The intergenerational transmission of domestic violence: the role that gender plays in attribution and consequent intimate partner violence

Abstract

The intergenerational transmission of domestic violence has received significant research attention. In this study, a sample of 194 couples in Beijing was tested on the transmission mechanism. Thus, we asked: does marital attribution play a mediated role in the transmission from family-of-origin violence to subsequent intimate partner violence? We used three questionnaires: family-of-origin violence, Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2), and Marital Attitude Survey (MAS). Results showed that: (1) in family-of-origin violence, incidence of parent-to-child violence is much higher than inter-parental violence, in which incidence of father-to-mother violence is much higher than mother-to-father violence. (2) Family-of-origin violence has an impact on intimate partner violence (IPV); however, mothers’ perpetration of violence is more likely to have stronger effects. (3) Husbands’ attributions of malicious intent to spouse, and wives’ attributions of causality to spouse’s behavior can mediate parent-to-self violence and IPV. However, other types of dysfunctional marital attributions are not mediators in the relations between family-of-origin violence and IPV.

Keywords:

• intimate partner violence
• intergenerational transmission
• marital attributions

Acknowledgments

We thank Yamikani Ndasauka for correcting the English.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from Anhui Provincial Key Science Foundation for Outstanding Young Talent [grant number 2013SQRW007ZD], Academic and Technology Leaders Introduction project of Anhui University [grant number 023032030063], Social Science Planned Project of Anhui Province [grant number AHSKQ2014D30], and Open Key Laboratory Project of Brain function and Brain Diseases in Chinese Academy of Sciences (2014–2015).