Community Context and Men's Control-Seeking in Intimate Relationships.

This study explores social-ecological influences on men's control-seeking in intimate relationships with women. Desire for control is central to the battered women's movement and is incorporated into intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention work. Recent IPV scholarship re-focuses on control, but the role of community contexts is underdeveloped. Community contexts have been associated with men's risk for IPV and evidence supports that social ecology facilitates IPV against women. Given the importance of the social ecology to control in IPV, this study examines community contexts that influence men's control-seeking of women partners. The sample comprised 2,342 in-state, male undergraduate students who completed a cross-sectional survey at a public university. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear modeling. Results support a connection between county contexts and men's control-seeking toward women partners. Implications for IPV research and practice are discussed.

Linking community protective factors to intimate partner violence perpetration.

This study explores how community factors moderate men's individual risk for physical and psychological intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration. The sample of 604 male first-semester undergraduate students supports a connection between county-level protective and risk factors, an individual risk factor, and IPV perpetration. For each unit increase in the proportion of women in powerful positions within a county, there was a 71% decrease in the risk that control-seeking respondents would perpetrate physical IPV, controlling for other factors including population density and violent crime. This article presents a multilevel analysis using hierarchical generalized linear modeling and discusses practice and research implications.

Motivational attributions about intimate partner violence among male and female perpetrators.

Given the widely acknowledged negative impact and pervasiveness of intimate partner violence (IPV), many have sought to discover why people perpetrate IPV. To this end, IPV risk factors have been extensively studied and attributions have recently received more attention. Evidence suggests males and females have similar attributions and both engage in IPV. Yet, IPV tactics and attribution rates appear to differ by perpetrator sex. This study explores whether males and females tend to attribute different reasons to their IPV, and whether these attributions help to distinguish among physical and psychological IPV tactics. The study tests three hypotheses: that IPV tactics and attributions will differ between females and males, that females and males will have similar latent constructs associated with types of attributions made about IPV, and that males and females will have different relationships among attribution factors and IPV tactics. This study is based on a cross-sectional survey of 5,035 18- to 25-year-old undergraduate university students in the Southeastern United States. Analyses used SPSS 20 to conduct basic and bivariate analyses, multiway frequency analysis, reliability analysis, and logistic regression, and MPlus 6.12 to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, the results provide support for the three study hypotheses, although there was inconsistency in findings for the second hypothesis. The results suggest important practice and research implications, which are discussed. The study fills a gap in the limited literature on IPV perpetrator motivational attributions by presenting a nuanced analysis of an early measure of IPV attributions.

Centrality of control-seeking in men's intimate partner violence perpetration.

Two million women and one million men experience rape, stalking, or physical assault by a current or former romantic partner each year in the U.S. Not only do women report twice the incidents, but intimate partner violence (IPV) that women experience is typically more severe. Explanations for IPV gender asymmetry include male dominance attitudes, hostile sexism, and men's control-seeking. There are gaps in our knowledge of how attitudes and control-seeking co-relate to influence IPV. This study demonstrates a mediation analysis to investigate these relationships. Data were from a cross-sectional online survey of male undergraduate students from a public Southeastern university. The survey measured attitudes of male dominance and hostile sexism, desire for control, and IPV perpetration. After including age and academic level in the model, male dominance remained a significant predictor of likelihood of physical IPV (OR = 1.16, p = .004) but not psychological IPV. The addition of control-seeking (physical OR = 1.65, p < .001) mediated the influence of male dominance on the likelihood of physical IPV perpetration (OR = 1.018, p = .753). Hostile sexism was a significant predictor of psychological and physical IPV (psychological IPV OR = 1.31, p < .001; physical IPV OR = 1.54, p < .001), over and above age and academic level. The addition of control-seeking (psychological IPV OR = 1.27, p < .001; physical OR = 1.53, p < .001) partially mediated the influence of hostile sexism on IPV (psychological IPV OR = 1.21, p = .001; physical OR = 1.34, p < .001). Results suggest control-seeking mediates the relationship between male dominance and physical IPV and partially mediates the relationship between hostile sexism and IPV. Practical implications for IPV prevention programs and theoretical implications are discussed.