Toxic Expectations: Proposing and Testing Violent Entitlement Theory to Predict Intimate Partner Violence

While research on intimate partner violence (IPV) is extensive, research investigating the motivations of IPV perpetration have yielded inconsistent evidence and opposing theoretical (and often atheoretical) frameworks across a diverse range of disciplines. These issues, in part, are due to scholars not a) agreeing on basic IPV terminology, b) distinguishing between different forms of IPV, c) considering relational dynamics, and d) accounting for cultural factors that may shift from couple to couple. In this dissertation, I attempt to address these gaps by proposing a new theoretical framework titled Violent Entitlement Theory (VET) that seeks to explain acts of IPV that are not necessarily embedded in dynamics of long-term interpersonal control. VET stipulates that this form of IPV is enacted as a punishment against a partner that is driven most proximally by anger arising from a sense of unfulfilled relational entitlement that is contextually-and culturally-bound. I propose that URE can generally be calculated through a specific formula that considers metrics from both individuals in a dyad. Importantly, I expect that increased URE elevates risk of psychological aggression (H1) and physical assault (H2) and that these effects are moderated by gender (RQ1/RQ2). I conducted two studies—an experiment and a cross-sectional survey study—to test the validity of VET-based predictions. Overall, results from Study 1 and Study 2 suggest that URE is associated with physical assault perpetration (H2), but not psychological aggression (H1). In Study 2 (but not Study 1), gender moderated the effect of URE’s role on physical assault perpetration (RQ2) such that as URE increases for men, physical assault perpetration increases. This effect is the opposite for women, however, such that as URE increases, physical assault decreases. Gender did not, however, moderate the link between URE and psychological aggression in either study (RQ1). Overall, these results suggest that key ideas in VET, particularly regarding URE and male led physical assault perpetration, can contribute new perspective on the correlates of IPV