Violence, sexual aggression, and psychopathy-related personality traits in college students' dating relationships

Abstract

The first purpose of the current study was to assess the relationship between sexual aggression and violence to determine whether women's higher reported rate of use of violence against a dating partner is related to defending against unwanted sexual advances. The second purpose was to determine whether psychopathy-related personality traits would differentiate subjects who reported using aggression from those subjects who did not. Subjects were 274 students from the University of Windsor with a replication sample of 174 students from the University of Saskatchewan. All subjects completed the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (Josephson & Check, 1990), a sexual aggression scale (Stets & Pirog-­Good, 1989), the Socialization scale (So; Gough, 1975), Eysenck's (1985) I-7 (impulsivity, venturesomeness, and empathy) and a similar measure by Schalling (1978), and the Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). Results indicated that, while males associate physical and sexual aggression, females do not. The Socialization scale was the only personality measure which predicted the use of physical aggression by females and the use of sexual aggression by males. Sociocultural attitudes regarding gender expectations are considered while interpreting the sex differences. Alternate research methods are suggested for further exploration of questions raised by the current study.