Victimization and Perpetration between Heterosexual Dating Partners: Moderator Effects of Gender on a Causal Model Including Community Cohesiveness, Adverse Childhood Experience, and Mental Health Factors

Background: Despite abundant studies that report the majority of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is perpetrated by men against women, other empirical studies suggest that women in heterosexual relationships are just as abusive as men. Gender symmetry argues the comparable numbers of men and women perpetrate and are victimized in their relationships with intimate partners. However, many studies often simply count frequencies/rates of violent acts without considering such crucial factors as mental health, childhood experience, and community support. This study aims to investigate whether gender moderates victimization/perpetration of IPV in relation to such variables as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), Childhood Community Cohesiveness (CCC), Present Community Cohesiveness (PCC), and mental health.

Methods: Data were collected by an online survey from undergraduate students (N = 4,348) from 4 Universities in the US and Canada from March to December 2016. The study sample includes 1,313 female (Mean = 20.5, SD = 2.8, Min = 17, Max = 52) and 475 male students (Mean = 21.4, SD = 3.6, Min = 18, Max = 64) who have had any intimate partner relationship in their lifetime longer than a month. The exogenous latent variables are CCC and PCC and the endogenous observed variables include ACE, Victimization, Perpetration, and Depression. T-tests were used to identify whether the collected data hold “gender symmetry” pattern. Structural Equation Modeling was used to probe moderating effects of gender on the relationships among CCC, PCC, ACE, Victimization, and Perpetration. Bootstrapping was used due to non-normal sample distribution. SPSS-24 and AMOS-24 were used.

Results: The independent sample t-tests show female students (Mean = 17.4, SD = 0.20, n = 1,313) are more victimized than male students (Mean = 15.67, SD = 0.24, n = 475), t = 5.4, df = 1155.9, p = .000. However, females (Mean = 13.84, SD = 0.09, n = 1,313) also more perpetrate than males (Mean = 13.5, SD = 0.12, n = 1,313), t = 2.1, df = 1045.8, p = .015. In SEM, all of the regression weights for the proposed model with victimization (CCC to ACE, ACE to Victimization, CCC to Victimization, PCC to Depression, Victimization to Depression, ACE to Depression) were statistically significant, except for “PCC to Victimization” (Estimate = .014, CR = .044, p = .965). The model with Perpetration also showed the similar results as Victimization, except for insignificant regression weights between Perpetration and Depression (Estimate = .112, CR = .694, p = .488). Between default model and constraint models, all the estimates of the coefficients (-difference) were less than _.05(1) = 3.84. Therefore, moderating effects of gender on the proposed model were not statistically significant.

Implications: Gender symmetry was supported. Findings highlight the importance of studying moderating effects of gender on victimization and perpetration of IPV not only within dating relationship context but also in a broader context, including past/present neighborhood cohesiveness, adverse childhood experience, and mental health issues. Other factors, including socio-economic factors, culture/sexism, types/nature of violence (controlling vs non-controlling), should be included in future studies.