Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration and Cognitive Function: Examining Demographic Moderators in a Mixed-Sex Epidemiological Sample of Urban Adults

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2020-01-01

Department

Psychology

Program

Psychology

Citation of Original Publication

Rights

Distribution Rights granted to UMBC by the author.
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Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health crisis that impacts millions of people every year. The etiology of IPV perpetration is associated with psychological, biological and contextual risk factors, including cognitive function. Previous research on the relationship between IPV perpetration and cognitive function suggests that relatively worse performance on measures of cognition in cognitive domains of executive function, attention, memory, and verbal abilities is related to abusive behavior in relationships. However, the majority of this research has utilized small samples of white men who were either incarcerated or seeking treatment for partner violence or substance abuse, making it difficult to extrapolate these findings to the general population. Further, no studies have examined whether this relationship varies as a function of demographic factors or type of IPV. Using a sample of 665 urban-dwelling adults (52.2% female; 50.2% white; 68.7% living above poverty; aged 30 to 65 years) from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study, the present investigation used binary logistic regression analyses to examine whether neuropsychological test performance in the domains of executive function, memory, verbal abilities, and attention impacted the probability of endorsing past perpetration of psychological or physical IPV and whether this relationship varied as a function of sex or poverty status. Findings revealed significant main effects for analyses examining the impact of cognitive function on the likelihood of endorsing past psychological IPV. Contrary to the hypotheses, better performance on measures of executive function and memory were associated with increased likelihood of endorsing past psychological aggression against a romantic partner. These findings remained significant for executive function, but not for memory, after controlling for age, poverty status, and sex and these findings did not vary as a function of demographic factors. No significant main effects were found for analyses examining the impact of cognitive function on the likelihood of endorsing past physical IPV perpetration; however, significant interactions suggest that the relationship between cognitive function (i.e., verbal memory and inhibitory control) and physical IPV varies as a function of sex and poverty status, with relatively stronger associations found for physical IPV and verbal memory among women living below 125% of the federal poverty line. Overall, our findings suggest that the relationship between cognitive function and IPV perpetration varies as a function of type of IPV (physical, psychological) and demographic factors (sex, poverty status). These findings have important implications for prevention and treatment of IPV perpetration.