Violence Trajectories Associated With Dating Violence Victimization and Perpetration: An Examination of Gendered Pathways

The present study investigated the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) during adolescence and early adulthood and general involvement in violence using publicly available data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Longitudinal Latent Class Analysis (LLCA) was utilized to investigate the patterns of violence among victims and perpetrators of IPV. The longitudinal developmental trajectories of violence involvement were then separately compared and contrasted between males and females experiencing IPV victimization and/or perpetration as well as males and females not experiencing IPV victimization and/or perpetration. While majority of youth scored low on involvement in violence as evidenced by assignment into an "abstainer" category, multiple diverse longitudinal trajectories of violence involvement were identified based on gender and exposure to IPV.