The Role of Parental, Societal and Personal Factors in Predicting Attitudes towards Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV), a type of common violence, is a public health problem, that cause psychological, physical or mental health problems for the victims and likely to require psychosocial interventions. For this reason, it is important to understand the risk factors that play a role in determining attitudes towards partner violence. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate; (a) gender differences in attitudes towards partner violence, (b) the roles of parental (i.e., perceived mother and father conflict), societal (i.e., gender role stereotyping) and personal factors (i.e., ambivalent, hostile and benevolent sexism beliefs) in predicting attitudes towards IPV. The sample consisted of 120 (n = 60 males; n = 60 females) Turkish speaking participants who had a current romantic relationship, between the ages of 18 to 25 years (Mean= 22.0, SD= 1.98). Participants completed self-report measures of Perception of Gender Scale, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Children’s Perception of Inter-Parental Conflict Scale and Intimate Partner Violence Attitude Scale. Results showed that benevolent sexism (BS) alone predicted attitudes towards IPV in both genders. In addition, males had more positive attitudes towards IPV and had higher hostile sexism (HS) beliefs; while females had more positive gender role stereotyping and more self-blame toward themselves for inter-parental conflict. Results are interpreted under feminist theory. Keywords: Inter-parental conflict, Gender roles, Sexism, Attitudes towards IPV, Feminist theory