Intimate Partner Violence

Teen Dating Violence and Adult Intimate Partner Violence as Forms of Bullying

While Teen Dating Violence (TDV) and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) are closely aligned, we have opted to first discuss them separately because TDV is a specific form of IPV that occurs when the victim is under the age of 18 and IPV generally refers to adults. In both TDV and IPV, the abuser often starts out sweet and charming by doling out compliments and giving their significant other small gifts, like a thoughtful note. This behavior lulls the victim into a false sense of security, strengthening the bond and attachment between the victim and perpetrator, often manipulating the victim to fall “in love.” Gradually, this loving behavior is replaced with toxicity, which often begins as verbal abuse, escalating into physical and/or sexual abuse that increases in severity over time.

Teen Dating Violence (TDV)

Most broadly, Teen Dating Violence (TDV) is defined as “…a pattern of abusive behavior used to control another person” that involves coercion and power assertion. Physical TDV involves one partner being physically abused (e.g., pinched, hit, shoved, slapped, punched, kicked) by the other partner, psychological/emotional TDV involves one partner being threatened by the other partner through name calling, shaming, humiliation, or isolation, sexual TDV occurs when one partner forces the other partner to engage in a sexual act without consent; and stalking TDV refers to one partner using repeated harassment or threats aimed to scare the other partner. These forms of violence can occur both in person and/or electronically, such as one partner repeatedly texting or posting sexual pictures of his/her partner online or threating to post such pictures (CDC, 2016).

The 2015 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBSS) found that in a national sample of 15,624 high school students, about 1 in 5 adolescents are victims of physical or sexual dating violence. Female victims were more likely to report the abuse than males. Prevalence rates of physical TDV increased throughout high school from 8.1% in ninth grade to 10.5% in twelfth grade, while prevalence rates of sexual dating violence fluctuated over the four years of high school, from 10.8% in ninth grade, 11.8% in tenth grade, 10.3% in eleventh grade, and 9.2% in twelfth grade.

The media typically highlights cases where females are the victims of TDV and males are the perpetrators, however, this is not accurate. In fact, one meta-analysis found that in general, females engaged in slightly higher rates of more minor physical aggression (i.e., throw something, slap, kick, bite, punch, hit with an object) towards their heterosexual partners compared to males, while males engaged in higher rates of more serious violence (i.e., beat up, choke, strangle).

Despite the fact that TDV perpetration might be fairly equal between males and females it is important to highlight that: 1) Adolescent female aggression often stems from self-defense, while male aggression stems from the desire for power and control; 2) adolescent males often engage in more serious forms of violence compared to adolescent females; and 3) compared to adolescent males, females reported greater injury, fear, and psychological consequences as a result of TDV victimization.

Being victimized in an adolescent relationship might prime youth to think that relationships are based on power and control and that abusive behavior is a normal part of intimate relationships. The depression and self-esteem difficulties that result from the past abuse may also guide future expectations of intimate relationships, creating a self-propagating cycle requiring therapeutic intervention.

In general, risk factors for TDV involvement span multiple ecological levels including individual, family, peer, and community levels. A myriad of individual factors put youth at increased risk for engagement in TDV and low socioeconomic status is one of the most prominent risk factors for both TDV victimization and perpetration. Other individual factors associated with an increased risk for TDV involvement are mental-health problems such as low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, externalizing behavior, suicidality as well as difficulty taking responsibility for one’s actions. In addition, family factors, such as childhood maltreatment was associated with increased risk for verbal, physical, and sexual dating violence perpetration and victimization; maltreated males and those who have witnessed parental conflict are at a particular increased risk for TDV perpetration.

A number of studies have confirmed the multiple negative outcomes caused by and associated with TDV including increased substance use, poor mental health, poor grades, decreased close social relationships, increased antisocial behavior, and an increased risk for future intimate partner victimization (e.g., Exner-Cortens, Eckenrode, & Rothman; Foshee, Reyes, Gottfredson, Chang, & Ennett, 2013; Roberts, Klein, & Fisher, 2003).

The dynamics delineated in the discussion above clearly show that TDV has the bullying components of

• Intent to harm
• repetition over time
• power imbalance

Adolescent romantic love may be augmented by the novelty of physical and psychological intimacy, leading to high levels of personal disclosure and shared vulnerability. Cultural messages in films, books, and music commonly depict romance as powerful, dramatic, turbulent, stormy, and rough. Sexuality and conflict are both narrated as intensely emotional and necessary for true romance.

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) refers to physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, or psychological aggression (e.g., coercive acts) by a current or former intimate partner (i.e., spouse, boy/girlfriend, dating partner, ongoing sexual partner). Physical violence includes the intentional use of physical force (e.g., pushing, shoving, choking, punching, use of weapon) to cause harm. Sexual violence is any sexual act committed without the consent of the victim such as forced penetration, alcohol/drug facilitated penetration, or sexual touching. Stalking is a repeated pattern of unwanted attention that engenders fear for one’s safety or the safety of someone else (e.g., family, friend). Finally, psychological aggression is the use of verbal and non-verbal communication to emotionally or mentally harm another person and/or control another person (e.g., humiliating; name calling; limiting access to money, friends, or family; monitoring persons whereabouts; threating violence).

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) is a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of the U.S. population over age 18. The most recent NISVS was completed in 2011 and included 12,727 full interviews and 1,428 partial interviews. The findings from the study are illustrated below:

IPV is associated with an increased risk of negative health outcomes impacting the brain and nervous system (e.g., headaches, seizures, traumatic brain injury), cardiovascular system (e.g., stroke, hypertension, cardiovascular disease), gastrointestinal system (e.g., stomach ulcers, gastric reflux, diarrhea), genitourinary system (e.g., bladder/kidney infections), immune and endocrine system (e.g., chronic pain, inflammation, diabetes), musculoskeletal system (e.g., broken bones, arthritis, functional impairment), and reproductive system (e.g., poor sexual health, chronic pelvic pain). In addition, victims of IPV are at an increased risk for somatic symptoms (e.g., chronic fatigue, chronic pain, fibromyalgia), poor pregnancy outcomes (e.g., neonatal death, preterm delivery, abortion), poor mental health outcomes (e.g., depression, suicidality, posttraumatic stress disorder), health risk behaviors (e.g., heavy drinking, smoking, lack of medical care), and overall poor health (e.g., chronic health conditions, asthma, poor physical health; See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018 for a review).

Both men and women victimized by IPV are almost 1.5 to 2 times more likely to smoke and/or engage in heavy/binge drinking compared to their counterparts not victimized by IPV (Breiding, Black, & Ryan, 2008). And women victimized by IPV are more likely to engage in other risky behaviors compared to women not victimized by IPV (e.g., substance abuse, suicide attempts, alcoholism, unprotected sex; Centers for Disease Control, 2018).

Similar to the risk factors for TDV, risk factors for IPV span multiple ecological levels including the individual (e.g., prior aggression, age, substance use, poverty, unemployment), family (e.g., witnessed parental IPV, childhood abuse), and social relationships (e.g., social support). The strongest risk factor for both IPV perpetrators and victims was a record of aggressive delinquency prior to age 15.

There are also family level risk factors for IPV including witnessing IPV between parents and being the victim of child abuse. Both witnessing abuse and being abused increased the risk for IPV perpetration and victimization. The more that TDV and IPV are repeated, the harder it is for victims to extricate themselves from the harmful relationship, continuing the cycle of abuse.

Further, youth victimized by traditional school-based bullying were more likely to have experienced physical and emotional dating violence than their non-bullied peers. This finding suggests that the repeated nature of school-based bullying might turn some youth into chronic victims who are bullied repeatedly at school and then are victimized repeatedly by dating partners. They may have a deeply ingrained role being the victim that recreates itself in different social situations.

Power imbalance is central to both TDV and IPV. In some cases, the power differential might not appear until the violence begins when the perpetrator immediately gains power over the victim through use of violence or coercion. However, in other cases, one partner in the relationship might already have more power due to gender (e.g., males often have more social power than females), income (e.g., one partner might have more financial resources than the other), race (e.g., people of color often suffer from racism and discrimination that white people do not endure), or physical size (i.e., one partner might be physically larger and stronger). Power comes from the ability to hurt one’s partner. Physical intimidation, social humiliation in person or online, or damaging the former partner’s reputation are all viable strategies to seek revenge, feel empowered, and cover up one’s feelings of sensitivity and rejection. The intent to harm and power imbalance are super charged in TDV because the couple knows each other intimately. In addition, the repeated violence creates a power differential that leaves victims feeling helpless and unable to leave because of hope the intimacy will return.

Practitioners working with victims of TDV and IPV should focus on empowering victims in order to decrease the power imbalance, changing cognitive narratives concerning victimization so they do not keep propagating, and providing hope that human relations do not have to consistently be characterized by bullying.