Comparison of Interaction Patterns of Couples Experiencing Intimate Violence with Other Couples

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine differences between couples with a known history of intimate violence and other types of couples as they engage in a conflict conversation. Primary attention is given to the ways in which they influence each other, modulate interactions, and the partners' underlying capacity for self regulation and arousal.

Methods: This study uses a data set from a previously published work (Jacobsen, N and Gottman, JM When Men Batter Women: New Insights Into Ending Abusive Relationships, Simon & Schuster, 1998). The sample consists of 137 couples videotaped during a conflict conversation. 60 were classified as DV. The present study applies a dynamic systems mathematical model developed to study dyadic interaction (Murray-Gottman Mathematical Model of Marriage) to each couple, then compares DV couples to other couples using traditional statistical analysis on parameters generated by applying the model. How the couples move through time together from a starting to an ending set-point in phase space is considered. Groups are compared on measures of self-regulatory capacity (vagal tone) and arousal (heart rate) during the conversations.

Results: DV couples both begin and end up at “more negative” set points than other groups. The most robust finding for differences between DV and other groups was “where do they start?” DV couples had the highest percentage (40%) of missing positive slopes (which maps positive influence of one partner on the other). Those DV cases for which a positive slope exists have steeper slopes (suggesting more intense reactivity to each other), which lead DV couples engage in a down regulation course correction (called Damping) at higher levels of positivity than other groups. Heart rate (as a measure of arousal) and vagal tone (as a measure of self regulation) was sampled at several points in the interaction of each couple. Vagal tone is expected (Cozolino, 2006) to be lower for abusive men. Results of this study reveal that DV men were not deficient in vagal tone, suggesting that self regulatory capacity was present but used in the service of motivation of domination.

Implications: While the research design of applying the Math Model to couples, and then comparing groups has been fruitful in two other studies (comparison of heterosexual and homosexual couples; and comparison of couples who divorce with others), in the present study, there is a paucity of significant differences that were expected between DV and other groups. One possible reason for this is that the DV group is more heterogeneous than anticipated due to the way the cases were chosen and categorized, and that sub-groups of DV couples who have divergent (or bi-modal) patterns essentially cancel each other out and obscure differences that may be revealed if typologies for samples of DV couples considered such variables as Attachment Style and Function of Violence. Clinically, the results suggest that more attention needs to be given to helping DV couples create a platform of positivity in their relationships in addition to the attention currently given to conflict resolution, anger management, etc.