General Criminality as a Marker of Heterogeneity in Domestically Violent Men: Differences in Trauma History, Psychopathology, Neurocognitive Functioning, and Psychophysiology

Abstract

This study examined whether involvement in general criminal behavior was a useful marker of critical historic, psychological, and cognitive aspects of heterogeneity in domestically violent men. Two subgroups of domestically violent men, those with ( n = 56) and without ( n = 54) a history of criminal involvement, were compared with a group of nonviolent men ( n = 82) on internalizing psychopathology, substance abuse, maltreatment in the family of origin, cognitive and executive functioning, and psychophysiological factors. Results found that domestically violent criminal men scored higher than the other two groups on a number of measures including history of childhood violence exposure, childhood externalizing behavior, and adult internalizing psychopathology. No differences were found on their psychophysiological reactivity and cognitive performance. The domestically violent noncriminal group and the comparison group were largely similar on study variables with the exception of education and substance use. Results suggest that general theories of antisocial behavior may be relevant and helpful for understanding domestically violent and criminally involved batterers, whereas social and family violence theories may be of greater relevance to noncriminally involved batterers. Implications of these results for intervention are considered.