Faculty Bibliography

Objectives: Using the actor-partner interdependence model (Kenny, 1996), the current study is the first to examine: (1) the relation among 4 forms of family-of-origin aggression (FOA), namely, father-to-mother, mother-to-father, father-to-child, and mother-to-child aggression, and subsequent experience with physical intimate partner violence (IPV) at the couple level; and (2) the gender-specific intergenerational transmission hypothesis. Method: A representative sample of 453 married or cohabiting heterosexual couples from the U.S. northeast completed self-report measures of IPV and FOA as part of a larger study on family and relationship violence. Results: Although both individuals' (respondent effects) and partners' (partner effects) FOA histories generally predicted physical IPV victimization and perpetration, dual-FOA couples were not at increased risk for TV. Respondents' interparental and partners' parent-to-child aggression experiences were most predictive of IPV. Gender-specific transmission of aggression across generations was only partially supported. Last, mother-to-child aggression was a significant predictor in 3 of the 4 models. Conclusions: Findings support the intergenerational transmission of aggression (Widom, 1989) and social learning/cognitive (Bandura, 1977, 1997) theories, and suggest that both partners' IPV and FOA (which often includes multitype maltreatment) experiences should be assessed and considered when developing prevention and treatment programs. Violence prevention parent training programs are also discussed.

Lack of compliance has both short- and long-term costs and is a leading reason why parents seek mental health services for children. What parents do to help children comply with directives or rules is an important part of child socialization. The current review examines the relationship between a variety of parenting discipline behaviors (i.e., praise, positive nonverbal response, reprimand, negative nonverbal response) and child compliance. Forty-one studies of children ranging in age from 1(1/2) to 11 years were reviewed. Reprimand and negative nonverbal responses consistently resulted in greater compliance. Praise and positive nonverbal responses resulted in mixed child outcomes. The findings are discussed based on theory and populations studied. The authors propose a mechanism that may increase children's sensitivity to both positive and negative behavioral contingencies.

Hazardous alcohol use is a well-established risk factor for men's intimate partner violence (IPV), with dozens of studies demonstrating the association. The current study extends understanding of the hazardous alcohol use-IPV link by examining what factors moderate this association in a more systematic and broader way that has been done in past studies. Individual, family, workplace, community, and developmental factors were tested as moderators of the hazardous alcohol use and IPV link in a large, representative sample of active duty service members (the 2006 Community Assessment), and the results were tested for replicability in a hold-out sample. Two family variables (relationship satisfaction and parent-child satisfaction), 1 community variable (community safety), and 3 developmental variables (years in the military, marital length, and family income/pay grade) cross-validated as significant moderators of the association between men's hazardous alcohol use and IPV. Across the significant moderators, the association between hazardous alcohol use and men's IPV was weakened by maturation/development, improved community safety, and better relationship functioning. No individual or workplace variables were significant moderators for men, and there were no significant moderators found for women. The results support the importance of a developmental and relational perspective to understanding the hazardous alcohol use-IPV link, rather than solely an individual coping perspective.

Historically, the political context of partner physical aggression policy and research has focused on protection of physically victimized women and mandated interventions for male batterers. This emphasis is understandable when one considers the injuries and deaths of women by men. However, physical aggression against partners among teens is a very different phenomenon than battering. Intimate partner violence (IPV) in the form of physical aggression, the focus of this review, often starts in junior high school, and approximately 35% of male and female senior high school students report engaging in IPV. The specific trajectory of IPV varies by sample, but IPV appears to decrease in the late teens or early 20s. IPV is generally reported by both males and females, and not attributable to self-defense. IPV is significantly stable in couples who remain together, but stability appears lower if partners change. Given the importance of physical aggression by both males and females, prevention and early intervention programs need to address relationship factors, and targeted prevention and early intervention would be prudent with young high-risk couples. Decades of intervention programs for batterers have not proven very successful, and IPV appears easier to prevent than treat. Thus, emphasis on prevention of IPV seems both timely and promising. This review is intended for diverse audiences including educational administrators, policy makers, and researchers. It reviews issues such as who and when to target for IPV prevention programs, and it summarizes data relevant to these issues.

Hypothesized risk factors for men's and women's clinically significant intimate partner violence (CS-IPV) from four ecological levels (i.e., individual, family, workplace, community) were tested in a representative sample of active-duty U.S. Air Force members (N = 42,744). When considered together, we expected only individual and family factors to account for unique variance in CS-IPV perpetration. Hypothesized factors from all four ecological levels were related to men's CS-IPV perpetration bivariately, but, as expected, only individual and family factors accounted for unique variance across ecological levels. For women, only risk factors from the individual and family levels were significantly related to CS-IPV perpetration even bivariately. Results imply somewhat different risk profiles across gender and identify ecological risk factors of men's CS-IPV not previously studied.

Accurate and regularly updated prevalences are critical to guide both prevention and policy. However, despite their impact on public health, the prevalence of behavioral and mental health problems such as child maltreatment and intimate partner violence (IPV) are collected infrequently (e.g., once per decade or less). The purpose of this study is to test the viability of using nonsensitive, dynamic variables to estimate prevalences of sensitive behavioral problems. Several archival data sets of partner and child maltreatment are used. Data sets are randomly divided into development and cross-validation subsets. Sequential, backward, stepwise logistic regression is used to derive estimation equations, which are then tested in the cross-validation subset. The results indicate that estimated prevalences are close to the measured prevalences. Confidence intervals (95%) are approximately the same as those that pertain to measured prevalences (+/- 1%-2%). In situations where it is either too expensive or too sensitive to assess a population regularly on a problem of interests, it appears as if policy makers and prevention planners can use regularly collected, nonsensitive data to estimate accurately the prevalence of unmeasured, sensitive outcomes.

Hazardous drinking is a significant public health concern and an important target for prevention efforts within both military and civilian populations. For such efforts to be maximally effective, comprehensive information regarding factors that increase or decrease risk for hazardous drinking is necessary. This is the first study to investigate risk and promotive factors across individual, family, community, and organizational levels in a representative sample of Air Force personnel (N = 52,780). Unique predictors of men's and women's hazardous drinking were identified both within and across ecological levels. Predictors that accounted for the most variance in predicting hazardous versus non-hazardous drinkers included family income, number of children, depressive symptoms, religious involvement, and perceived financial stress for men and women; and years in the military for men. Among hazardous drinkers, a different set of predictors best explained variance in severity of drinking problems. Results of the current study help identify key targets for prevention efforts operating at different levels (e.g., individual therapy, community-wide programs).

OBJECTIVE: The U.S. Air Force recently implemented system-wide changes that both (a) clarified the criteria used to determine when family maltreatment has occurred and (b) made the process by which these decisions are made more consistent. The current study examined the effects of these changes on family maltreatment recidivism. METHOD: Official records were obtained from the Air Force Family Advocacy Program. All cases decided during the last year of the old system and the first year of the new system at each base (total N = 14,298) were examined. For each incident, it was determined (a) whether the incident met criteria and (b) whether the same offender committed family maltreatment again within 1 year of the initial incident. RESULTS: Overall substantiation rates were significantly lower (p = .003) under the new system (47%) than the old (56%). After the change, significant interaction effects were obtained for both alleged (b = -.51, p = .004) and substantiated (b = -.55, p = .015) reoffense, in that 1-year reoffense rates decreased significantly among initially substantiated cases but remained unchanged among initially unsubstantiated cases. Indeed, rates of substantiated reoffense by substantiated offenders were cut in half (from 14% to 7%). CONCLUSIONS: Reductions in overall substantiation rates were most likely due to the use of more stringent criteria. The results of the recidivism analyses suggest that clear criteria and consistent decision processes can have secondary preventive effects on family maltreatment in their own right, possibly due to increases in informal community sanctions.