Date of Award

January 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Alan King

Abstract

Emotional abuse affects approximately half of people in an intimate relationship, yet it is often not considered intimate partner violence (IPV) on its own (Dokkedahl et al., 2022; Leemis et al., 2022). Despite the prevalence, there is a lack of consistency on the definition of emotional abuse and IPV as well as a lack of clarity of what acts qualify for these terms. Past research has largely focused on IPV, specifically physical or sexual abuse, in heterosexual relationships with a male perpetrator and female victim. Few studies have explored the interactions of the gender of the victim and perpetrator in all of its components. This study aims to add to the current literature by investigating how participants’ perceptions of emotionally abusive acts change depending on the gender of the participant, the gender of the perpetrator, the gender of the victim, and the history of physical abuse in the relationship. Four hypotheses were tested for the main effects of the gender of the respondent, the gender of the victim, the gender of the perpetrator, and the history of physical abuse. Three hypotheses were tested for interaction and covariate effects. The results of the final sample (N = 752) showed that the only consistent main effect was participant gender. Interaction effects were present in each of the four scenarios but were not consistent across the scenarios. This is the first study to examine all possible gender dyads between males and females in one sample and to examine how a history of physical abuse might impact perceptions of emotional abuse. These results should serve as a baseline for future research to continue to examine the relationship between the gender dyads and for additional discussions among psychologists to emerge about how to identify emotional abuse in participants of different gender identities and backgrounds.

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