The different types of behaviors deemed by lay persons and psychologists as more likely to be psychological abuse showed that the two groups focused on qualitatively different behaviors. Psychologists have been sensitized to interpret as psychological abuse the numerous ways in which a spouse monitors or checks on the behavior of his/her partner. Such controlling behavior, particularly by male partners toward female partners is regularly mentioned in the literature as a feature of partner abuse. Lay persons, on the other hand, are more likely to label such behaviors as normal jealousy that is an inevitable part of married life. Lay persons are more likely to label as "psychological abuse" those behaviors that hurt a partner's feelings; whereas, psychologists look for a pattern of repeated verbal abuse designed to cause painful or submissive psychological states in the partner. Psychologists and lay persons were also distinguished on the rigidity of their judgments about what constituted psychological abuse. Lay persons tended to label specific behaviors as either "always" or "never" psychological abuse, without reference to the context, frequency, motivation, or outcome of the interaction. Psychologists, on the other hand, were more willing to view some behaviors as ambiguous or dependent on circumstances as to whether they constituted psychological abuse. The findings raise the issue of subjectivity and conditioning as factors in what a person deems to be psychological abuse. The psychologists represented a national sample surveyed by mail, and the lay persons represented a community sample surveyed by telephone in order to obtain responses to a 102-item questionnaire that requested ratings on various descriptions of behavior between married partners. 1 table and 39 references