title: Factor structures for aggression and victimization among women who used aggression against male partners.
abstract: Theories and measures of women's aggression in intimate relationships are only beginning to be developed. This study provides a first step in conceptualizing the measurement of women's aggression by examining how well three widely used measures (i.e., the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS), the Sexual Experiences Survey [SES], and the Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory [PMWI]) perform in assessing women's perpetration of and victimization by aggression in their intimate relationships with men. These constructs were examined in a diverse sample of 412 African American, Latina, and White women who had all recently used physical aggression against a male intimate partner. The factor structures and psychometric properties of perpetration and victimization models using these measures were compared. Results indicate that the factor structure of women's perpetration differs from that of women's victimization in theoretically meaningful ways. In the victimization model, all factors performed well in contributing to the measurement of the latent victimization construct. In contrast, the perpetration model performed well in assessing women's physical and psychological aggression but performed poorly in assessing women's sexual aggression, coercive control, and jealous monitoring. Findings suggest that the power and control model of intimate partner violence (IPV) may apply well to women's victimization but not as well to their perpetration of violence.
authors.affiliation: University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA. drsuzanne.swan@gmail.com
authors.forename: Suzanne C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Swan
authors.forename: Laura J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Gambone
authors.forename: M Lee
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Van Horn
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Snow
authors.forename: Tami P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Sullivan
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D003068:Coercion; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007578:Jealousy; D008297:Male; D008571:Men; D012747:Sexual Partners; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D044465:White People; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*