title: Assessing aggression in adolescent romantic relationships: can we do it better?
abstract: Almost all research on aggression in adolescent romantic relationships makes use of 1-time, retrospective assessment methods. In the present research, the authors compared data on the experience of adolescent relationship aggression (physical aggression and threatening behavior) collected from 125 high school students via 2 methods: (a) a 1-time, 2-month retrospective assessment and (b) a cumulative method based on four 2-week retrospective assessments, each spaced 2 weeks apart. For the cumulative method, data from the 4 assessments were aggregated to cover the same time period as the single, 2-month retrospective assessment. A greater proportion of the sample (48.0%) reported experiencing physical aggression using the cumulative method compared with the single, 2-month retrospective method (27.0%). The prevalence of threatening behavior was also higher using the cumulative method (48.8% vs. 24.8%). Adolescent trauma and anxiety symptoms correlated more strongly with physical aggression data derived from the cumulative method than from the 1-time assessment method.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275-0442, USA. ejourile@smu.edu
authors.forename: Ernest N
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Jouriles
authors.forename: Renee
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McDonald
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Garrido
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rosenfield
authors.forename: Alan S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D003380:Courtship / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007406:Interview, Psychological / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent / Q000379:methods; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*