Gender differences in relations between social information processing, PTSD symptoms, and intimate partner violence.

Abstract

Objective: Prior research indicates a connection between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social information processing (SIP) cognitive biases, and use of intimate partner violence (IPV) by men. However, little to no work has examined gender differences together with dyadic-level factors for these associations. Method: We used a dyadic actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) framework to examine these associations across women and men in a community sample of 73 couples. Questionnaires assessing actorand partner-reported PTSD symptoms and IPV were used, as well as the laboratory-based Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations protocol to examine cognitive biases via participant responses to angerprovoking relationship scenarios. Results: Overall, the APIM model showed a higher fit level compared to the unconstrained dyadic model, suggesting that men and women responded equally as actors and as partners. Results indicated an indirect actor to actor effect, such that PTSD symptoms had an indirect effect on physical IPV via cognitive biases, b = 0.006, p < .05, 95% CI [0.001, 0.013]. In addition, the actor to actor effect of PTSD on psychological IPV through cognitive biases was significant, b = 0.002, p < .01, 95% CI [0.001, 0.040]. The actor to partner effect from PTSD to physical, psychological, and injurious IPV through cognitive biases was found, b = 0.006, p < .05, 95% CI [0.001, 0.0012]; b = 0.002, p < .05, 95% CI [0.000, 0.004]; b = 0.008, p < .05, 95% CI [0.002, 0.0015], respectively. Conclusions: Findings from multivariate models among civilian couples emphasize that PTSD symptoms may affect one's own IPV and their partner's IPV via cognitive biases regardless of gender, suggesting the importance of trauma-informed interventions that address biased social information processing.

Examining strength at home couples to prevent intimate partner violence on a military installation: A randomized controlled trial.

“…The applicability of this potentially integrative model for other problems experienced by service members and their partners may also be a fertile avenue for future research. For example, social information processing biases have been shown to contribute to more negative consequences of alcohol use (Vik et al, 2014), and studies in both veterans and civilians show relationships between social information processing biases and symptoms of PTSD (Gilbar et al, 2021; Sippel & Marshall, 2011).…”

Women’s Disengagement Behaviors During Couple Conflict: Investigating Risk Indicators of Intimate Partner Violence

“…Participants were drawn from a 1-year longitudinal investigation of post-traumatic stress disorder, relationship abuse, and physical health among couples (see Gilbar et al, 2021; LaMotte et al, 2016). Recruitment occurred within the greater Boston area between 2008 and 2011 via advertisements soliciting couples to participate in a study on trauma and relationship problems.…”

Trauma- and Violence-Informed Care: Orienting Intimate Partner Violence Interventions to Equity

“…In the face of a largely inconsistent evidence base, what can a TVIC lens add? More recent studies, as part of an intervention model (e.g., CBT, Duluth), examine how IPV is linked, contextually and sometimes even causally, to the perpetrator's own trauma experiences, and/or their cognitive/emotional processing ability [72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81]. In fact, what emerges from a close reading of this literature is that "trauma-informed" in this context focuses exclusively on how trauma experiences impact psychological processes such as emotion regulation, substance use, and attachment and can be inferred as "causing" perpetration, leading to trauma-specific approaches to healing perpetrators such that they stop using violence.…”