with the latter's aggression, should already be classified as a social stereotype. The studies of Straus (2003), Stuart et al, (2006), Simmons et al, (2005), Caldwell, Swan, Allen, Sullivan, & Snow (2009) report that motive are similar for both sexes, and both most often strive at getting control over the partner, as well as forcing the partner to behave in a desired way, and punishing for not being loyal.…”

What Will Happen if I Punch Him? Expected Consequences of Female Violence Against Male Dating Partners

“…The motivation, context, and results of violence by women can be quite different than those for men. Most, but not all, aggressive women are in bidirectionally aggressive relationships (Leisring, Dowd, & Rosenbaum, 2005;Ross & Babcock, 2009;Straus & Gelles, 1990;Swan & Snow, 2002, and selfdefense is often viewed as one of several motivations for women's use of aggression, along with anger, stress, jealousy, and a desire to retaliate against one's partner (Caldwell, Swan, Allen, Sullivan, & Snow, 2009;Cascardi & Vivian, 1995;Follingstad, Wright, Lloyd, & Sebastian, 1991;Foshee, Bauman, Linder, Rice, & Wilcher, 2007;Hettrich & O'Leary, 2007;Stuart et al, 2006).…”

Becoming Verbally Aggressive Toward One's Child: A Study of the Mother's Perspective

“…Nonetheless, the limited research that has been done in this area has yielded some relatively consistent results. Specifically, in three separate investigations of female aggression in intimate relationships, Caldwell, Swan, Allen, Sullivan, andSnow (2009), Dowd (2001), and Malloy, McClosky, Grigsby, and Gardner (2003), all found that women who aggress against their partners do so to defend themselves and to gain a sense of control or power in their relationships. Malloy et al (2003) further noted that females aggress against their partners to make them pay for their behavior and to get them to take responsibility for their behavior.…”