Violent Critical Incidents in Four Types of Violent Interspousal Relationships

Violent critical incidents (relationally important interactional sequences about which inferences can be made) in archival data from the 1975 first national survey of family violence were examined in four couple types: Agreeable-Intimate, Conflictive-Intimate, Detached, and Diffident. The total number of violent behaviors in the critical incidents and six kinds of behaviors that occurred during the violent critical incidents (escalation, de-escalation, reasoning, symbolic violence, less-severe physical violence, and severe physical violence) were examined. Descriptive statistics revealed differences among the four couple types in all seven variables, and the chief finding of the study is that de-escalations, symbolic violence, and severe beating violence can be statistically significantly discriminated by couple type. This finding supports the contention that seeming contradictions in the literature (e.g., some research finding inequitable, husband-dominant role structure, and other research finding shifting power balances) occur because research samples contain different types of spousal relationships.