U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Predictors of Relationship Abuse Among Young Men

NCJ Number
208766
Journal
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2001 Pages: 99-115
Author(s)
Deborah Reitzel-Jaffe; David A. Wolfe
Date Published
February 2001
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This study tested a social learning model as an explanation for abusive behavior in intimate relationships among a sample of 585 first- and second-year male university students.
Abstract
Based on a social learning model, this Canadian study hypothesized that family violence would be indirectly related to the perpetration of abuse in men's adult intimate relationships and that this link would be mediated by two constructs: negative gender beliefs and peer association. It was further hypothesized that negative beliefs about gender and interpersonal violence would have both direct and indirect effects on relationship abuse. The questionnaire administered to the sample included measures of childhood family violence; negative beliefs about gender and interpersonal violence (attitudes toward women, acceptance of interpersonal violence, attitudes about rape, and adversarial sexual beliefs); negative peer association (peers who share the same negative gender beliefs as participants and behave coercively); relationship abuse; and background variables. As predicted, analyses with a structural equation model confirmed that violence in the family of origin was associated with men's negative beliefs about gender roles and the acceptance of interpersonal violence. These beliefs were in turn associated with reports of having friends who also had negative beliefs about gender roles and were abusive in their interactions with peers. The components of the proposed social learning model accounted for 79 percent of the variance in men's abusive behavior in intimate relationships. 2 tables, 1 figure, 4 notes, and 63 references