Examining Situational Effects on Dating Violence in U.S. College Students

Background/Purpose: Dating violence among college students is a growing social health concern affecting young adults’ mental and physical health. Riggs and O’Leary developed the “background-situational” model (1989) to understand the causes of dating violence. They proposed that variables causally related to courtship aggression could be separated into background factors (e.g., interparental aggression and child abuse) that establish an individual’s aggressive pattern of behavior, and situational factors (e.g., drinking and relationship problems), which increase conflict within a relationship and contribute to specific aggressive incidents. Recently researchers have pointed out that situational factors have received less attention than background variables although situational risk factors are significantly useful in identifying when violence is likely to occur. Additionally, such violent situations, which particularly occur among college students, might closely be associated with their cognitive and behavioral development. Thus, aggressive behaviors toward dating partners among college students should be understood in situational factors including relational and developmental contexts.

Based on Riggs and O’Leary’s (1989) model and Arnett’s emerging adulthood theory (2000), this study aims to address these gaps by examining how situational factors including relational and developmental contexts play a role in dating violence among college students when background factors are controlled.

Methods: This study utilized data from 4,533 U.S. college students in the IDVS (International Dating Violence Study). The data were collected in 2006 using a purposive sampling method. After excluding the cases with missing values, 4,162 students were selected for our analysis. As a dependent variable, twelve items from the revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) were used to assess for self-report of dating violence perpetration. Independent variables included situational variables including relational and developmental contexts (relationship distress, communication problems, substance abuse, length of time dating, and cohabitation status). Background variables (exposure to violence and approval of violence) were included as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regression was employed using Stata 13.0.

Results: We found that 46.2% of the students sampled in this study admitted to perpetrating violence against their current dating partner (i.e. physical, psychological, and sexual violence). Regression results showed that the variance of situational factors (relationship commitment, relationship distress, communication problems, substance abuse, length of time dating, and cohabitation status) is relatively higher than background variables (exposure to violence and approval of violence) (22.7% vs.11.3%). Also, several factors emerged as significant predictors of dating violence. Students who are having relationship distress, communication problem, alcohol abuse, and cohabiting with their partner were more likely to perpetrate dating violence toward their current partner. However, the likelihood of violent behavior significantly decreased when they are living with parents.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings have larger implications for dating violence interventions in school and communities. The results of this study suggest the importance of situational dynamic in understanding students’ dating violence. Our findings suggest that practitioners who are designing programs to prevent dating violence perpetration should target multiple factors, and address both situational risk factors and background ones. Implications for Riggs and O’Leary model (1989) and Arnett’s emerging adulthood theory, and dating violence prevention are discussed.