Temporal Associations Between Psychological and Physical Intimate Partner Violence: A Cross-Lag Analysis

Abstract

The present study examined the relationship between psychological and physical forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) across four waves of data during the developmental period of young adulthood. The links from early psychological aggression to later physical aggression and from early physical aggression to later psychological aggression across waves were tested while controlling for their cross-time stabilities and concurrent associations. IPV data were collected annually from 434 young adult respondents involved in a romantic relationship at least once during the respective years from the ages of 22–25. On average, participants provided IPV data for 3 out of the 4 years covered by the study (M= 2.82; standard deviation [SD] = 1.14). Results of a cross-lagged structural equation model (SEM) model indicated significant cross-time stabilities as well as significant, positive concurrent associations for both forms of aggression. Most important to this study were the findings that, controlling for these stabilities and concurrent associations, early psychological aggression was a consistent positive predictor of later physical aggression across waves whereas the opposite direction from early physical aggression to later psychological aggression was either non-significant or significant and negative.