Intimate Partner Violence Measurement: New Self-Report Measures That Do Not Produce Gender Symmetry

• In Event: Conceptualizing and Measuring Abuse in Adolescent Dating Relationships

Abstract

Gender patterns in intimate partner violence (IPV) remain a controversial topic. Most behavioral self-report measures produce gender "parity" in rates of perpetration and victimization of IPV. However, some surveys do not produce gender parity, including the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) and the National Criminal Victimization Survey. Arrests, reports to law enforcement (regardless of whether they lead to arrest), homicide data, and helpseeking data also produce more reports of male than female perpetration. Witness reports likewise produce more reports of male than female perpetration, as seen in the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (Hamby et al., 2011) and the original National Family Violence Survey (Straus, 1992). This methodological inconsistency is still poorly understood and calls for methodological innovation. This presentation will present the findings from three studies. In Study 1, 238 undergraduates were randomly assigned either the standard version of the Conflict Tactics Scales physical victimization items or a version similar to that used in NVAWS, which changed the partner-specific wording to generic wording ("Someone" instead of "My partner"), with perpetrator information collected instead as a follow-up question. A significant Form X Gender interaction was found, indicating that the non-specific version yielded higher rates of female than male victimization. Study 2 compared standard CTS2 items to two alternatives and again found a Form X Gender interaction in a sample of 288 undergraduates. Study 3 implemented one alternative in a rural sample of 1703 adults and found that higher female than male victimization for the full scale and every item. Survey wording has a large impact on observed gender patterns. After 40 years of IPV research, we need more experimentation and innovation in the assessment of violence.

Author

• Sherry L. Hamby, Sewanee:The University of the South