Donald G. Dutton

A comparison of impulsive and instrumental subgroups of batterers

Previous research on subtypes of batterers has revealed at least two distinct types of batterers. One group (Type 1) demonstrates suppressed physiological responding during conflicts with their wives, tends to use violence in nonintimate relationships and manifests Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-II) scale elevations on the Antisocial and Aggressive-Sadistic scales. The second group (Type 2) manifests violence in the intimate relationship only and reports dysphoria. The current study extends our knowledge of these two groups by using a cluster analysis to assess personality disorder and relating the results to each group’s attachment style, anger, trauma scores, and scores on a self-report of Borderline Personality Organization (BPO). An instrumental group (Type 1) showed an Antisocial-Narcissistic-Aggressive profile on the MCMI-II and reported more severe physical violence. An impulsive group (Type 2) showed a mixed profile on the MCMI-II with Passive-Aggressive, Borderline, and Avoidant elevations, high scores on a self-report of BPO, higher chronic anger, and Fearful attachment. Both types of abusive men reported a Preoccupied attachment style, but only the Impulsive men reported an accompanying Fearful attachment style.

Patriarchy and Wife Assault: The Ecological Fallacy

A critical review is made of feminist analyses of wife assault postulating that patriarchy is a direct cause of wife assault. Data are reviewed from a variety of studies indicating that (a) lesbian battering is more frequent than heterosexual battering, (b) no direct relationship exists between power and violence within couples, and (c) no direct relationship exists between structural patriarchy and wife assault It is concluded that patriarchy must interact with psychological variables in order to account for the great variation in power-violence data. It is suggested that some forms of psychopathology may lead to some men adopting patriarchal ideology to justify and rationalize their own pathology.

Assessment of Wife Assault with the Conflict Tactics Scale: Using Couple Data to Quantify the Differential Reporting Effect

The Straus Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) has been used frequently in past research to assess incidents of assault between spouses. The majority of these studies have relied on CTS scores from only one member of a couple. Szinovacz (1983) corrected this shortcoming by administering the CTS to 103 nonassaultive couples. In the current study the CTS was administered to 30 assaultive couples where the husband was undergoing treatment for wife assault. Differential reporting was found whereby husbands tend to view their marital relationship as mutually violent, while wives view it as husband-violent. Except when weapons were implicated, the husband-wife correlation on specific items of the CTS ranged from +.32 to +.57, indicating considerable disparity in recall for violence. The methodological and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. (Abstract Adapted from Source: Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1986. Copyright

Evidence for Long-Term, Specific Effects of Childhood Abuse and Neglect on Criminal Behavior in Men

We reviewed the extensive institutional files of 604 male federal inmates to determine the impact of various types of childhood abuse and neglect on violent and aggressive behavior in adulthood. Men who had been abused as children were three times more likely than nonabused men to engage in violent acts as adults. Moreover, specific forms of childhood abuse were associated with specific (and isomorphic) patterns of adult violence; for example, those who were physically abused were most likely to be physically violent, and those who were sexually abused were most likely to be sexually violent. These results are consistent with the cycle of violence hypothesis, which states that those who experience childhood abuse become more likely to abuse others as adults, probably due to vicarious learning through exposure to violent models.

The Outcome of Court-Mandated Treatment for Wife Assault: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation

This study represents an attempt to assess the effectiveness of court-mandated treatment for wife assault. A quasi-experimental design examined post-conviction recidivism rates for men convicted of wife assault. Fifty men who completed a 16-week treatment program had a 4% recidivism rate for a posttreatment period of up to 3 years. A comparable group who were not treated had a 40% recidivism rate in the same period. Hence, the “success” rate of treatment was 36% according to police records (Rosenthal, 1983). Straus Conflict Tactics Scale scores reported both by the treated men and their wives demonstrated significant posttreatment decreases from pretreatment levels. Treated husbands’ average annual use of severe violence dropped from 10.6 to 1.7 times per year (p <0.01). Eighty-four percent of wives reported no posttreatment violence. Rates of verbal aggression also dropped significantly from pretreatment levels. Comparison with CTS scores of a group of men who were arrested but not treated for wife assault (Jaffe, Wolfe, Telford, & Austin 1986) revealed significant decreases in the use of Physical Aggression subscale tactics (as reported by their wives) as a result of treatment. Interpretative difficulties with the quasi-experimental design used in this study are discussed and a randomized design with appropriate psychological assessment of subjects is recommended.

Emotional attachments in abusive relationships: a test of traumatic bonding theory.

An empirical test of traumatic bonding theory, the notion that strong emotional attachments are formed by intermittent abuse, is reported. In-depth assessments (interviews plus questionnaires) were conducted on 75 women who had recently left abusive relationships (50 where physical violence had occurred). The study found support for the effect of relationship dynamic factors such as extremity of intermittent maltreatment and power differentials on long-term felt attachment for a former partner, experienced trauma symptoms, and self-esteem, immediately after separation from an abusive partner and again after a six month interim. All three of these measures were significantly intercorrelated within each time period. Each measure at Time 1 correlated significantly with each corresponding measure at Time 2. After six months attachment had decreased by about 27%. Relationship variables (total abuse, intermittency of abuse and power differentials) accounted for 55% of the variance in the attachment measure at Time 2 indicating prolonged effects of abuse suffered in the relationship.

Trauma symptoms and PTSD‐like profiles in perpetrators of intimate abuse

The presence of chronic trauma symptoms and similarity to a specific profile for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were assessed in a group 132 wife assaultive men and 44 demographically matched controls. Men who committed intimate abuse experienced more chronic trauma symptoms than nonabusive controls. A composite profile on the MCMI-II for wife assaulters demonstrated peaks on 82C (negative/avoidant/borderline), as have two independent studies of the profile of men diagnosed with PTSD. However, the assaultive population had higher scores on the antisocial personality scale and lower scores on anxiety and dysthymia. This PTSD-like profile on the MCMI-II was associated significantly with more frequent anger and emotional abuse of the subjects partner. The trauma origin for these men may have been parental treatment: experiencing frequent trauma symptoms as an adult was significantly related to negative recollections of parental treatment, specifically parental coldness/rejection and physical abuse.

Antecedents of abusive personality and abusive behavior in wife assaulters

One hundred and forty men referred for wife assault and 45 demographically matched controls were assessed for psychological variables associated with abusive personality (anger, cyclical (borderline) personality organization (BPO) and chronic experience of trauma symptoms) and abusive behaviors (both physical and emotional) as reported by their female partners. Predictor variables for these abuse measures included the EMBU which assesses recollections of parental warmth and rejection and the Conflict Tactics Scale which assesses physical abuse in the family of origin. A composite of BPO, anger, trauma symptoms and fearful attachment called Abusive Personality (ABP) correlated .42 with wives reports of emotionally abusive behaviors. ABP was positively and significantly correlated with recollections of negative parental treatment by the abuse perpetrator. A compositive of parental rejection and verbal and physical abuse by parents correlated .41 with ABP. A discriminant function of high and low ABP found that ABP was predicted by paternal rejection, physical abuse, and absence of maternal warmth. Physical abuse by either parent correlated significantly with all subscales and total scores on the ABP measure. When combined with data showing ABP to correlate significantly with frequency of use of violence by wife assaulters (Dutton, 1995b, Dutton and Starzomski, 1993), the current study suggests a personality syndrome of assaultive males that has antecedents in the early experiences of these men. The present data suggest that family of origin experiences may have effects beyond modeling of abusive behaviors. These effects include development of a specific personality form associated with abusiveness.

Motivational needs for power and spouse-specific assertiveness in assaultive and nonassaultive men

Men who had assaulted their wives were compared to maritally conflicted (but nonassaultive) and satisfactorily married controls through the use of Thematic Apperception Test stories scored for the need for power. When the stimulus pictures showed ambiguous male-female relationships, the assaultive men generated higher need-for-power scores than the average of both control groups combined but did not differ from the maritally conflicted group on need for power. The assaultive men had lower spouse-specific assertiveness scores than either control group, however. A discriminant analysis based on need-for-power and assertiveness scores correctly classified the wife assaulters and maritally conflicted males 90% of the time. The resulting profile of assaultive men was of a group high in the need to exert power in relationships with women but lacking in the verbal resources to do so. It was hypothesized that this combination of a high need for power and a deficit in verbal ability to generate influence produces chronic frustration, which may increase the risk of violence when combined with other factors.

Problem Gambling and Intimate Partner Violence

This study examined the prevalence and severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) among 248 problem gamblers (43 women, 205 men) recruited from newspaper advertisements. The main outcome measures used were the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, the Conflicts Tactics Scale-2, the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2, the drug and alcohol section of the Addiction Severity Index and the substance use section of the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV. In this sample, 62.9% of participants reported perpetrating and/or being the victims of IPV in the past year, with 25.4% reporting perpetrating severe IPV. The majority of the sample (64.5%) also had clinically significant anger problems, which was associated with an increased risk of being both the perpetrator and victim of IPV. The presence of a lifetime substance use disorder among participants who had clinically significant anger problems further increased the likelihood of both IPV perpetration and victimization. These findings underscore the importance of routinely screening gambling clients for anger and IPV, and the need to develop public policy, prevention and treatment programs to address IPV among problem gamblers. Future research to examine IPV among problem gamblers is recommended.