Prevalence and stability of physical aggression between spouses: A longitudinal analysis.

Abstract

Community couples (N = 272) were assessed in a longitudinal study of early marriage. More women than men reported physically aggressing against their partners at premarriage (44% vs. 31%) and 18 months (36% vs. 27%). At 30 months, men and women did not report significantly different rates of aggression (32% vs. 25%). However, using either the self-report or the partner's report, the prevalence of aggression was higher for women than men at each assessment period. Modal forms of physical aggression for both men and women were pushing, shoving, and slapping. Conditional probability analyses indicated that the likelihood of physically aggressing at 30 months given that one had engaged in such aggression before marriage and at 18 months after marriage was .72 for women and .59 for men. Furthermore, 25-30% of the recipients of physical aggression at all three assessment periods were seriously maritally discordant at 30 months.

Intergenerational transmission of partner violence: A 20-year prospective study.

“…Subtler forms of abuse (e.g., threatening) may be less physically injurious than more serious acts (e.g., beating up) but are important from a measurement point of view, because they typically precede and co-occur with more serious forms of abuse (O'Leary et al, 1989). We thus tested the risk for perpetrating and receiving any partner violence without differentiating severity and frequency.…”

Typological approaches to violence in couples: A critique and alternative conceptual approach

“…Samples ranging from cohabiting or newlywed young adults (Aldarondo, 1996;Mihalic, Elliott, & Menard, 1994;O'Leary et al, 1989) to the National Family Violence Survey, which includes a wide age range (Feld & Straus, 1989), have been consistent in finding desistance rates of around 50% for men over a 1-year period. Rates of physical aggression toward a partner have been found to be highest at young ages and to decrease with time (Gelles & Straus, 1988).…”

Typologies of male batterers: Three subtypes and the differences among them.

“…The costs of this problem are staggering in terms of marital dissatisfaction, psychological and physical health problems, and negative effects on the children of such marriages (e.g., McDonald & Jouriles, 199 l;Sonkin, Martin, & Walker, 1985). Although data indicate that both husbands and wives engage in violence (e.g., O'Leary et al, 1989;Straus & Gelles, 1988), husband violence has consistently been found to have more detrimental effects than wife violence; for example, wives are more likely than husbands to suffer severe physical injuries and depressive symptomatology (Cascardi, Langhinrichsen, & Vivian, 1992;Stets & Straus, 1990).…”