Motivational Attributions About Intimate Partner Violence Among Male and Female Perpetrators

Given the widely acknowledged negative impact and pervasiveness of intimate partner violence (IPV), many have sought to discover why people perpetrate IPV. To this end, IPV risk factors have been extensively studied and attributions have recently received more attention. Evidence suggests males and females have similar attributions and both engage in IPV. Yet, IPV tactics and attribution rates appear to differ by perpetrator sex. This study explores whether males and females tend to attribute different reasons to their IPV, and whether these attributions help to distinguish among physical and psychological IPV tactics. The study tests three hypotheses: that IPV tactics and attributions will differ between females and males, that females and males will have similar latent constructs associated with types of attributions made about IPV, and that males and females will have different relationships among attribution factors and IPV tactics. This study is based on a cross-sectional survey of 5,035 18- to 25-year-old undergraduate university students in the Southeastern United States. Analyses used SPSS 20 to conduct basic and bivariate analyses, multiway frequency analysis, reliability analysis, and logistic regression, and MPlus 6.12 to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, the results provide support for the three study hypotheses, although there was inconsistency in findings for the second hypothesis. The results suggest important practice and research implications, which are discussed. The study fills a gap in the limited literature on IPV perpetrator motivational attributions by presenting a nuanced analysis of an early measure of IPV attributions.