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What Happens Before Intimate Partner Violence? Distal and Proximal Antecedents

NCJ Number
242707
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 27 Issue: 8 Dated: November 2012 Pages: 783-799
Author(s)
Sung-hun Byun
Date Published
November 2012
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This study examined the causes intimate partner violence.
Abstract
Although research on intimate partner violence (IPV) has emphasized the importance of building situational frameworks and event-based research, the knowledge of the contexts surrounding IPV is particularly limited for immigrants. The present study identifies the sequence of specific antecedents of IPV and their relationships with one another. This study is a content analysis of online postings on an anonymous internet forum for Korean married women living in the United States. Ninety-five postings narrating IPV episodes from the direct experiences of the posters were selected. With a novel method named the "might-cause chain," violence was extracted from the narratives and then traced back to prior actions. Results suggest that environmental settings of IPV can be expanded from immediate proximal situations (triggers), through contingent pathways, to distal context. The roles of verbal exchange, alcohol, in-laws, and self-control, and the patterns of demand interactions, IPV cycles or continuums, and dispute-related violence are discussed. Abstract published by arrangement with Springer.