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Publication AlertEarlier this year, @DrLizBates @Kealey_Psych and a former student Ledja Noku and I had a paper published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence which explored undergraduates' judgements of bidirectional domestic abuse https://bit.ly/31A7Ckq
This study asked students to make various judgements (i.e., seriouness, who should call the police etc.) about hypothetical abuse scenarios which varied by abuse type (physical vs. psychological) and the proportion of abuse by each party (male dominated, equal, female dominated)
Of particular interest was how participants allocated 'victim' and 'perpetrator' labels (there was also the option of 'both')
Results showed that participants infrequently allocated 'victim' labels to the men, and 'perpetrator' labels to women in the scenarios, even when the information suggested that these labels would be appropriate
Participants were also more likely to be recommended that the woman in the scenario call the police, rather than the man, across all scenarios (i.e., even when the woman was perpetrating most of the abuse)
We have therefore suggested that participants' judgements may be informed by well-known stereotypes around domestic abuse and gender (which cast men only as abusers), and that this may have an implication for men's help-seeking upon victimisation.
Moreover, we therefore suggest that we can only make in-roads to adaquately supporting men if we begin to address these stereotypes across the board, including support services and government departments/policy frameworks etc.
