![handle is hein.journals/jfamv17 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2002 (© 2002)
Child Abuse Potential: A Comparison of Subtypes
of Maritally Violent Men and Nonviolent Men
Katherine Herron' and Amy Holtzworth-Munroe1,2
Researchers have demonstrated an overlap between husband-to-wife violence
and child abuse, but we know little about which maritally violent men are at
greatest risk for engaging in child abuse. This study examined child abuse po-
tential across 4 subtypes of maritally violent men (i.e., family only, low level an-
tisocial, borderline/dysphoric, and generally violent/antisocial; Holtzworth-
Munroe et al., and 2 comparison groups of nonviolent men (i.e., maritally
distressed or not), using the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP; . S.
Milner [1986])). The results revealed that the borderline/dysphoric batterer
subtype had significantly higher child abuse potential scores than all of the
other violent subtypes and the nonviolent comparison groups. Theoretical
and clinical implications are briefly discussed.
KEY WORDS: child abuse potential; batterer subtypes.
Husband violence' is a serious problem in the United States. Based on
estimates from a nationally representative survey, each year, one out of eight
husbands engages in at least one physically aggressive act toward his wife
'Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
2To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, 1101 East
10th Street, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-7007; e-mail: holtzwor@indiana.
edu.
3The terms marital violence and husband violence are used, throughout this paper, to
refer to male violence against an intimate female partner that occurs in the context of a
cohabiting or marital relationship. We believe that this term appropriately fits the current
sample, as the couples in this study responded to ads stating married couples wanted for
a study of husbands and had to be married or living together to participate in the study.
However, by using these terms, we do not mean to imply that battering occurring within a
marital relationship necessarily differs from that occurring within a cohabiting relationship or
other types of heterosexual couple relationships.
1
0885-7482/02/0300-0001/0 @ 2002 Plenum Publishing Corporation](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jfamv17&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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