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Family of Origin and Peer Influences on Intimate Partner Violence during Emerging Adulthood

Violence and Crime in the Family: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences

ISBN: 978-1-78560-263-4, eISBN: 978-1-78560-262-7

Publication date: 3 September 2015

Abstract

Purpose

Prior researchers have documented significant effects of family violence on adult children’s own risk for intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet, few studies have examined whether exposure to family violence while growing up as well as emerging adults’ reports of their current peers’ behaviors and attitudes influenced self-reports of intimate partner violence perpetration. The current study based on interviews with a large, heterogeneous sample of men and women assessed the degree to which current peers’ attitudes and behaviors contributed to risk of intimate partner violence perpetration, net of family violence.

Methodology/approach

Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) (n = 928), we examined associations between family violence indicators, peers’ behaviors and attitudes, and self-reports of intimate violence perpetration among adults ages 22–29. We used ordinary least squares regression and controlled for other known correlates of IPV.

Findings

For men and women, we found a significant relationship between witnessing parental violence during adolescence and IPV perpetration in emerging adulthood, and a positive relationship between current peers’ IPV experiences and attitudes and respondents’ perpetration. We also found that for respondents who reported higher, compared with lower, peer involvement in partner violence, the effects of parental violence were stronger.

Originality/value

We provided a more comprehensive assessment of peers’ IPV to this body of research, which tends to focus on family violence. Studies have examined peers’ attitudes and behavior during adolescence, but we extended this work by examining both peer and familial influences into emerging adulthood.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

This research received support from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD036223 and HD044206), the Department of Health and Human Services (5APRPA006009), the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice (Award Nos. 2009-IJ-CX-0503 and 2010-MU-MU-0031), and the Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, which received core funding from The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD050959). The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Department of Justice or National Institutes of Health.

Citation

Minter, M.D., Longmore, M.A., Giordano, P.C. and Manning, W.D. (2015), "Family of Origin and Peer Influences on Intimate Partner Violence during Emerging Adulthood", Violence and Crime in the Family: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520150000009001

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited