Public perception of bidirectional intimate partner violence

Abstract

Bidirectional violence is the most common form of intimate partner violence (IPV) and may influence public reactions to it. Laypeople recruited from Amazon's MTurk (n = 2248) were randomly assigned a fictional IPV vignette manipulating relationship gender dyad, direction of violence, and severity of injury. Participants generally perceived lower offender risk, lower physical and psychological harm to victim, and higher victim responsibility when violence was bidirectional, often incrementally to other case factors. Increasing our understanding of how bidirectionality influences perceptions of IPV may help combat stereotypes about IPV, improve support-seeking behaviors from “non-typical” victims, and increase accuracy of case management decisions.