Abstract
Objective(s)To fully understand the dynamics of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) it is necessary to understand the role of personality. The current understanding of which personality characteristics are associated with IPV victimization is, however, far from comprehensive. Given this gap in the literature, our objective was to examine the associations between the dimensions of the psychobiological model of personality and psychopathological symptoms in women who had experienced IPV.MethodsUsing a case-control design, a group of women who had experienced IPV and who were living in shelters (n = 50) were compared to a group of control women who had not experienced IPV (n = 50). All women completed the Temperament and Character Inventory–Revised and the Brief Symptom Inventory.ResultsVictims of IPV showed significantly higher levels of Harm Avoidance and Self-Transcendence, and lower levels of Reward Dependence and Self-Directedness, than the non-IPV control group. Victims of IPV also reported elevated levels of psychopathological symptoms. Personality dimensions showed a broadly consistent pattern of associations across different psychopathological symptoms. A regression analysis indicated that Novelty Seeking was negatively associated with psychopathological symptoms in victims of IPV, but not significantly associated in non-victims.ConclusionsThe study highlights the important role of Harm Avoidance and Self-Directedness for understanding psychopathological symptoms. Novelty Seeking appears to play an important role in the expression of individuals’ experiences of IPV. These results have important implications for research and practice, particularly the development and implementation of interventions.
Highlights
Violence occurring between family members has been broadly defined as domestic violence (Goodey, 2005)
We evaluated personality dimensions using the Temperament and Character Inventory– Revised (TCI-R; Cloninger, 1999), a self-report instrument with 240 items, each scored on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 to 5
The Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) group was characterized by elevated Harm Avoidance and Self-Transcendence, and lower Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence, Persistence, Self-Directedness and Cooperativeness compared to the non-IPV group
Summary
Violence occurring between family members has been broadly defined as domestic violence (Goodey, 2005). Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) refers to physical, psychological and/or sexual violence that occurs between intimate partners (including cohabiting or divorced intimate partners, independent of gender; Niolon et al, 2017). IPV is a universal phenomenon (Devries et al, 2013; O’Doherty et al, 2014), and studies have revealed high rates of violence against women in particular. The present study aimed to evaluate the associations between the dimensions of the psychobiological model of personality (Cloninger, 1987; Cloninger, 1994) and psychopathological symptoms in women who had experienced IPV. The following subsections will present past research that describes the psychological impact of IPV and the potential influence of personality, and introduce the psychobiological model of personality
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