New Directions for Research on Intimate Partner Violence and Children
Abstract
This article provides an overview to the Special Section in this issue on intimate partner violence (IPV) and children. The argument is made that the field needs to pay more attention to issues of theory, definitions, and methodology. The contributors to the Special Section each make a unique contribution to one of these topics. Their articles document that increased focus on definition and theory, methodologies involving laboratory studies, data collection at multiple time-points, person-oriented approaches, and diverse samples of children exposed to IPV will begin to increase the research sophistication of the field. We argue that the field needs comparability of definitions for the same/similar phenomena under investigation, more sophisticated, testable hypotheses, a better understanding of the short- and long-term consequences of exposure to IPV, and, finally, a more refined picture of the mechanisms by which exposure to IPV affects particular children.
The potentially debilitating effects of intimate partner violence (IPV) on children has gained increasing attention from both researchers and policymakers in North America and Europe over the last 20 years. Large numbers of children are exposed to IPV. Prevalence rates of witnessing IPV are about 10 million children/year in the US (Straus & Gelles, 1990) and are comparable across Europe based on prevalence rates of IPV generally (Kury, Obergefell-Fuchs, & Woessner, 2004). Children exposed to IPV have a higher risk of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, impaired social relationships, and academic difficulties (see Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt, & Kenny, 2003; Wolfe, Crooks, Lee, McIntyre-Smith, & Jaffe, 2003 for reviews).
The initial research on children and IPV was primarily descriptive. In recent years, research has become increasingly sophisticated. However, there remain a number of challenges for the field. The purpose of this Special Section on Children and IPV is to draw attention to innovative methodologies and research questions and to encourage further research that moves beyond the basic questions (i.e., Does IPV have negative effects on children? What are these effects?) Each of the contributors to this Special Section addresses at least one of the following important issues relevant to moving the research agenda forward: (1) theory, (2) definitions of IPV, and (3) methodology.
Theory
In recent years, researchers have called for increased attention to understanding the mechanisms by which children are negatively affected by witnessing IPV (Kitzmann et al., 2003; Prinz & Feerick, 2003). Two commonly invoked theories, trauma theory and social learning theory, are not comprehensive enough to explain the full extent of the effects of IPV on children. For example, trauma theory may only explain the effects of IPV on children who are exposed to life-threatening violence. However, IPV includes not only life-threatening violence but also other forms such as psychological abuse, mild physical abuse, and sexual abuse. In fact, most IPV is not life-threatening (Straus & Gelles, 1986, 1990). Social learning theory may explain the increase in aggressive behavior in children exposed to IPV, but does little to explain the other outcomes of exposed children, e.g., higher rates of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and lower social competence (Fantuzzo et al., 1991; Graham-Bermann & Levendosky, 1998; Hughes, 1988). The field needs broader and more sophisticated theories that account for both the myriad effects of IPV on children as well as the wide range of violence that they might witness. In this issue, two articles provide examples of how richly developed theories can provide guidance for sophisticated research examining how IPV affects children.
Fosco, DeBoard, and Grych (2007) reformulate the cognitive-contextual framework developed by Grych and Fincham (1990). The original theory explains how interparental conflict affects children's psychosocial outcomes. This theory proposes that when children witness interparental conflict they evaluate how it may affect them, why they think it is happening, and whether or not to intervene. This cognitive evaluation, which reflects the meaning of the conflict to the child, is proposed to mediate the effects of the interparental conflict on the child's adjustment. This original theory did not account for the potentially violent, and, thus, physically and psychologically harmful elements of IPV; the reformulation does. It also puts greater emphasis on children's appraisals of threat, involving fear of harm to self and loved others, as well as children's tendency to self-blame for failing to protect their mothers from physical harm. The revised theory presented in this article should be more applicable for research on children and IPV.
Also in this issue, Cummings, Kouros, and Papp (2007) test elements of the Emotional Security Theory (Davies & Cummings, 1994). Emotional security is defined as the child's felt security in the context of the interparental relationship, as compared with attachment security, which is defined as felt security in the context of the parent-child relationship. The Emotional Security Theory leads to several testable hypotheses including: (1) Exposure to IPV leads to distress in children, which then leads to behavior in the child to maintain emotional security, and (2) degree of emotional security is reflected in the child's ability to maintain emotional and behavioral regulation. Thus, this theory explains how IPV may affect children's development in the short- and long-term and provides specific, testable hypotheses about these consequences.
Definitions of IPV
In addition to a paucity of well-developed theories to explain the mechanisms by which IPV affects children, definitional issues continue to plague this field. In part this is a result of the subjective nature of IPV. Culture, gender, and family socialization are just three of many factors that influence each person's judgment about whether any particular act can or should be characterized as IPV. For example, in some families, yelling may be considered psychological abuse, while in others, yelling is considered by both adult partners to be normal behavior in response to anger.
Another definitional issue that the field must address is identifying the perpetrator(s) of the violence to which the child has been exposed. For the most part, prior research has focused on male-to-female violence, however, according to epidemiological studies of IPV by Straus and Gelles (1986, 1990) at least half of the violence perpetrated is from females to males. However, it is important to note that these studies did not take into account the motivation for the violence (e.g., self-defence) nor the physical harm perpetrated by the violence (in general, men inflict more serious harm to women than women do to men [Saunders, 2002]). The Baldry (2007) article in this Special Section assesses mother-to-father violence as well as father-to-mother violence. She found that mother-to-father violence, but not father-to-mother violence, accounted for variance in the children's aggressive behavior when the effects of child abuse were also considered.
Finally, Knickerbocker, Heyman, Slep, Jouriles, and McDonald's (2007) article in this Special Section discusses how definitions and prevalence rates of IPV and child maltreatment vary depending upon reporter, assessment method (e.g., survey or interview), and sample. For example, these authors note that child and parent reports of IPV and maltreatment yield much higher prevalence rates than official records. The differences in definitions across studies make comparisons nearly impossible. Consistent and easily operationalized definitions would lead to increased clarity in understanding the extent of IPV and child maltreatment and their co-occurrence as well as under what conditions each is likely to occur or co-occur.
These authors also emphasize the importance of assessing both IPV and child abuse in any sample. They argue for building theories that can explain the occurrence of either or both, as well as conducting assessment and interventions that take the likelihood of co-occurrence into account. In this Special Section, the Baldry (2007) and Matud (2007) studies assess for both IPV and child maltreatment and find that exposure to both is associated with more problems in the children than is exposure to either one separately. In fact, Baldry finds that child abuse has an effect over and above IPV on children's externalizing behaviors.
Methodology
Cross-Sectional vs. Longitudinal Studies
Stronger methodologies to test theoretically-driven hypotheses are needed. For example, the research designs of most extant studies have been cross-sectional. This is the result, at least in part, of the difficulty of tracking families engaged in IPV. These families often come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., Wolfner & Gelles, 1993), with the consequence that they often live transient, fairly chaotic lives. They move frequently, including in and out of shelters. However, the lack of longitudinal research has added to the difficulty of testing theories about the mechanisms of how IPV affects children. The few longitudinal studies in this area have been quite fruitful, suggesting that there are both short- and long-term negative effects of childhood exposure to IPV, and that problems present at one period of life may not be present at another (Litrownik, Newton, Hunter, English, & Everson, 2003; McCloskey & Lichter, 2003; Moffitt, 1993; Wolfe, et al., 2003).
The present authors began studying a group of women who experienced IPV during pregnancy (and a group who did not). We have followed them and their children yearly since the birth of the child; the children are now age 7. This longitudinal data set has allowed us to test a number of hypotheses, including some informed by attachment theory. For example, we have examined internal caregiving representations (i.e., cognitive schemas) in the mothers (both during pregnancy and when the children were age 1) and children's attachment strategies at ages 1 and 4. We found that maternal caregiving representations (both prenatal and postnatal) are influenced by IPV and are related to later parenting behaviors as well as child attachment strategies (Dayton, Levendosky, Bogat, & Davidson, 2006; Huth-Bocks, Levendosky, Bogat, & von Eye, 2004; Theran, Levendosky, Bogat, & Huth-Bocks, 2005). These findings suggest that IPV may affect children first by influencing the mother's internal representations of their children, which then serve as guides for parenting behaviors. Thus, prenatal IPV experiences may have negative influences on children, whether or not children are ever exposed, postnatally, to IPV.
In this Special Section, the article by Cummings and colleagues (2007) uses data collected at two time periods, one year apart, to examine the effects of past marital aggression on children's responses to their parents' conflicts. The study tests elements of Emotional Security Theory, as discussed above. In addition to the multiple time-period design, this study has another methodological strength - invivo exposure of the children to their parents' conflict. After they observe their parents' engaging in a verbal conflict, the children respond to questions about their their own cognitions and emotions in response to watching their parents argue. The methodology of this study provides validation for some of the assumptions of the Emotional Security Theory.
Samples
Most extant research on children and IPV focuses on low-income, shelter, or community samples. These participants are primarily Caucasian and from North America. As stated earlier, cultural and family socialization factors may influence perceptions, and thus consequences, of IPV. Thus, it is not clear whether the findings from these studies would generalize to other samples and populations.
In the Special Section, we have included three papers that examine IPV in non-Caucasian or non-North American samples. The paper by Matud (2007) is a descriptive study of the effects of IPV on children in the Canary Islands. She found lower rates of mental health problems (about one-third of her sample) than is typically seen in U.S. samples (about two-thirds; e.g., Grych, Jouriles, Swank, McDonald, & Norwood, 2000). However, her sample was heterogeneous with regard to age and this may explain the lower rate of overall problems. She found, in fact, that younger children were less likely to have mental health problems.
Baldry (2007) examines the externalizing and delinquent behaviors of a sample of preadolescents from Italy who witnessed IPV and/or were abused by their parents. She found significant effects for both IPV and child abuse. One interesting aspect of her design is that she separated the variables of IPV and child abuse by gender of perpetrator and found that it was mother-to-father violence that had the most impact on children's behavior. It is not known whether cultural differences in the roles of mothers and fathers might lead to different findings if the study was replicated in other countries. Finally, the paper by Hughes and Huth-Bocks (2007) addresses parenting stress in African-American battered women. Extant studies of parenting and IPV in the United States typically assess Caucasians. Given that a prior study (Hughes, Graham-Bermann, & Huber, 2001) found that resilience in African-American children, but not Caucasian American children, was associated with lower parenting stress, it is important to examine mediating factors that may be different in cultural/ethnic or racial groups within particular countries.
Finally, Beeble, Bybee, and Sullivan's (2007) study of abusive men's tactics is unusual; researchers typically assess only the specific acts of violence perpetrated, not the manner in which they are enacted. The findings from the authors' research suggest a particular vulnerability for mothers in abusive relationships, whether or not the relationship with the abusive partner has ended. This may have important implications for children even after they are no longer living in a family with IPV.
Person-Oriented vs. Variable-Oriented Approaches
Finally, current research on children and IPV typically takes a variable-centered approach. The variable-centered approach aggregates information across individuals and then generalizes the findings to populations. In contrast, a person-centered approach assumes both the uniqueness of individuals and that patterns of individual behavior are predictable (see Bogat, Levendosky, & von Eye, 2005 for further description). Two important assumptions of the person-centered approach are that (1) any population contains more than one group of individuals and that (2) these groups can be identified using statistical techniques (e.g., cluster analysis) with a theoretical rationale for these groupings (von Eye & Bogat, in press). Two articles in this Special Issue use person-centered approaches to data analysis. Beeble and colleagues (2007) examine the mother's report of the abusive partner's use of the children as a control tactic. The authors made separate groupings of the abusive men based on their relationship to child (biological father, step-father, non-father, etc.), relationship status with the partner (current partner or ex-partner), and court-ordered visitation status. The authors found that the characteristics of the abusers differentiated how the women perceived their behavior. For example, women were more likely to perceive men using their children as a control tactic when the activity was engaged in by the ex-partner compared to the current partner.
The Hughes and Huth-Bocks (2007) article distinguished six meaningfully different clusters of battered women, who varied on three aspects of parenting stress. Their findings clearly demonstrate that there is much interindividual variation in the way that mothers respond to the stresses of similar levels of IPV. In addition, children's functioning was differentially affected by mothers' specific responses to IPV. This study is a good example of the rich information that a person-oriented approach to data analysis yields; such information would be lost in a variable-oriented approach.
Conclusions
The articles in this Special Section highlight some of the important and challenging issues in the field today. The goal of this Special Section is to focus other researchers in this field on theory-building and testing and the development of more consistent definitions and stronger methodology, including person-oriented approaches. We hope this Special Section will inspire researchers to undertake more sophisticated research designs and theory-driven hypotheses in their future work.
Finally we would like to thank the outside reviewers who read and provided insightful and helpful suggestions to the authors, and we would like to thank the authors themselves. We applaud your hard work in developing and writing these important articles.
Alytia A. Levendosky received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in 1995. She is currently Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at Michigan State University. Her research interests include domestic violence, child abuse, trauma, and attachment theory.
G. Anne Bogat is a clinical psychologist who received her Ph.D. from DePaul University in 1982. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. Her research interests include family violence, youth mentoring, and person-oriented methodologies.
Alexander von Eye received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Trier, Germany, in 1976. He has held positions at the University of Trier, the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, all Germany, at Penn State and is currently at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the development and application of statistical methods, including methods for the analysis of categorical data, longitudinal data, classification, computational statistics, and structural equation modeling.
References
Baldry, A.C. (2007). “It does affect me”: Disruptive behaviors in preadolescents directly and indirectly abused at home. European Psychologist, 12, 29– 35Beeble, M.L. , Bybee, D. , Sullivan, C.M. (2007). Abusive men's use of children to control their partners and ex-partners. European Psychologist, 12, 54– 61Bogat, G.A. , Levendosky, A.A. , von Eye, A. (2005). The future of research on intimate partner violence: Person-oriented and variable-oriented perspectives. American Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 49– 70Cummings, E.M. , Kouros, C.D. , Papp, L.M. (2007). Marital aggression and children's responses to everyday interparental conflict. European Psychologist, 12, 17– 28Davies, P.T. , Cummings, E.M. (1994). Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 387– 411Dayton, C.A. , Levendosky, A.A. , Bogat, G.A. , Davidson, W.S. (2006). The impact of domestic violence and prenatal parenting representations on parenting behavior . Unpublished manuscript, Michigan State UniversityFantuzzo, J.W. , DePaola, L.M. , Lambert, L. , Martino, T. , Anderson, G. , Sutton, S. (1991). Effects of interparental violence on the psychological adjustment and competencies of young children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59, 258– 265Fosco, G.M. , DeBoard, R.L. , Grych, J.H. (2007). Making sense of family violence: Implications of children's appraisals of interparental aggression for their short- and long-term functioning. European Psychologist, 12, 6– 16Graham-Bermann, S.A. , Levendosky, A.A. (1998). The social functioning of preschool-age children whose mothers are emotionally and physically abused. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 1, 59– 84Grych, J.H. , Fincham, F.D. (1990). Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 267– 290Grych, J.H. , Jouriles, E.N. , Swank, P.R. , McDonald, R. , Norwood, W.D. (2000). Patterns of adjustment among children of battered women. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 84– 94Hughes, H.M. (1988). Psychological and behavioral correlates of family violence in child witnesses and victims. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 58, 77– 90Hughes, H.M. , Graham-Bermann, S.A. , Gruber, G. (2001). Resilience in children exposed to domestic violence. In S.A. Graham-Bermann & J.L. Edleson (Eds.), Domestic violence in the lives of children (pp. 67-90). Washington, DC: APAHughes, H.M. , Huth-Bocks, A.C. (2007). Variations in parenting stress in African-American battered women: Implications for children's adjustment and family intervention. European Psychologist, 12, 62– 71Huth-Bocks, A.C. , Levendosky, A.A. , Bogat, G.A. , von Eye, A. (2004). Infant-mother attachment: The impact of prenatal maternal representations and social support in a high risk sample. Child Development, 75, 480– 496Kitzmann, K.M. , Gaylord, N.K. , Holt, A.R. , Kenny, E.D. (2003). Child witnesses to domestic violence: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71, 339– 352Knickerbocker, L. , Heyman, R.E. , Smith Slep, A.M. , Jouriles, E.N. , McDonald, R. (2007). Co-occurrence of child and partner maltreatment: Definitions, prevalence, theory, and implications for assessment. European Psychologist, 12, 36– 44Kury, H. , Obergefell-Fuchs, J. , Woessner, G. (2004). The extent of family violence in Europe: Comparison of national surveys. Violence Against Women, 10, 749– 769Litrownik, A.J. , Newton, R. , Hunter, W.M. , English, D. , Everson, M.D. (2003). Exposure to family violence in young at-risk children: A longitudinal look at the effects of victimization and witnessed physical and psychological aggression. Journal of Family Violence, 18, 59– 73Matud, P. (2007). Domestic abuse and children's health in the Canary Islands, Spain. European Psychologist, 12, 45– 53McCloskey, L.A. , Lichter, E.L. (2003). The contribution of marital violence to adolescent aggression across different relationships. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 18, 390– 412Moffitt, T.E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review, 100, 674– 701Prinz, R.J. , Feerick, M.M. (2003). Next steps in research on children exposed to domestic violence. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 6, 215– 219Saunders, D.G. (2002). Are physical assaults by wives and girlfriends a major social problem? A review of the literature. Violence Against Women, 8, 1424– 1448Straus, M.A. , Gelles, R.J. (1986). Societal change and change in family violence from 1975 to 1985 as revealed by two national surveys. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 465– 479Straus, M.A. , Gelles, R.J. Eds. (1990). Physical violence in American families - risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8145 families . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction BooksTheran, S.A. , Levendosky, A.A. , Bogat, G.A. , Huth-Bocks, A.C. (2005). Stability and change in mothers' internal representations of their infants over time. Attachment and Human Development, 7, 253– 268von Eye, A. , Bogat, G.A. (in press). Person-oriented and variable-oriented research. Concepts, results, and development. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly,Wolfe, D.A. , Crooks, C.V. , Lee, V. , McIntyre-Smith, A. , Jaffe, P. (2003). The effects of children's exposure to domestic violence: A meta-analysis and critique. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 6, 171– 187Wolfner, G.D. , Gelles, R.J. (1993). A profile of violence toward children: A national study. Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal, 17, 197– 212
