ABSTRACT
Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are frequently blamed and disbelieved, which may affect their willingness to report their abuse experiences. This vignette-based online experiment examines whether victim attractiveness (attractive vs. unattractive) and the type of abuse suffered (psychological vs. psychological plus physical abuse) may impact attributions of victim blame or victim credibility. The final sample included 167 UK residents (79% females) aged between 18 and 66 years (M = 33.17, SD = 11.26). Results indicated that the attractive victim was judged as being more credible than the unattractive victim. Results are discussed in light of societal attitudes toward IPV.
ABSTRACT
Person-centered approaches, such as latent class analysis (LCA) and latent profile analysis (LPA), aid the identification of subgroups within sample populations. These methods can identify the patterns of co-occurrence between different forms of intimate partner violence (IPV), providing valuable information for prevention and intervention efforts. The aim of this systematic review was to yield a summary and conduct a critical evaluation of the current research that utilizes LCA/LPA to investigate IPV victimization profiles. We provide an outline of 14 relevant studies, retrieved from searches conducted on PsycInfo, Scopus, and Eric databases. There was a large amount of variability in relation to the forms of IPV assessed, measures utilized, number of classes identified, and the sample populations recruited. However, broad similarities were revealed as there were some commonly identified classes, including the no/low violence class, the physical and psychological victimization class, and the multiple victimization class, yet the labels assigned to those classes differed across studies. A range of external criteria (risk factors and consequences) were also identified as being associated with class membership. We highlight the methodological features which may have impacted data collection and class enumeration, including the differences in sample population, the range of IPV indicators assessed, the time period from which IPV data were recorded, and whether data were collected regarding participants' current or previous relationships. Marginalized populations were underrepresented, and psychological abuse was most inconsistently operationalized. Recommendations for future research are provided, including recommendations with regard to labeling the classes for greater consistency across studies.
