ON THE VALIDITY OF SELF-REPORTED RATES OF INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE

Investigators of spousal and intersex violence write as though estimat es of prevalence and incidence are valid and can be extrapolated or in terpolated to different time frames. The present studies showed that h igh school students gave absolute estimates of nonphysical, physical, and sexual aggression during the past 1 month, 6 months, and 12 months that were not significantly different from one another Students' esti mates were sensitive to item severity, sex af perpetrator; and sex of victim but were insensitive to the time period over which they were as ked to estimate. The present results mean that people's reports of the ir experience with interpersonal violence must be strongly affected by other factors in addition to the number of times the events have actu ally occurred.