Expanding Our Thinking About Intimate Partner Violence: Examinations of Partner Violence Using Non-Shelter Samples

Abstract

As discussed in Chap. 4, social science researchers and U.S. society, more generally, became aware of issues relating to intimate partner violence (IPV) through a num- ber of books and research reports relating to battered women published beginning in the early 1970s. Much of this work was based on interviews of women seeking help at battered women’s shelters or other means of legal or other professional help for the extreme violence they were experiencing. These relationships were the focus of Chap. 4. In this chapter, we examine other sources of research on partner violence, draw- ing from a number of types of samples in the community. As in Chap. 4, IPV in this chapter is defined in terms of physically aggressive behaviors (including rape and sexual assault) as well as emotional or psychological aggression, although much of the literature focuses on physical forms of aggression, ranging from mild to severely violent behaviors. This research discussed in this chapter is based on several types of samples. These include general population surveys of couples and convenience samples of adults as well as various samples of college students and younger dating couples. Other studies utilize samples designed to look at violence within LGBTQ or sexual minority couples. Many of these studies present a very different picture of partner violence than that traditionally associated with battered women, the focus of Chap. 4. 5.1