(PS1-C75) Emotion Regulation and Intimate Partner Violence: A Meta-analysis

Summary: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health issue, which leads to deleterious health outcomes and considerable financial costs for millions of individuals each year. As such, research informing IPV’s prevention is paramount. Emotion regulation (ER)—defined as both the activation of a goal to influence the emotion trajectory (Gross, 2011) and ER deficits (Gratz & Roemer, 2004)—is one predictor of IPV perpetration that has been situated in etiological models as a variable that may either decrease or increase the likelihood of IPV perpetration. No previous meta-analysis has analyzed the aggregate magnitude of ER’s association with IPV perpetration despite considerable evidence to suggest both its association with IPV perpetration and its amenability to therapeutic intervention. The present meta-analysis analyzes the association between these variables, as well as variables that moderate the magnitude of their association.

Methods: Databases were searched for relevant articles using ER and IPV keywords. Meta-analysis was used to examine the strength of association between ER and IPV perpetration and meta-regression was used to examine the following moderators of the ER-IPV association: gender, sample type, type of IPV, type of ER (i.e., cognitive reappraisal, experiential avoidance, etc.), ER-IPV conceptualization (i.e., ER increases IPV perpetration or ER decreases IPV perpetration), and ER conceptualization (i.e., trait-like or strategy use). Database searches returned 2,981 unique articles, 213 of which were extracted for full text review, and 62 of which were included in meta-analyses.

Results: Meta-analysis demonstrated a small omnibus association between ER and IPV perpetration (r = .14; r = .09 when accounting for publication bias). Results also demonstrated significant moderation, such that the magnitude of association between ER and IPV perpetration varied according to IPV perpetration, ER construct, and whether ER was modeled as a predictor that increased or decreased IPV perpetration. Specifically, ER was associated only with physical, psychological, and sexual IPV perpetration, and IPV perpetration was associated with ER deficits but not ER strategy use. Findings also suggested that ER was more strongly associated with IPV perpetration when modeled as a predictor that increased, relative to decreased, IPV perpetration. The magnitude of association between ER and IPV perpetration did not vary by gender or sample type. 

Conclusions: The present results complement a recently published review of the ER-IPV literature (Neilson et al., 2021) by providing meta-analytic estimates that suggest that ER deficits are meaningful risk factors for IPV perpetration regardless of gender or sample type. Results of this meta-analysis may further support current efforts to develop and evaluate ER-focused interventions for IPV perpetrators (Jaffe et al., 2017; Zarling et al., 2015) by suggesting meaningful pathways to IPV risk reduction. Specifically, these results suggest that clinicians should consider using cognitive and behavioral therapeutic interventions aimed at reducing the likelihood that provocation produces an urge to aggress by intervening on ER deficits.