(PS1-D91) Emotional Flooding and Intimate Partner Violence: The Moderating Role of Impulsivity

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is highly prevalent, particularly among undergraduates (Cho et al., 2020). Beyond physical health complaints, consequences of IPV include serious mental health problems (Kaura & Lohman, 2007). The widespread prevalence of IPV and its consequences highlight the need to better understand its correlates. Previous studies consistently link emotional flooding and IPV (Foran et al., 2018; Malik et al., 2019; O’Leary et al., 2007). Flooding occurs when an individual finds their partner’s negative affect as intensely disorganizing and overwhelming leading to feelings of impaired information processing (Gottman, 1993). Theory suggests that the aversive experience of flooding motivates the individual to escape the situation that elicited it, possibly through aggressive means (Gottman, 1993). Impulsivity may increase the likelihood of an aggressive outcome, in that those who are more impulsive, or quicker to react based on gut-level impulses, may be more likely to escape the experience of being flooded through aggressive means. The current study examined whether impulsivity moderates the relation between flooding and IPV. We hypothesized that the positive association between flooding and IPV would strengthen as impulsivity increases. Participants included 243 undergraduates (ages 18-24 years) who completed computerized self-report measures of emotional flooding and IPV. Due to limited consensus regarding conceptualizations of impulsivity, we included multiple measures of the construct, including self-report and behavioral task measures (Emery & Levine, 2017). A series of multivariate hierarchical linear regressions were conducted to examine the interaction between flooding and impulsivity in predicting varying types of IPV perpetration, split according to severe/minor and psychological/physical. Results indicate that the relation between flooding and psychological aggression depends on an individual’s level of impulsivity, as measured by self-report. The behavioral task measures of impulsivity were not significant as moderators.  Specifically, flooding is associated with both minor (B= .646, B_Se= .114, p </em>< .001) and severe (B= .441, B_Se= .072, p </em>< .001) psychological aggression at higher levels of self-reported impulsivity (1 SD above mean). Contrary to our hypothesis, this interaction effect was not significant for physical aggression. However, flooding is associated with both minor (B= .349, B_Se= .089, p </em>< .001) and severe (B= .278, B_Se= .065, p </em>< .001) physical aggression. Impulsivity may be particularly meaningful for the relation between flooding and psychological aggression as compared to physical aggression, which may speak to a difference in processes between the two outcomes. The clinical implications of these findings will be presented.