ANTECEDENTS OF ABUSIVE PERSONALITY AND ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR IN WIFE ASSAULTERS

One hundred and forty men referred for wife assault and 45 demographic ally matched controls were assessed for psychological variables associ ated with abusive personality (angel; cyclical (borderline) personalit y organization (BPO) and chronic experience of trauma symptoms) and ab usive behaviors (both physical and emotional) as reported by their fem ale partners. Predictor variables for these abuse measures included th e EMBU which assesses recollections of parental warmth and rejection a nd the Conflict Tactics Scale which assesses physical abuse in the fam ily of origin. A composite of BPO, anger trauma symptoms and fearful a ttachment called Abusive Personality (ABP) correlated.42 with wives re ports of emotionally abusive behaviors. ABP was positively and signifi cantly correlated with recollections of negative parental treatment by the abuse perpetrator: A composite of parental rejection and verbal a nd physical abuse by parents correlated. 41 with ABP A discriminant fu nction of high and low ABP found that ABP was predicted by paternal re jection, physical abuse, and absence of maternal warmth. Physical abus e by either parent correlated significantly with all subscales and fet al scores on the ABP measure. When combined with data showing REP to c orrelate significantly with frequency of use of violence by wife assau lters (Dutton, 1995b, Dutton and Starzomski, 1993), the current study suggests a personality syndrome of assaultive males that has anteceden ts in the early experiences of these men. The present data suggest tha t family of origin experiences may have effects beyond modeling of abu sive behaviors. These effects include development of a specific person ality form associated with abusiveness.