On the Validity of Self-Reported Rates of Interpersonal Violence

Abstract

Investigators of spousal and intersex violence write as though estimates of prevalence and incidence are valid and can be extrapolated or interpolated to different time frames. The present studies showed that high school students gave absolute estimates of nonphysical, physical, and sexual aggression during the past 1 month, 6 months, and 12 months that were not significantly different from one another. Students' estimates were sensitive to item severity, sex of perpetrator, and sex of victim but were insensitive to the time period over which they were asked to estimate. The present results mean that people's reports of their experience with interpersonal violence must be strongly affected by other factors in addition to the number of times the events have actually occurred.