Predictors of Relationship Abuse Among Young Men

Abstract

The authors tested a social learning model of men's (N = 585) relationship abuse among a sample of first- and second-year university students. As predicted, structural equation model (SEM) analyses confirmed that violence in the family of origin was associated with men's negative beliefs about gender roles and acceptance of interpersonal violence. These beliefs in turn were associated with reports of friends who also had negative beliefs about gender roles and were abusive in their relationships with peers. Having abusive friends was associated with the participants' own levels of violence in their relationships. Family-of-origin violence was also found to have a direct effect on the levels of violence in participants' own relationships with women. Participants' negative beliefs regarding gender and interpersonal violence were found to have a direct effect on their use of violence in their relationships. This model accounted for 79% of the variance in men's relationship abuse.