The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2)

Abstract

More than 200 studies have found "gender symmetry" in perpetration of violence against a marital or dating partner in the sense that about the same percent of women as men physically assault a marital or dating partner. Most of these studies obtained the data using the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS). However, these results have been challenged by numerous articles in the past 25 years that have asserted that the CTS is invalid. This article identifies and responds to 11 purported methodological problems of the CTS, and two other bases for the belief that the CTS is not valid. The discussion argues that the repeated assertion over the past 25 years that the CTS is invalid is not primarily about methodology. Rather it is primarily about theories and values concerning the results of research showing gender symmetry in perpetration. According to the prevailing "patriarchal dominance" theory, these results cannot be true and therefore the CTS must be invalid. The conclusion suggests that an essential part of the effort to prevent and treat violence against women and by women requires taking into account the dyadic nature of partner violence through use of instruments such as the CTS that measure violence by both partners.

The relation of psychopathy to concurrent aggression and antisocial behavior in high‐risk adolescent girls and boys

“…The Conflict Tactics Scale, Revised (CTS-R; CTS; Straus, 1979;CTS2;Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996) The revised CTS taps reports of aggression that have been both perpetrated by and inflicted upon the individual by mothers, fathers, peers, and romantic partners. Items include both verbal and physical forms of aggression (e.g.…”

“…Each item is rated on a four-point scale ranging from 1-''Never'' to 4-''Always''. The CT scales (Straus et al, 1996) were shown to have moderate to high levels of internal consistency and reliability (alphas ranging from 0.79 to 0.95), as well as acceptable levels of validity for research purposes (Straus, 1979). For the purposes of the current study, ''perpetration indices'' measuring the frequency of aggression perpetrated by the youth in the past six months were calculated for each of the relationships assessed by the CTS (i.e.…”

Intimate partner violence: a study in men and women from six European countries

“…Past year prevalence of IPV against men and against women was assessed using validated versions of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) (Straus et al 2003), originally developed in English, available in Portuguese, German and Swedish (Straus 2004;Straus and Mickey 2012). Translations to Greek and Hungarian followed a standard protocol: forward translation, expert panel revision, back-translation, new expert panel revision and piloting.…”

“…The questions covered acts of ''minor'' or ''severe'' violence according to risk of injury that would require medical attention (Straus et al 2003). Even though ''moderate'' and ''severe'' may be considered more appropriate terms, we followed the original scales' author terminology.…”

“…The frequency of abuse was categorized as once, 2-5 and more than 5 times, and was considered a measure of chronicity instead of the mean number of acts to overcome the skewed sample distribution (Straus et al 1996). Participants were characterized as victims or perpetrators of ''minor'' or ''severe'' violence according the severity of the reported act.…”