Impulsivity is the missing link between childhood trauma and intimate partner violence

A study of men convicted of intimate partner violence against women found that those who reported childhood physical or psychological abuse tended to display greater physical aggression toward their partners. Impulsivity might be mediating the link between childhood abuse experiences and intimate partner violence in adulthood. The paper was published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

Intimate partner violence is harmful or abusive behavior by a current or former romantic partner. It can occur in marriages, dating relationships, cohabiting partnerships, and relationships that have ended. Intimate partner violence can take many forms.

For example, physical violence includes actions such as hitting, pushing, kicking, choking, or using a weapon. Sexual violence includes forced or unwanted sexual activity and pressure to engage in sexual acts. Psychological abuse may involve threats, intimidation, humiliation, insults, or deliberate efforts to frighten the partner.

Coercive control can include monitoring communications, restricting movements, isolating the partner from family and friends, or controlling everyday decisions. Economic abuse may involve withholding money, preventing the partner from working, or creating financial dependence.

Intimate partner violence can affect people of any gender, age, or social background, although some forms and consequences are more common in certain groups. It can also affect children who witness it or live in a threatening home environment. Key risk factors increasing the likelihood that a person will engage in this form of violence include emotional dysregulation, impaired executive functioning, substance use, childhood maltreatment, and lack of social support.

Free daily newsletter

Study author Andrea Antonio Gheorghe and his colleagues conducted a study aiming to identify the self-regulatory mechanisms through which childhood abuse and perceived social support relate to intimate partner violence against women. More specifically, they wanted to investigate the possible mediating role impulsivity and attentional functioning may play in the relationship between childhood abuse, social support, and intimate partner violence against women.

Study participants were 211 convicted male perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women. They were recruited from the CONTEXTO Program, a community-based psychoeducational intervention designed for men sentenced to up to two years in prison for the mentioned form of violence, legally classified as gender-based violence under Spanish law. The participants’ average age was 41 years. Twenty-four percent of them were married, and 74% were employed.

The study participants completed assessments of childhood abuse (the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale), perceived social support (the Functional Social Support Questionnaire), conflict management and resolution strategies (the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale), and the risk of recidivism (i.e., attacking their partner again, using the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide). They also completed a set of self-regulatory measures including assessments of impulsivity (the Plutchik Impulsivity Scale) and attention-related characteristics, i.e., inattention, impulsivity, sustained attention, and vigilance (using the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test-3).

Results showed that participants who reported more severe childhood physical and psychological abuse were more likely to be physically aggressive toward their partner and were at a higher risk of recidivism toward others. Lower perceived social support was also associated with a higher risk of assaulting the partner again.

The study authors tested a statistical model proposing that impulsivity mediates the link between childhood abuse on one side, and physical aggression and risk of recidivism in adulthood on the other. The results indicated that such a relationship between the examined factors is highly probable.

In fact, the researchers found that impulsivity fully mediated the link; once a perpetrator’s lack of impulse control was accounted for in the statistical model, the direct link between childhood abuse and adult violence vanished. This suggests that childhood trauma drives adult violence specifically by damaging a person’s ability to control their impulses.

The researchers also tested whether sustained attention acts as a mediator between a lack of social support and the risk of recidivism. The data showed a weak link suggesting this pathway is possible, but it did not survive strict statistical corrections, meaning it requires further testing before it can be confirmed.

“Impulsivity represents a key cognitive control pathway linking childhood maltreatment to IPVAW-related [intimate partner violence against women-related] outcomes in convicted perpetrators, supporting intervention targets focused on self-regulatory control. Attention-related mechanisms may contribute to the association between social support and recidivism risk, but this pathway requires confirmatory replication,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the psychological underpinnings of intimate partner violence. However, it should be noted that the cross-sectional design of this study does not allow any definitive causal inferences to be derived from the results. Additionally, the childhood abuse experience assessment used in this study was based on reported memories of such experiences, leaving room for recall bias to have affected the results. Finally, because all participants were already convicted offenders in Spain, the results may not apply to unconvicted individuals or different cultural settings.

The paper, “From childhood abuse and lack of social support to intimate partner violence: The mediating role of impulsivity and attentional functioning,” was authored by Andrea Antonio Gheorghe, Javier Comes-Fayos, Marisol Lila, Ángel Romero-Martínez, and Luis Moya-Albiol.