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. [Correction
Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Sex Roles (2010) 62:220.]
In “Langhinrichsen-Rolling’s Confirmation of the Feminist Analysis of Intimate
Partner Violence: Comment on ‘Controversies Involving Gender and Intimate
Partner Violence in theUnited States’” (Volume 62, Numbers 3/4, February
2010,DOI: 10.1007/s11199-009-9697-2) Langhinrichsen-Rohling’s name was
erroneously misspelled in the title, the abstract, and the conclusion. The
correct spelling is Langhinrichsen-Rohling.
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.