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Taft CT, Cunningham KJ, Weatherill RP, Suvak MK, Murphy CM. Attitudinal correlates of psychological aggression perpetration in dating relationships. Poster session presented at: Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention; 2009 Nov 1; New York, NY.
Psychological aggression is common in dating samples, with one study finding more than 90% of female college students reporting lifetime rates of psychological aggression victimization (Katz et al., 2000). Although research has shown psychological victimization to have negative impacts on mental and physical health (e.g., Taft et al., 2005), less is known about what factors contribute to the perpetration of psychological aggression. We examined two types of attitudes reflecting an expectation of hostility in intimate relationships as precursors to psychological aggression in dating relationships in an undergraduate sample (N = 341; 105 men, 236 women). Psychological aggression was measured using the Multidimensional Measure of Emotional Abuse (MMEA; Murphy and Hoover, 1999) which is divided into four subscales (Restrictive Engulfment, Hostile Withdrawal, Denigration, and Dominance/Intimidation). Hostile attitudes were measured using the Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence (AIV) and Adversarial Sexual Beliefs (ASB) scales (Burt, 1980). Overall, MMEA scores were significantly positively correlated with both the AIV (r = .13, p = .015) and ASB (r = .27, p < .001). Examining the dimensions of psychological aggression showed the ASB was significantly positively correlated with Restrictive Engulfment, Hostile Withdrawal, and Denigration; whereas, AIV was significantly positively associated only with Restrictive Engulfment. These findings suggest that the expectation that intimate relationships are exploitive is related to more forms of psychological aggression than the belief that force is acceptable in interpersonal relationships. Identifying attitudes that underlie the perpetration of psychological aggression is important to reduce the occurrence of psychological aggression in dating relationships.
