Familial Effects on Intimate Partner Violence across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Research suggests family-of-origin violence is a consistent predictor of young adults’ intimate partner violence (IPV). However, prior studies also demonstrate that exposure to violence does not lead in a deterministic fashion to violent behaviors in young adulthood. Given the family context entails more than whether or not abuse occurs, additional aspects of family life warrant examination. One such aspect is the quality of the parent-child relationship. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N=950), the present study examined the influence of harsh parenting and parent-child relationship quality (PCRQ) in predicting adolescents’ and young adults’ IPV perpetration. Results from fixed effects analyses indicate both harsh parenting and PCRQ are key independent predictors of individuals’ IPV perpetration, but do not interact to produce cumulatively different risk. Harsh parenting is also found to be a significant risk factor for men’s IPV perpetration, yet is not significant in the prediction of women’s perpetration.