SELECTED
WORK ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Book
Johnson,
Michael P. (2008). A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate
Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Domestic
violence, a serious and far-reaching social problem, has generated two key
debates among researchers. The first debate is about gender and domestic
violence. Some scholars argue that domestic violence is primarily
male-perpetrated, others that women are as violent as men in intimate
relationships. Johnson's response to this debate--and the central theme of this
book--is that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Some
studies address the type of violence that is perpetrated primarily by men,
while others are getting at the kind of violence that women are involved in as
well. Because there has been no theoretical framework delineating types of
domestic violence, researchers have easily misread one another's studies. The
second major debate involves how many women are abused each year by their
partners. Estimates range from two to six million. Johnson's response once
again comes from this book's central theme. If there is more than one type of
intimate partner violence, then the numbers depend on what type you're talking
about. Johnson argues that domestic violence is not a unitary phenomenon.
Instead, he delineates three major, dramatically different, forms of partner
violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple
violence. He roots the conceptual distinctions among the forms of violence in
an analysis of the role of power and control in relationship violence and shows
that the failure to make these basic distinctions among types of partner
violence has produced a research literature that is plagued by both
overgeneralizations and ostensibly contradictory findings. This volume begins
the work of theorizing forms of domestic violence, a crucial first step to a
better understanding of these phenomena among scholars, social scientists,
policy makers, and service providers.
YouTube
Types of domestic violence: Research evidence. Presented at Third Nordic Conference on Barnet og Rusen. Sandefjord, Norway. September 2012. (about an hour) Johnson, Michael P. (2014). Les types de violence familiale. Pp. 15-31 in Maryse Rinfret-Raynor, Élisabeth Lesieux, Marie-Marthe Cousineau, Sonia Gauthier, and Elizabeth Harper (Eds.), Violences Envers les Femmes: Réalités Complexes et Nouveaux Enjeux dans un Monde en Transformation. Québec: Presses Universitaires de l’Université du Québec. (Final draft in English without paging: Distinguishing among types of intimate partner violence: Intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. Pp. 15-31 in Maryse Rinfret-Raynor, Élisabeth Lesieux, Marie-Marthe Cousineau, Sonia Gauthier, and Elizabeth Harper (Eds.), Violence Against Women: Complex Realities and New Issues in a Changing World. Québec: Presses Universitaires de l’Université du Québec.)
Johnson,
Michael P., Janel M. Leone, & Yili Xu. (2014)
Intimate terrorism and situational couple violence in general surveys:
Ex-spouses required. Violence Against
Women 20 (February), 186-207. In this
paper we argue that past efforts to distinguish among types of intimate partner
violence in survey data have committed a critical error: using data on current
spouses to develop operationalizations of intimate terrorism and situational
couple violence. We use ex-spouse data from the National Violence Against Women
survey to develop new operationalizations. We then demonstrate that NVAW
current spouse data contain little intimate terrorism; we argue that this is
likely to be the case for all general surveys. In addition, the ex-spouse data
confirm past findings regarding a variety of differences between intimate
terrorism and situational couple violence, including those predicted by
feminist theories.
Hardesty, Jennifer
L., Megan L. Haselschwerdt, and Michael P. Johnson. (2012). Domestic violence
and child custody. In Kathryn
Kuehnle and Leslie Drozd
(Eds.), Parenting Plan Evaluations: Applied
Research for the Family Court (pp. 442-475). New York: Oxford
University Press. The
purpose of this chapter is to review empirical research that will inform the
process of evaluating separating parents in the context of DV. We begin by introducing distinctions
among types of DV, distinctions that are important for understanding the
relevant research and for evaluating the implications of DV for custody
decisions. To help establish the
relevance of DV to child custody, we provide a summary of the effects of DV
exposure on children. Then we
review the research on parenting in the context of DV. This growing body of research provides
insight into post-separation relationship dynamics and parenting
characteristics of victims and abusers.
The chapter concludes with the options available for parenting plans
that prioritize both safety and the long-term adjustment of parents and
children affected by DV.
Johnson, Michael P.
(2011). Gender and types of intimate partner violence: A response to an
anti-feminist literature review. Aggression
and Violent Behavior 16 (July/August), 289-296. This article presents a feminist
perspective on domestic violence that is rooted in an explication of the
differences among three major types of intimate partner violence (intimate
terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence). Theory and
research from this perspective is then reviewed to rebut recent attacks on
feminist scholarship and policy regarding intimate partner violence.
Johnson,
Michael P. (February, 2010). Types of domestic violence: Implications for
policy.
Handouts for the second of two Powerpoint
presentations for the practitioners’ workshop sponsored by the New Directions
Program of Catholic Family Service Ottawa. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Johnson,
Michael P. (February, 2010). Types of domestic violence: Research evidence.
Handouts for the first of two Powerpoint
presentations for the practitioners’ workshop sponsored by the New Directions
Program of Catholic Family Service Ottawa. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Johnson, Michael
P. (2010). Langhinrichsen-Rohling’s Confirmation of
the Feminist Analysis of Intimate Partner Violence: Comment on “Controversies
Involving Gender and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States.” Sex Roles, 62 (3-4), 212-219. This article makes four major points in
response to Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling’s (2010)
review of the intimate partner violence literature. First, the evidence is
clear that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Second,
the feminists are right. Gender is central to the analysis of intimate partner
violence, and the coercive controlling violence that most people associate with
the term “domestic violence” is perpetrated primarily by men against their
female partners. Third, different types of intimate partner violence have
different causes, different developmental trajectories, and different
consequences. They require different models to understand them. Finally, we
need more qualitative research focused on the least understood types of
intimate partner violence: violent resistance and situational couple violence.
Johnson,
Michael P. (May, 2009). Where Do “Domestic Violence” Statistics Come From and
Why Do They Vary So Much? Paper presented at a workshop sponsored by the
Healthy Marriage Resource Center and the National Resource Center on Domestic
Violence: Towards a Common Understanding: Domestic Violence Typologies and
Implications for Healthy Marriage and Domestic Violence Programs. Warrenton,
Virginia. Available at the Healthy Marriage Resource Center Web site:
http://www.healthymarriageinfo.org/docs/DomesticViolenceStatistics.pdf. Domestic violence advocates and family
violence researchers often appear to contradict each other when they describe
and report on the extent and
nature of intimate partner violence (IPV). Although the term “domestic
violence” has a very clear specific meaning to advocates working in the
domestic violence field, it is used in other ways in other contexts to cover
many different types of couple conflict. This paper helps to clarify some of
the misunderstandings, errors, and apparent contradictions that derive in part
from these differences in language use, in part from not understanding where the
statistics come from and what the strengths and limitations of the data are,
and in part from wrongly treating “domestic violence” as a single phenomenon.
Johnson,
Michael P., Janel M. Leone, and Yili Xu. (November,
2008). Gender, intimate terrorism, and situational couple violence in general
survey data: The gender debate revisited--again. Poster presented at the
National Council on Family Relations annual meeting. Little Rock, AR. (Powerpoint) We use National Violence Against Women
Survey data to develop an operationalization of intimate terrorism and
situational couple violence. We argue that past efforts to distinguish among types
of intimate partner violence in general survey data have committed a critical
error in using cluster analysis with data on current spouses. We develop a
valid operationalization based on data regarding ex-spouses. The data on
ex-spouses confirm past findings regarding a variety of differences between
intimate terrorism and situational couple violence, including the gender
patterns predicted by feminist theories of intimate partner violence. We then
apply this new operationalization to the current spouse data in the National
Violence Against Women Survey to demonstrate that general survey data on
current relationships contain little or no intimate terrorism. This finding has
major implications for the use of such data to test feminist theories of intimate
partner violence. The new operationalization avoids the vagaries of cluster
analysis in investigations of the balance of major types of intimate
partner violence in different populations.
Kelly,
Joan B. and Michael P. Johnson. (2008). Differentiation among types of intimate
partner violence: Research update and implications for interventions. Family Court Review 46 (3), 476-499. A growing body of empirical research
has demonstrated that intimate partner violence is not a unitary phenomenon and
that types of domestic violence can be differentiated with respect to partner
dynamics, context, and consequences. Four patterns of violence are described:
Coercive Controlling Violence, Violent Resistance, Situational Couple Violence,
and Separation-Instigated Violence. The controversial matter of gender symmetry
and asymmetry in intimate partner violence is discussed in terms of sampling differences
and methodological limitations. Implications of differentiation among types of
domestic violence include the need for improved screening measures and
procedures in civil, family, and criminal court and the possibility of better
decision making, appropriate sanctions, and more effective treatment programs
tailored to the characteristics of different types of partner violence. In
family court, reliable differentiation should provide the basis for determining
what safeguards are necessary and what types of parenting plans are appropriate
to ensure healthy outcomes for children and parent-child relationships.
Leone,
Janel M., Michael P. Johnson, and Catherine M. Cohan. (2007). Victim
help-seeking: Differences between intimate terrorism and situational couple
violence. Family Relations 56 (5),
427-439. Research indicates that two
major forms of partner violence exist, intimate terrorism (IT) and situational
couple violence (SCV). The current study (N = 389) used a subgroup of women who
responded to the Chicago Women's Health Risk Study to examine whether type of
violence experienced is differentially related to formal (e.g., police, medical
agencies, counseling) and informal (e.g., family, friends/neighbors) help
seeking. IT victims were more likely to seek each type of formal help but were
equally or less likely to seek informal help. Findings can inform both family
violence research and the development and implementation of social service
programs.
Johnson,
Michael P. (2007). Domestic violence: The intersection of gender and control.
In Laura L. O’Toole, Jessica R. Schiffman, &
Margie Kiter Edwards (Eds.), Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 2nd edition (pp.
257-268). New York: New York University Press. Reprinted in Andrew J. Cherlin (Ed.), Public
& Private Families, A Reader 5/e, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.
The first section of this chapter will
demonstrate how attention to distinctions among types of intimate partner
violence makes sense of ostensibly contradictory data regarding men's and
women's violence in intimate relationships. The second section describes the
basic structure of the types of intimate partner violence that most people
associate with the term domestic violence, violence that is associated with
coercive control, that is, one partner's attempt to take general control over
the other. The third section presents a theory of domestic violence that is
focused on the relationship between gender and coercive control. The fourth
section addresses the role of gender in the type of intimate partner violence
that does not involve an attempt to take general control over one's partner.
The final section of the chapter deals with some of the intervention and policy
implications of what we know about these types of intimate partner violence and
their relationship to gender.
Johnson,
Michael P. (2006). A Sociologist’s Perspective on Domestic Violence: A Conversation
with Michael Johnson, Ph.D. Interview by Theodora Ooms,
CLASP. Available at the Healthy
Marriage Resource Center Web site: http://www.healthymarriageinfo.org/docs/ASociologistsPerspective.pdf.
Johnson,
Michael P. (2006). Violence and abuse
in personal relationships: Conflict, terror, and resistance in intimate
partnerships. In Anita Vangelisti & Daniel Perlman (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships
(pp. 557-576. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This chapter
focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV). I believe the two core lessons to
be learned from work on IPV are simple, profound, and broadly applicable to
violence in all types of personal relationships. First, one cannot understand
violence in personal relationships without understanding its role in the
relationship itself. Second, and more substantively, there are three quite
different types of intimate partner violence, identified by their role in the
control context of the relationship in which they are embedded. One type
involves a violent attempt to take complete control or at least generally
dominate the relationship (intimate terrorism), another involves violent
resistance to such a control attempt (violent resistance), and the third is
violence that is a product of particular conflicts or tensions within the
relationship (situational couple violence). As this chapter shows, the nature
of the control context is a major theme in the IPV literature, and although it
has as yet received little attention in research on other types of personal
relationships, there are hints of it in the parent-child literature.
Johnson, Michael P.
(2006). Conflict and control: Gender, symmetry, and asymmetry in domestic
violence. Violence Against Women 12 (November),
1003-1018. Four types of individual partner violence are
identified on the basis of the dyadic control context of the violence. In
intimate terrorism the individual is violent and controlling; the partner is
not. In violent resistance the individual is violent but not controlling;
the partner is the violent and controlling one. In situational couple
violence, although the individual is violent, neither the individual nor the
partner is violent and controlling. In mutual violent control both the
individual and the partner are violent and controlling. Evidence is
presented that situational couple violence dominates the violence identified in
general surveys, while intimate terrorism and violent resistance dominate the
violence in agency samples, and that this is the source of differences across
studies with respect to the gender symmetry of partner violence. An
argument is made that if we want to understand partner violence, to intervene
effectively in individual cases, or to make useful policy recommendations, we
must make these distinctions in our research.
Johnson, Michael P.
(2005). Apples and oranges in child custody disputes: Intimate terrorism vs.
situational couple violence. Journal of
Child Custody, 2 (4), 43-52. Also: A brief reply to Dutton.
Journal of Child Custody, 2 (4),
65-67.
In response to
Dutton's (this issue) critique of feminist theories of domestic violence, the
author of this article makes three points relevant to the debate about the
gender asymmetry of intimate partner violence. First, there are three major
types of intimate partner violence, only one of which (intimate terrorism) is
the kind of violence that we all think of when we hear the term “domestic
violence.” Second, both major types of sampling designs in domestic violence
research are seriously biased, and those biases account for the fact that both
sides of this debate have been able to marshal ostensibly contradictory
empirical evidence for their position. Third, intimate terrorism (also know as
domestic violence, spouse abuse, wife-beating, etc.) is, indeed, primarily
male-perpetrated and, in the case of heterosexual relationships, probably best
understood through some version of a feminist theory of domestic violence. The
author then discusses the implications of these points for assessment of risk
in child custody deliberations.
I make four major
points in my response to the Fergusson, Horwood, and Ridder article, points that are equally relevant to other
articles like it that continue to appear in our journals and in the general
media suggesting that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships.
First, there are three major types of intimate partner violence, only one of
which is the kind of violence that we all think of when we hear the term
‘‘domestic violence.’’ Second, that type of intimate partner violence is,
indeed, primarily male perpetrated and is most definitely a gender issue.
Third, Fergusson, Horwood, and Ridder’s
article is not about that type of violence. In fact, it is hardly about
violence at all. Fourth, serious errors of fact, theory, and intervention
inevitably follow from the failure to acknowledge the major differences among
the three types of intimate partner violence.
Data from the National Violence Against
Women Survey show that the two major forms of husband violence toward their
wives (intimate terrorism and situational couple violence) have different
effects on their victims. Victims of intimate terrorism are attacked more
frequently and experience violence that is less likely to stop. They are more likely
to be injured, to exhibit more of the symptoms of posttraumatic stress
syndrome, to use painkillers (perhaps also tranquilizers), and to miss work.
They have left their husbands more often, and when they do leave, they are more
likely to acquire their own residence. If we want to understand the true impact
of wife abuse from survey data (rather than from agency data), we must make
distinctions among types of violence so that the data used to describe
battering are not diluted by data regarding other types of partner violence.
The current study used
a random sample of 563 low-income women to test Johnson’s (1995) theory that
there are two major forms of male-partner violence, situational couple violence
and intimate terrorism, which are distinguished in terms of their embeddedness in a general pattern of control. The study
examined the associations between type of violence experienced and respondents’
physical health, psychological distress, and economic well-being. Analyses
revealed three distinct patterns of partner violence: intimate terrorism,
control/no threat, and situational couple violence. Compared to victims of
control/no threat and situational couple violence, victims of intimate
terrorism reported more injuries from physical violence and more work/activity
time lost because of injuries. Compared to women who experienced no violence in
the previous year, victims of intimate terrorism reported a greater likelihood
of visiting a doctor, poorer health, more psychological distress, and a greater
likelihood of receiving government assistance
Johnson, Michael P. (2004). Review of Restorative Justice and Family Violence, edited by Heather Strang and John Braithwaite. Contemporary Sociology, 33
(PART 1), 96-97.
Johnson, Michael P. (2003). Review of Home Truths about Domestic Violence: Feminist Influences on Policy and
Practice, edited by J. Hanmer & C. Itzin. Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships, 20 (2), 263.
Johnson, Michael P., Valerie Conklin, and Nividetha Menon. (2002, November). The effects of different types of domestic violence on women: Intimate terrorism vs. situational couple violence. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations. Houston, Texas.
Johnson,
Michael P. (2001). Review of The Violences of Men, by Jeff Hearn. Contemporary
Sociology, 30 (#1), 26-27.
Johnson,
Michael P. and Kathleen J. Ferraro.
(2000). Research on domestic
violence in the 1990s: Making distinctions. Journal of Marriage and
the Family, 62 (November): 948-963. (Adobe)
Reviews family literature on domestic violence and suggests that 2 broad themes
of the 1990s provide the most promising directions for the future. The 1st is
the importance of distinctions among types or contexts of violence. Some
distinctions are central to the theoretical and practical understanding of the
nature of partner violence, others provide contexts for developing more sensitive
and comprehensive theories, and others may simply force questioning the
tendency to generalize carelessly from one context to another. Second, issues
of control, although most visible in the feminist literature that focuses on
men using violence to control "their women," also arise in other
contexts, calling for more general analyses of the interplay of violence power,
and control in relationships. In addition to these 2 general themes, the review
covers literature on coping with violence, the effects on victims and their
children, and the social effects of partner violence.
Klein, Renate and Michael P. Johnson. (2000). Conflict in family relationships. In Robert M. Milardo and Steve Duck (Eds.), Families as Relationships (pp. 79-97). New York: Wiley.
One of the most long-standing and acrimonious debates in the history of
the sociology of the family concerns the alleged gender-symmetry of domestic
violence. Using data from a late 1970s survey, this paper demonstrates
that the violence that most people associate with the term “domestic violence,”
i.e., recurrent, escalating, violent control of one’s partner, is decidedly
male. This conclusion is reached through the operationalization of a
typology of partner violence that is based in the connections of individual
violence with a general pattern of power and control, and that distinguishes
among four types of partner violence: patriarchal terrorism, common couple
violence, violent resistance, and mutual violent control. Patriarchal
terrorism, the type of violence that is referenced by the term “domestic
violence” in everyday speech and in the media, is almost exclusively
male. The most general implication of the results is that if we want to
understand the nature of violence that takes place between domestic partners,
we cannot continue to treat intimate violence as a unitary phenomenon.
When we fail to make important distinctions among types of violence, we get the
sort of conflicting, confusing evidence that has plagued the debate regarding
the gender asymmetry of domestic violence.
Johnson, Michael P. (1996). Violence against women in the family: The United States and Vietnam. Pp. 287-296 in Kathleen Barry (ed.), Vietnam 's Women in Transition. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Johnson, Michael P.
(1995). Patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence: Two forms of violence
against women in U.S. families. Journal
of Marriage and the Family, 57 (May): 283-294. (Adobe) Argues that there are 2 distinct forms of couple
violence taking place within families in the United States and other Western
countries: patriarchal terrorism, and common couple violence. A review of
evidence from large-sample survey research (e.g., S. K. Steinmetz, 1978), and
from qualitative and quantitative data gathered from women's shelters suggests
that some families suffer from occasional outbursts of violence from either
husbands or wives (common couple violence), while other families (e.g., D. A. Gaquin, 1978) are terrorized by systematic male violence
(patriarchal terrorism). It is argued that the distinction between common
couple violence and patriarchal terrorism is important because it has
implications for the implementation of public policy, the development of
educational programs and intervention strategies, and the development of
theories of interpersonal violence.