Abstract
The hypothesis that the disinhibitory effects induced by alcohol consumption contribute to domestic violence has gained support from meta-analyses of mainly cross-sectional studies that examined the association between alcohol abuse and perpetration of intimate partner violence (IPV). However, findings from multilevel analyses of longitudinal data investigating the time-varying effects of heavy episodic drinking (HED) on physical IPV have been equivocal. This 12-year prospective study used multilevel analysis to examine the effects of HED and illicit drug use on perpetration of both physical and psychological IPV during early adulthood. Participants were 157 romantic couples who were assessed biennially two to six times for substance misuse and IPV. The analyses found no significant main effect of either HED or drug use on perpetration of IPV but there were significant interactions of both HED and drug use with age. Moreover, the developmental trends in substance use effects on IPV typically varied by gender and type of IPV.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbey, A. (2002). Alcohol-related sexual assault: a common problem among college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 14(Suppl), 118–128.
American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR (4th ed.). Washington DC: Author.
Arseneault, L., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Taylor, P. J., & Silva, P. A. (2000). Mental disorders and violence in a total birth cohort. Archives of General Psychiatry, 57, 979–986.
Atkins, D. C., & Gallop, R. J. (2007). Rethinking how family researchers model infrequent outcomes: a tutorial on count regression and zero-inflated models. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 726–735.
Brookoff, D., O’Brien, K. K., Cook, C. S., Thompson, T. D., & Williams, C. (1997). Characteristics of participants in domestic violence: assessment at the scene of domestic assaults. Journal of the American Medical Association, 277, 1369–1373.
Bureau of Justice Statistics (1998). Alcohol and crime: An analysis of national data on the prevalence of alcohol involvement in crime (Report No. NCJ 168632). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
Capaldi, D. M., & Clark, S. (1998). Prospective family predictors of aggression toward female partners for at-risk young men. Developmental Psychology, 34, 1175–1188.
Capaldi, D. M., Knoble, N. B., Shortt, J. W., & Kim, H. K. (2012). A systematic review of risk factors for intimate partner violence. Partner Abuse, 3, 231–280.
Chermack, S. T., & Taylor, S. P. (1995). Alcohol and human physical aggression: pharmacological versus expectancy effects. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 56, 449–456.
Cohen, P., Cohen, J., West, S. G., & Aiken, L. S. (2003). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral analysis (3rd ed.). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Critchlow, B. (1983). Blaming the booze: the attribution of responsibility for drunken behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9, 451–473.
Fals-Stewart, W., Klostermann, K., & Clinton-Sherrod, M. (2009). Substance abuse and intimate partner violence. In K. D. O’Leary & E. M. Woodin (Eds.), Psychological and physical aggression in couples: Causes and interventions (pp. 251–269). Washington: American Psychological Association.
Feingold, A. (2009). Effect sizes for growth-modeling analysis for controlled clinical trials in the same metric as for classical analysis. Psychological Methods, 14, 43–53.
Feingold, A. (2013). A regression framework for effect size assessments in longitudinal modeling of group differences. Review of General Psychology, 17, 111–121.
Feingold, A., & Capaldi, D. M. (2014). Associations of women’s substance dependency symptoms with intimate partner violence. Partner Abuse, 5, 152–167.
Feingold, A., Kerr, D. C. R., & Capaldi, D. M. (2008). Associations of substance use problems with intimate partner violence for at-risk men in long-term relationships. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 429–438.
Flanzer, J. P. (2005). Alcohol and other drugs are key causal agents of violence. In D. R. Loseke, R. J. Gelles, & M. M. Cavanaugh (Eds.), Current controversies on family violence (pp. 163–189). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fleiss, J. L., & Berlin, J. A. (2009). Effect sizes for dichotomous data. In H. Cooper, L. V. Hedges, & J. C. Valentine (Eds.), The handbook of research synthesis (2nd ed., pp. 237–253). New York: Russell Sage.
Foran, H. M., & O’Leary, K. D. (2008). Alcohol and intimate partner violence: a meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 1222–1234.
Gelles, R. J., & Cavanaugh, M. M. (2005). Association is not causation: Alcohol and other drugs do not cause violence. In D. R. Loseke, R. J. Gelles, & M. M. Cavanaugh (Eds.), Current controversies on family violence (pp. 163–189). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Giancola, P. R., Gadlaski, A. J., & Roth, R. M. (2012). Identifying component-processes of executive functioning that serve as risk factors for the alcohol-aggression relation. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 26, 201–211.
Haddock, C. K., Rindskopf, D., & Shadish, W. R. (1998). Using odds ratios as effect sizes for meta-analysis of dichotomous data: a primer on methods and issues. Psychological Methods, 3, 339–353.
Jackson, K. M. (2008). Heavy episodic drinking: determining the predictive utility of five or more drinks. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22, 68–77.
Kaufman Kantor, G., & Straus, M. A. (1990). The “drunken bum” theory of wife beating. In M. A. Straus & R. J. Gelles (Eds.), Physical violence in American families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8,145 families (pp. 203–224). New Brunswick: Transaction.
Kim, H. K., Laurent, H. K., Capaldi, D. M., & Feingold, A. (2008). Men’s aggression toward women: a 10-year panel study. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 1169–1187.
Leonard, K. E. (2005). Alcohol and intimate partner violence: when can we say that heavy drinking is a contributing cause of violence? Addiction, 100, 422–425.
Leonard, K. E., & Quigley, B. M. (1999). Drinking and marital aggression in newlyweds: an event-based analysis of drinking and the occurrence of husband marital aggression. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 67, 537–545.
MacDonald, T. K., Fong, G. T., Zanna, M. F., & Martineau, A. M. (2000). Alcohol myopia and condom use: can alcohol intoxication be associated with more prudent behavior? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 605–619.
Mattson, R. E., O’Farrell, T. J., Lofgreen, A. M., Cunningham, K., & Murphy, C. M. (2012). The role of illicit substance use in a conceptual model of intimate partner violence. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 26, 255–264.
Moore, T. M., Stuart, G. L., Meehan, J. C., Rhatigan, D. L., Hellmuth, J. C., & Keen, S. M. (2008). Drug abuse and aggression between intimate partners: a meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 247–274.
Olsen, M. K., & Schafer, J. L. (2001). A two-part random-effects model for semicontinuous longitudinal data. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 96, 730–745.
Raudenbush, S. W., & Bryk, A. S. (2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Reyes, H. L. M., Foshee, V. A., Bauer, D. J., & Ennett, S. T. (2011). The role of heavy alcohol use in the developmental process of desistance in dating aggression during adolescence. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 239–250.
Rothman, E. F., Reyes, L. M., Johnson, R. M., & LaValley, M. (2012). Does the alcohol make them do it? Dating violence perpetration and drinking among youth. Epidemiologic Reviews, 34, 103–119.
Schumacher, J. A., Homish, G. G., Leonard, K. E., Quigley, B. M., & Kearns-Bodkin, J. N. (2008). Longitudinal moderators of the relationship between excessive drinking and intimate partner violence in the early years of marriage. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 894–904.
Sher, K. J., Jackson, K. M., & Steinley, D. (2011). Alcohol use trajectories and the ubiquitous cat’s cradle: cause for concern? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120(2), 322–335.
Shortt, J. W., Capaldi, D. M., Kim, H. K., Kerr, D. C. R., Owen, L. D., & Feingold, A. (2012). Stability of intimate partner violence by men across 12 years in young adulthood: effects of relationship transitions. Prevention Science, 13, 360–369.
Smith, P. H., Homish, G. G., Leonard, K. E., & Cornelius, J. R. (2012). Intimate partner violence and specific substance use disorders: findings from the national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 26, 236–245.
Steele, C. M., & Joseph, R. A. (1990). Alcohol myopia: its prized and dangerous effects. American Psychologist, 45, 921–933.
Straus, M. A. (1979). Measuring intrafamily conflict and violence: the conflict tactics (CT) scales. Journal of Marriage and Family, 41, 75–88.
Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996). The revised conflict tactics scales (CTS2) development and preliminary psychometric data. Journal of Family Issues, 17, 283–316.
Wechsler, H., & Nelson, T. F. (2001). Binge drinking and the American college student: what’s five drinks? Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 15, 287–291.
Acknowledgments
Alan Feingold, Oregon Social Learning Center; Isaac J. Washburn, Oklahoma State University; Stacey S. Tiberio, Oregon Social Learning Center; Deborah M. Capaldi, Oregon Social Learning Center.
Research reported in this article was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health: National Institute of Drug Abuse (RC1DA028344), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R01AA018669), and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD46364). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Feingold, A., Washburn, I.J., Tiberio, S.S. et al. Changes in the Associations of Heavy Drinking and Drug Use with Intimate Partner Violence in Early Adulthood. J Fam Viol 30, 27–34 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-014-9658-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-014-9658-6