A Qualitative Investigation of Johnson’s Typology

The couple typology described by Johnson and Ferraro (2000) provided the framework for this analysis of narrative accounts of couples in violent heterosexual relationships. Participants were 15 bidirectionally violent couples who were interviewed separately for about 1 hour each. Modified analytic induction guided the analyses. We categorized the violence in the relationships of these 15 couples in the following ways: 11 were categorized as “common couple” violence; two as “violent resistance”; one as “mutual violent control”; and one couple was categorized as what we named “pseudo-intimate terrorism.” We present rich descriptions of each category and motivations for and impacts of aggressive behavior as well as our rationale for classifying couples the way we did. Implications for intervention and future research are discussed.

Physical Aggression and Control in Heterosexual Relationships: The Effect of Sampling

This study investigated the proposition by Johnson (1995) that there are distinct patterns of physical aggression within relationships, characterized as common couple violence and patriarchal terrorism. The present samples comprised students (N= 113), women from a domestic violence refuge (N= 44), and male prisoners (N= 108). Participants completed measures of physical aggression, controlling behavior, fear of injuries, and injuries. Reports of these measures were entered into a Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA). With the exception of self-reported use of controlling behavior, the variables showed univariately significant differences between the groups. The DFA produced two significant functions which together correctly classified 75% of cases. These results support the view that there are distinct patterns of aggressive relationships corresponding to those identified by Johnson (1995).

Intimate Partner Violence Among Married Male U.S. Army Soldiers: Ethnicity as a Factor in Self-Reported Perpetration and Victimization

Correlates of self-reported intimate partner violence (IPV) were examined among 488 married male U.S. Army soldiers. Study results were examined within the framework of Johnson’s (1995) typology, which proposes that there are two main types of IPV, common couple violence and intimate terrorism. We predicted that poor marital adjustment would be associated with minor violence, hypothesized to be indicative of common couple violence. We also predicted that psychological and behavioral characteristics associated with perpetrators of IPV would be more strongly correlated with severe inflicted aggression—a pattern hypothesized to be indicative of intimate terrorism. The results, based on a multivariate analysis of covariance, generally supported our hypotheses. Furthermore, the higher levels of IPV reported by Black respondents in this study were associated with the pattern hypothesized to be characteristic of common couple violence.