A total of 1,274 undergraduate students at two large western universities completed questionnaires during the 1986-87 academic year. The sample consisted of nondating, casually dating, seriously dating, engaged, and married participants. The study measured the use of violence in premarital relationships, relational conflict, individual characteristics, and relationship characteristics. Discriminant analysis was used to identify individual and relationship factors that differentiated between individuals involved in violent and nonviolent dating relationships. The discriminating factors examined included relationship beliefs, the cycle of family violence, conflict negotiating strategies, investment in the relationship, alternatives, and comparison level. The use of persistence as a negotiating strategy best discriminated conflictual-violent and conflictual-nonviolent relationships. Characteristically, persons in a violent relationship had been in the relationship longer and had a greater investment in the relationship as well as a greater belief that change was possible compared to persons in nonviolent relationships. Results indicate the importance of the interaction of individual and relationship factors in dating violence. Implications for further study and for policy and practice are discussed. 55 references.