This journal article reports the findings of a study using a longitudinal research design with an unselected birth cohort (n = 980, 24-26 years) to test three hypotheses: Can intimate partner violence with "clinical" consequences, or "real" abuse, be detected in community samples; is this abuse gender mutual; and is it "psychopathological". Participants were members of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. The study tracked a representative birth cohort of 1,037 young people (52% male, 48% female) at the following assessment points: 3 years (n = 1,037), 5 years (n = 991), 7 years (n = 954), 9 years (n = 955), 11 years (n = 925), 13 years (n = 850), 15 years (n = 976), 18 years (n = 930, and 26 years (n = 980). Five types of candidate risk were selected on which to compare groups who were in clinically abusive (n = 75), non-clinically abusive (n = 134), and non-abusive relationships (n = 746): family of origin characteristics, parenting, child behavioural problems, adolescent psychiatric disorders, and adolescent personality traits. The authors' findings are that, in non-clinically abusive relationships, perpetrators were primarily women. In clinically abusive relationships, men and women used physical abuse, although more women needed medical treatment for injury. Women in clinically abusive relationships had childhood family adversity, adolescent conduct problems, and aggressive personality; men had disinhibitory psychopathology since childhood and extensive personality deviance. The authors argue that these findings counter the assumption that if clinical abuse was ascertained in epidemiological samples, it would be primarily man-to-woman, explained by patriarchy rather than psychopathology.--ADAPTED FROM THE JOURNAL ABSTRACT

Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113(2) 2004 : 258-271