The control motive in intimate partner violence

Violence is often used to control the behavior of others. Some scholars hypothesize that this motive is particularly common when men attack their female partners To measure the control motive we determine whether the offender ill assaults threatened the victim before the attack; threats typically are used to control others' behavior We predict a statistical interaction involving offender's gender, victim's gender, and offender-victim relationship. Analyses based oil data from the revised National Crime Victimization Survey reveal such an interaction, suggesting that assaults by husbands against their wives are more likely than other assaults to be motivated by efforts at control.