Early childhood abuse, empathy and intimate partner violence

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, Psychology: Counseling, 2009This study tested the relationship between empathy and childhood and intimate partner violence. Toward this end, 31 volunteers from local batterer intervention programs, and 30 non-clinical volunteers from the general population were surveyed using Batson???s (1997) empathy scale, Straus (1990) Conflict Tactics Scale (for testing the frequency and severity of intimate partner violence), and Straus and Gilles??? (1990) Very Severe Violence Scale (for detecting the presence of childhood physical abuse). No statistically significant differences were found between clinical and non-clinical populations on empathy scores; there was no significant relationship found between empathy and childhood abuse; and empathy was not found to be a significant predictor of battering behavior. However, the data did indicate that childhood physical abuse was a statistically significant predictor of both minor intimate partner violence, p = .001, and severe intimate partner violence, p = .02