Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with an array of negative health consequences that can include poor general health status, increased health service utilization, stress-related conditions, physical injuries, and death. Common mental health consequences include depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Many factors, at biological, psychological, and social levels of influences, are correlated with IPV perpetration, yet prominent theoretical models are narrow in focus. This chapter explicates the need for a biopsychosocial model of IPV that is integrative and coherent, and it argues that the social information processing approach can provide an organizing framework for this effort. Factors such as neurocognitive deficits, trauma exposure, and acute alcohol intoxication influence risk for IPV by altering the decoding and interpretation of relationship events and the generation, selection, and evaluation of responses. A more integrative approach to IPV will enhance our ability to understand, prevent, and treat this vexing public health concern.