1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«Addressing the limitations in past research, the first aim of the present study was to examine the potential roles of CSA [childhood sexual abuse] and dyadic empathy for understanding IPV [intimate partner violence] in a clinical sample of men seeking psychological services regarding their use of IPV, while controlling for early experiences of family violence. […] The second aim of this study was to investigate whether dyadic empathy would play an intermediary role (mediator or moderator) in the association between CSA and IPV […].» (p. 22118)

Questions/Hypothèses :
The authors «expected that men with an experience of CSA would report lower levels of cognitive and emotional dyadic empathy (H1) and would use more IPV (physical and psychological) in adulthood (H2). [They] also hypothesized that men reporting higher levels of dyadic empathy would report lower levels of IPV (H3).» (p. 22118)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The sample includes 198 men between the ages of 18 and 69 years (M = 34.18, SD = 10.38). They were mostly French-Canadians (91.9%), English-Canadians (2.5%), or were born in another country (5.6%).» (p. 22119)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

The «findings add to the literature by showing that male survivors of CSA generally report lower levels of empathic concerns, but not perspective taking, and higher levels of perpetrated psychological and physical IPV. As expected, higher dyadic perspective taking was related to lower reports of IPV (psychological, physical). In contrast, [the] results evidenced that higher levels of dyadic empathic concern in men—that is, being touched, concerned, or even disturb by one’s partner experience—were associated with their higher reports of psychological IPV perpetration. [The] preliminary results indicated that 16.5% of men reported being a victim of CSA, while 12.4% reported both CSA and having experienced or observed physical violence in their family, justifying the relevance of controlling for the latter in the explanatory models of IPV under study. […] Participants also reported having perpetrated more psychological than physical IPV acts […]. The condemnable social nature of physical aggression […] and the general precedence of psychological violence on physical violence […] could also explain this result. When controlling for social desirability and history of family violence, results showed that CSA in men was related to a higher perpetration of psychological IPV, whereas only a marginal association was found between CSA and the perpetration of physical IPV.» (p. 22125)