Psychological theories of wife abuse fall into one of three categories: personality explanations, the social learning theory, and the psychodynamic explanations. Empirical research on personality variables indicates that male spouse abusers tend to have high depression rates, dysphoria, anger-proneness, and a high degree of histrionicity. Male batterers tend to have distorted perceptions of reality that border on schizoid/psychotic reactions to life events. The social learning perspective argues that violence may be transmitted from one generation to another. Multiple stressors on the male batterer can produce chronic frustration that triggers learned violent behavior. Demographic and socioeconomic factors can also be associated with male spouse abuse. These pertain to employment status, age, and drug and alcohol use during violent periods. Batterers tend to be young and under economic strain resulting from unemployment or low-status occupations. The treatment of male batterers must take into account both the personality, social, and situational variables contributing to the violent behavior against female partners. 43 references