Male Perpetrators of Intimate Partner
Violence and Implicit Attitudes Toward
Violence: Associations with Treatment
Outcomes
Christopher I. Eckhardt & Cory A. Crane
Cognitive Therapy and Research
ISSN 0147-5916
Volume 38
Number 3
Cogn Ther Res (2014) 38:291-301
DOI 10.1007/s10608-013-9593-5
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Cogn Ther Res (2014) 38:291–301
DOI 10.1007/s10608-013-9593-5
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Male Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence and Implicit
Attitudes Toward Violence: Associations with Treatment
Outcomes
Christopher I. Eckhardt • Cory A. Crane
Published online: 4 January 2014
Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract The present study examined the associations
among implicit attitudes toward factors related to intimate
partner violence (IPV) and objective, behavioral outcomes
of participants legally mandated to attend partner violence
interventions. Twenty-six male offenders, adjudicated
within the past month on IPV charges, completed three sets
of gender and violence themed implicit associations tests
(IATs) to evaluate the relationships between implicit
evaluations of women and violence and three key outcome
measures assessed 6 months after enrollment in the study:
self-reported prior year IPV perpetration, completion of a
court-mandated partner abuse program, and criminal reoffending. IAT results indicated that more rapid associations
between violence-related words and positive valences,
rather than gender evaluations or associations between
gender and violence, were associated with greater IPV
perpetration during the year prior to involvement in the
study as well as with poorer outcomes (i.e., greater treatment non-compliance and criminal recidivism) at the
6-month follow-up. Among explicit measures, only negative partner violence outcome expectancies were marginally associated with treatment compliance. None of the
explicit measures predicted previous violence or recidivism. The findings are discussed in the context of reducing
violence through promoting implicit cognitive change.
C. I. Eckhardt (&)
Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University,
703 3rd Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
e-mail: eckhardt@purdue.edu
C. A. Crane
Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, SUNY,
Buffalo, NY, USA
Keywords Intimate partner violence Implicit
associations Attitudes Treatment outcome
Introduction
Over the last several decades, researchers have made significant advances in understanding, assessing, and treating
intimate partner violence (IPV) (for a review, see O’Leary
and Woodin 2009). In response to alarmingly high rates of
IPV (e.g., Schafer et al. 1998), researchers and clinicians
have developed a variety of etiologic models to explain the
phenomenon of IPV, to guide the assessment of key risk
factors that might predict its occurrence, and to assist in the
development of IPV treatment programs (Dixon and Graham-Kevan 2011).
Cognitive variables are ubiquitous in their inclusion
across broad theoretical models of IPV, and the accumulated evidence indeed suggests that IPV perpetrators report
more distorted cognitions than comparison samples (Eckhardt and Dye 2000; Stith et al. 2004). For example,
Eckhardt et al. (1998) found that violent males articulated
greater hostile attribution biases, irrational beliefs (e.g.,
awfulizing and demandingness; Ellis 1994), and cognitive
biases (e.g., magnification and dichotomous thinking; Beck
1976) than either maritally distressed and nonviolent men
or maritally nondistressed and nonviolent men during a
simulated conflict paradigm. Therefore, it is not surprising
that most treatment approaches for IPV perpetrators are
based upon variations of cognitive-behavioral models that
attempt to modify behavior, in part, through prosocial
cognitive change (Eckhardt et al. 2013). In the present
study, we build upon recent data suggesting the importance of considering implicit cognitive processes when
conceptualizing the role of cognitive distortions in IPV
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perpetration (Eckhardt et al. 2012; Robertson and Murachver 2007). Specifically, we examined associations
among implicit and explicit attitudes, treatment compliance, and criminal recidivism within a sample of men
adjudicated for an IPV offense.
Models of IPV perpetration have postulated that a wide
range of cognitive and attitudinal variables increase the
likelihood of IPV in close relationships. Cognitions associated with IPV includes misogynistic beliefs and
endorsement of patriarchal norms (Yllo and Straus 1990),
attitudes that positively endorse the use of aggression in
close relationships (Kaufman-Kantor and Straus 1990),
general and specific biases in various stages of social
information processing (Eckhardt et al. 1998; HoltzworthMunroe 1992), and a tendency to minimize or deny one’s
role in conflicts (Henning and Holdford 2006). As noted by
several authors (Eckhardt et al. 2012; Polaschek et al.
2009; Ward 2000), these models have largely based their
conceptualizations on data stemming from measures
designed to assess explicit aspects of cognitive distortions,
such as self-report questionnaires. Explicit attitudes are
conscious, controlled, and systematic thoughts that contribute to instrumental and intentional actions (Dovidio
et al. 1996). Explicit measures require respondents to
effortfully recollect an amalgam of cognitive activity
across myriad contexts, affects, and other temporally relevant factors (Davison et al. 1983). However, researchers
have shown that respondents are, at best, only able to
provide post hoc representations of ‘‘what they think they
think,’’ but perhaps not how they process information in
specific interpersonal contexts. Such cognitive processes
are presumed to operate at a more implicit level and to be
largely outside of conscious awareness (Nisbett and Wilson
1977; Eckhardt and Dye 2000). Clinically, explicit measures of violence-related attitudes are susceptible to biases
associated with intentional deception and social desirability, which are critical concerns when assessing individuals
involved in the criminal justice system.
Thus, while data on explicit cognitions have proven a
useful starting point, models of IPV would benefit from a
more expansive approach to defining cognitive distortions
that considers the role of more automatic and implicit
forms of cognitive processing in predicting interpersonal
aggression (Nosek and Smyth 2007; Ward and Hudson
2000). Implicit attitudes are operationalized as automatic,
largely unintentional cognitive processes closely linked to
contextual stimuli, affective states, memory, and enduring
patterns of personality and behavior (Greenwald and
Banaji 1995; Ward 2000). To better assess implicit cognitive processes related to interpersonal aggression, a
variety of measurement approaches have been developed
(for an overview, see James and LeBreton 2012). One such
method, the implicit association test (IAT; Greenwald et al.
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1998), has emerged as the most widely used measure of
implicit attitudinal strength and concept preference. In the
IAT, respondents are presented with a series of categorization trials that involve sorting specific construct attributes along positive and negative valence dimensions. The
IAT has demonstrated superior psychometric properties
across nonclinical and clinical samples (Greenwald et al.
2009).
Researchers using the IAT with violent samples have
typically examined the ability of implicit cognitions to
discriminate specific offenders from controls, with data
supporting the use of the IAT for this purpose (Brown et al.
2009; Gray et al. 2003, 2005; Nunes et al. 2007; Robertson
and Murachver 2007). Specifically, the IAT has reliably
differentiated between child sexual offenders and nonsexual offenders (Nunes et al. 2007) and has been used to
provide insight into the positive evaluation of violence held
by psychopathic murderers in comparison to non-psychopathic murderers (Gray et al. 2003). IAT researchers have
also reported an association between engaging in aggressive behavior in the lab and subsequent increases in
aggressive self-concept (Bluemke et al. 2010; Richetin
et al. 2010; Uhlmann and Swanson 2004).
Only one published study has used the IAT to specifically discriminate an IPV sample from community adults
with no IPV history. Eckhardt et al. (2012) administered
IATs assessing positive/negative attitudes toward women,
positive/negative attitudes toward violence, and associations between violence and gender to a group of 50 IPV
offenders and 40 nonviolent controls. Results indicated
that, relative to nonviolent males, men in treatment for IPV
showed more positive associations to violence-related
stimuli and more rapid associations between violence and
women. No group differences were found on measures of
explicit cognitive distortions, suggesting that implicit
measures may play an important role in furthering our
understanding of the cognitive processes involved in IPV.
However, associations between implicit cognitive content
and behavioral outcomes of IPV-focused treatments have
yet to be empirically investigated. Taken together, the
results of IAT investigations among general criminal
offenders and IPV perpetrators suggest that implicit attitudes may influence behavioral responding and are capable
of detecting those who have engaged in recent violent
behavior. Implicit attitudes may be similarly predictive of
future violence as indexed by criminal recidivism and may
relate to a broader pattern of noncompliance with interventions aimed at decreasing violent attitudes and behavior
(Sherman et al. 1992; Wooldredge and Thistlewaite 2002).
The present investigation aimed to provide a preliminary
exploration of the ability of the IAT to predict IPV-related
treatment outcomes by examining associations among IAT
measures (i.e., attitudes toward women, attitudes toward
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Cogn Ther Res (2014) 38:291–301
violence, connections between women and violence),
explicit attitudes (outcome evaluations for IPV; attitudes
toward IPV and nonviolent change), pretreatment selfreports of IPV perpetration/victimization, and treatment
outcome data in a sample of males adjudicated on charges
of intimate partner assault. Specifically, we examined
whether explicit and implicit measures of IPV-related
attitudes administered prior to treatment predicted attrition
from court-mandated IPV treatment programs and criminal
recidivism according to official reports of these outcomes
over a 6-month period. Given prior findings using a different sample (Eckhardt et al. 2012), we hypothesized that
male participants’ reports of IPV perpetration prior to study
involvement would be positively associated with (1) violence-related attitudes as assessed by the IAT (but not by
explicit measures), and (2) IAT-assessed attitudes linking
violence and females. We further hypothesized that (3)
IAT-assessed attitudes favoring violence would be associated with adverse outcomes at 6-month follow-up,
including (a) low treatment compliance and (b) high
recidivism. We expected explicit measures of IPV-related
attitudes to be unrelated to study outcomes. We did not
propose a priori hypotheses regarding the relationships
among gender-evaluation or gender-violence attitudes and
treatment outcomes due to the limited number of prior
studies examining associations among these constructs.
Methods
Participants
Twenty-nine males were identified by probation officers
during intake and referred to participate in the study being
conducted at the Marion County probation department in
Indianapolis, IN. Eligible participants were consenting
adults adjudicated on a domestic violence-related offense
involving an intimate partner. Three individuals opted not
to participate in the study, citing limited available time,
resulting in a final sample size of 26 participants. No
females presented to probation orientation for an IPVrelated offense during the study enrollment period. All
males were informed that participation was entirely voluntary and would have no impact on legal involvement.
Participants received $20 compensation for the 1-h session.
Participants were, on average, 32.2 years old (SD =
12.5 years). The average relationship length was 6.9
(SD = 7.2) years. Eight (30.7 %) participants had not
completed high school, seven (26.9 %) had graduated from
high school or earned a GED, and 11 (42.3 %) had completed educational training beyond high school. Fifteen
(57.7 %) participants were Caucasian and the remaining 11
(42.3 %) participants were African American.
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Procedure
Recruitment and Assessment
The Marion County Probation Department scheduled all
new IPV cases for orientation on the same day each week
between April and October of 2010. Eligible participants
completed mandatory probation procedures before being
offered the opportunity to participate in the current study.
A researcher approached potential participants and identified himself as a university, rather than probation,
employee. Interested participants signed an informed consent agreement and then completed assessment measures,
including a sociodemographic questionnaire and the
Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2; Straus et al. 1996)
to assess physical (12-items) and verbal/psychological (8items) IPV perpetration (a = .79) and victimization
(a = .84) within the previous year. Participants responded
verbally using a 7-point Likert scale to rate the frequency
of occurrence for each item.
Explicit Attitudes
The pre-treatment assessment battery included two additional measures to assess explicit attitudes toward and
acceptance of violence against female partners. Participants verbally responded to items on both measures using a
5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘‘strongly agree’’ to
‘‘strongly disagree.’’
The 35-item Safe At Home Scale (SAH; Begun et al.
2003) is a measure of IPV-related readiness to change.
Items focus on respondents’ attitudes toward relationship
conflict, attitudes toward women, and general attitudes
toward changing abusive behavior. The SAH consists of
separate subscales for Precontemplation (e.g., ‘‘It’s her
fault I act this way when we disagree’’), Contemplation
(e.g., ‘‘I want to do something about my problem with
conflict’’), and Action (e.g., ‘‘Even though I get angry, I
know ways to keep from losing control’’). The scale also
provides a Readiness to Change index (RCI: Contemplation ? Action - Precontemplation), which reflects attitudes about the violence as well as the need to remain
violent or non-violent. The SAH possesses strong psychometric properties (a = .67–.87; Eckhardt and Utschig
2007) and has demonstrated both concurrent and predictive
validity among IPV samples as stage-based subscales were
related to attributions and minimization of violence, denial
of responsibility, and self-efficacy in the expected directions at both intake as well as a post-treatment follow-up
(Begun et al. 2003).
The Outcome Expectancies for Partner Abuse Scale
(OEPA; Meis et al. 2010) produces subscale scores for
positive (13 items; a = .83) and negative (11 items;
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a = .70) expectancies about the consequences of perpetrating partner violence (e.g., Angry words help me get
what I want; If I am aggressive or violent, my partner may
try to get revenge). Meis et al. (2010) describe these
expectancies as valenced attitudes about the use of violence
in close relationships, with high positive outcome expectancies reflecting the attitude that violence may be beneficial and negative outcome expectancies suggesting the
attitude that violence may be harmful or counterproductive
to individual or relationship goals. Both subscales of this
measure have demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity among IPV perpetrators with strong
correlations on subscales of the Revised Conflict Tactics
Scale (Straus et al. 1996), the State Trait Anger Expression
Inventory (Spielberger 1988), as well as self and partner
reported legal outcomes (Meis et al. 2010).
Implicit Attitudes
The computerized implicit association test (IAT; Greenwald et al. 1998) is a response-time task that requires
participants to strike different keyboard keys to first classify a series of stimuli word using an initial pair of target
contrasts (e.g., cat and dog). In a second block of 20 trials,
participants are asked to do the same with a new set of
stimuli and attribute contrasts (e.g., bad and good). Participants are then asked to complete a set of 20 practice
trials in which the contrasts are paired before completing a
set of 40 combined trials (cat/bad and dog/good). Participants then complete one more block of 20 single classification choices with the attribute exemplars in a revised
order on the screen (e.g., good then bad) before completing
a set of 20 practice trials and a block of 40 more combined
trials (cat/good, dog/bad). Participants receive immediate
feedback on their responses with a large red X in the center
of the screen for incorrect responses and a large green
checkmark for correct responses. Participants are forced to
enter the correct choice before advancing to the next trial.
Stronger attitudes are inferred from faster responses during
the block containing the target-attribute combination.
Participants in the current study completed three different
IATs designed to assess participants’ implicit attitudes
towards IPV-related constructs. These IATs were previously
shown to differentiate between males with a history of IPV
mandated to attend a treatment program and a comparison
sample of males without a history of IPV (Eckhardt et al.
2012). The first IAT was designed to assess the participant’s
attitudes toward violence in general and consisted of terms
associated with good/bad and violence/non-violence contrasts. The second IAT called upon the participants to classify stimulus words as good/bad and female/male to
determine attitudes toward women. The final IAT combined
violence and gender items to assess implicit associations
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Table 1 Implicit association test stimulus words
Attribute contrasts
Target contrasts
Female (male)
Good (bad)
Non-violence
(violence)
1. Emily (Peter)
1. Super (nasty)
1. Quiet (hit)
2. Anna (Robert)
2. Celebrate (awful)
2. Compromise (force)
3. Michelle (Daniel)
4. Mary (David)
3. Happy (humiliate)
4. Beautiful (evil)
3. Cool (fight)
4. Calm (attack)
5. Rebecca (Paul)
5. Laughter (failure)
5. Talk (assault)
6. Jennifer (Ben)
6. Wonderful (agony)
6. Peaceful (destroy)
7. Julia (John)
7. Friendly (horrible)
7. Serene (power)
8. Susan (Jeffrey)
8. Joyful (painful)
8. Easy (battle)
between violence and women. See Table 1 for all stimulus
terms. All trials of the combined tasks evidenced high
internal consistency (a = .93–.97). Higher scores on these
tasks represent the constellation of prosocial associations
including, (1) negative attitudes toward violence, (2) positive
attitudes toward women, and (3) beliefs consistent with an
association between women and non-violence.
Treatment Compliance and Recidivism
Follow-up data regarding treatment outcomes were
retrieved from a manual search of on-site electronic probation files. Research personnel were given full access to
the files of each participant 6 months after the initial
intake. Follow-up data beyond 6 months were disregarded.
Treatment compliance was assessed as a single, dichotomous variable. A participant who had attended treatment
sessions regularly and had either completed, or was ontrack to complete, a mandated abuser intervention program
was categorized as treatment compliant. Participants who
opted to prematurely terminate, were terminated from
treatment for absenteeism or rule violation, absconded or
eloped from probation, or had probation revoked for any
reason was categorized as treatment non-compliant.
Twelve (46.2 %) participants were treatment compliant at
the 6-month follow-up.
Recidivism was also coded as a single, dichotomous
variable. Participants who had been arrested during the
6-month follow-up period for violating probation or subsequent criminal activities were identified as having recidivated. Participants who had not been rearrested, even if
they had minor probation violations or had been temporarily removed from treatment, at the time of follow-up
were identified as not having recidivated. Ten (38.5 %)
participants had recidivated at the 6-month follow-up. Of
these, four re-offenders were arrested for an IPV-related
charge, including stalking, confinement, harassment, violation of a protection order, battery, or assault.
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Data Analysis
Each IAT trial produced a measurement of response
latency in milliseconds. Greenwald et al. (2003) compared
six algorithms for preparing IAT data for analysis and
concluded that each has inherent benefits with no clearly
superior preparation method. In the current study, error
trial latencies were retained. This method of addressing
error trials using built-in error penalties proved superior to
calculating artificial error penalties. Further, as the benefit
of eliminating latencies below 400 ms produces such
insignificant gains as to be considered a ‘‘questionable’’
strategy, we retained these values as well (Greenwald et al.
2003, p. 213). Latencies larger than 10,000 ms were
eliminated. The first two trials of each block were retained.
Latency measures were used to determine implicit
preferences for each of the three evaluative pairings by
calculating the IAT D, a statistic with a range of -2.00 to
2.00 similar to the effect size d statistic (Greenwald et al.
2003). IAT D scores were calculated by dividing the difference in response latencies for two conditions (e.g. violence good/peaceful bad; violence bad/peaceful good) by
the standard deviation of all response latencies across
conditions. Small, medium, and large IAT effects parallel
Cohen’s (1988) values of .2, .5, and .8, respectively.
We first present data pertaining to general trends in
response rates across the sample, and then describe associations between individual implicit attitudes and intake
measures of IPV related constructs during the year prior to
treatment. We then present effect sizes for associations
between IAT scores and treatment compliance/outcome
variables.
Results
Participants reported a moderate frequency of physical IPV
perpetration (M = 2.58, SD = 2.53) and verbal IPV perpetration (M = 2.00, SD = 1.39) in the year prior to
treatment. Seven participants (26.9 %) denied their criminal charges and reported having perpetrated no physical
IPV, two participants (7.7 %) denied any perpetration of
verbal aggression, and 1 participant (3.8 %) reported perpetrating no physical or verbal aggression. Participants
reported comparable physical and verbal victimization
(M = 3.00, SD = 2.64; M = 2.12, SD = 1.24, respectively). Six (23.1 %) denied physical, four (15.4 %) denied
verbal, and three (11.5 %) denied any IPV victimization.
Physical IPV was largely bidirectional, based upon the selfreport of male participants, with 19 (73.1 %) participants
reporting both perpetration and victimization and 3
(11.5 %) participants reporting neither. Similar results
were found with regard to verbal IPV, with 23 (88.5 %)
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participants reporting both perpetration and victimization,
and one (3.8 %) reporting neither perpetration nor victimization of verbal IPV.
IAT Intercorrelations
While the attitudes toward violence IAT was not significantly associated with other IAT measures, the attitudes
toward gender and gender violence pairing IAT were significantly intercorrelated (r = .49, p = .01). This latter
correlation indicates that males who associate females with
violence are also likely to negatively evaluate females and
that males who associate females with non-violence also
evaluate them more positively than their counterparts.
Violence IAT
Participants responded significantly more rapidly to violence/negative and nonviolence/positive trials (M = 904.91,
SD = 425.92) than violence/positive and nonviolence/negative trials (M = 1,700.21, SD = 875.84), t(48) = -4.08,
p \ .001. Only two participants (8.0 %) responded more
rapidly to items in which violence was paired with positive
rather than negative terms. In this sample of partner violent
men, there was a strong preference for non-violence over
violence, D = .82, SD = .55.
As seen in Table 2, scores on the attitudes toward violence IAT were associated with self-reported pretreatment
IPV victimization, with the relationship between the
D score on the violence evaluation IAT and verbal IPV
victimization significant and negative (r = -.41, p = .04).
This finding suggests that males who experience more
verbal aggression from their partner also evaluate violence
more positively. Further, attitudes toward violence IAT
scores shared marginally significant relationships with
composite measures of both physical IPV victimization
(r = -.37, p = .07) and perpetration (r = -.36, p = .08).
Thus, a greater preference for violence-good pairings was
marginally related to more frequent physical IPV perpetration and victimization, partially supporting hypothesis 1.
There was a statistically significant difference in attitudes
toward violence IAT scores between those who reoffended
during the 6-month follow-up period (M = .54, SD = .61)
and those who did not (M = 1.01, SD = .42), t(23) = 2.25,
p = .04, d = .92. There was also a significant difference on
the violence IAT between participants who were in compliance with treatment after 6 months (M = 1.08, SD =
.30) and those who were not (M = .59, SD = .63), t(22) =
-2.32, p = .03, d = -.95. Thus, participants who were
non-compliant with treatment and had reoffended demonstrated a lower implicit preference for non-violence than
their compliant and non-reoffending counterparts, offering
support for hypotheses 3a and 3b (Figs. 1, 2).
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Table 2 Bivariate intercorrelations between implicit attitudes, explicit measures, and pretreatment IPV
Variable
1
2
3
4
–
-.32
-.20
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Implicit attitudes
1. Violence evaluation
2. Gender evaluation
3. Gender–violence
–
-.28
-.31
-.36*
-.41**
.07
.13
.05
.30
.22
.53
.35
.36
-.22
-.04
-.06
-.09
-.10
.06
.03
.04
-.12
-.07
.13
.69**
.14
.19
.19
-.32
.06
-.16
.92**
.16
.39**
.35*
.02
-.22
-.11
.18
.38*
.35*
-.12
-.14
-.15
.49**
–
-.31
-.37*
-.08
-05
IPV perpetration
4. Verbal
5. Physical
–
.34*
–
6. Composite
–
IPV victimization
7. Verbal
8. Physical
9. Composite
–
.60**
–
–
.80**
.15
-.18
.02
.96**
-.19
.67
-.18
.33
-.31
.26
Explicit measures
10. Negative
Expectancies
-.21
11. Positive expectancies
–
12. Readiness to change
.44**
-.31
–
IPV intimate partner violence
* p \ .10; ** p \ .05
Fig. 1 IAT D-scores for non-violence preference among treatment
compliance groups on the attitudes toward violence implicit association test. IAT implicit association test; Error bars represent standard
error of the mean
Fig. 2 IAT D-scores for non-violence preference among reoffender
groups on the attitudes toward violence implicit association test. IAT
implicit association test; Error bars represent standard error of the
mean
Gender IAT
not significantly related to measures of pre-treatment IPV
perpetration or victimization. Similarly, there were no
significant differences on gender IAT scores between those
who had recidivated (M = .25, SD = .58) and those who
had not (M = .07, SD = .37), t(24) = -.90, p = .38,
d = -.36, and those who were in compliance with treatment after the first 6 months (M = .02, SD = .42) and
those who were not (M = .24, SD = .51), t(23) = 1.16,
p = .26, d = .47. It is worth noting that, despite non-significant findings, the small-to-medium effect sizes indicate
that those who had reoffended or were not in compliance
with treatment after 6 months had more positive
There was no significant difference in responses to female
names with positive evaluation terms (and male names
with negative terms) (M = 1,161.32, SD = 589.17) and
responses to female names with negative terms (and male
names with positive terms) (M = 1,219.18, SD = 632.79),
t(50) = .34, p = .74. The IAT effect (D = .15, SD = .47)
was very small. There was no evidence of preferences
toward males or females in the current sample. IAT results
indicated that nine participants (34.6 %) thought more
positively about males than females. The gender IAT was
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Table 3 Means and group differences on implicit and explicit measures
Measures
Compliance group
Non-compliant
(n = 14)
M (SD)
Recidivism group
Compliant
(n = 11)
M (SD)
t
p
Non-reoffender
(n = 15)
M (SD)
Reoffender
(n = 11)
M (SD)
t
p
IAT: violence
.59 (.63)
1.08 (.30)
-2.32
.03
1.01 (.42)
.54 (.61)
2.25
.04
IAT: Gender
.24 (.51)
.02 (.42)
1.16
.26
.08 (.37)
.24 (.58)
-.90
.38
IAT: Gender–violence
.11 (.37)
-.25 (.34)
2.50
.02
-.13 (.38)
.10 (.40)
-1.48
.15
.81
Positive expectancy
47.64 (9.44)
48.73 (10.08)
-.28
.78
48.93 (10.18)
48.00 (9.17)
.24
Negative expectancy
15.00 (4.67)
18.73 (4.84)
-1.95
.06
17.40 (4.93)
15.82 (5.02)
.80
.43
Readiness to change
20.43 (16.64)
18.14 (13.57)
.37
.72
18.55 (15.52)
21.78 (14.82)
-.53
.60
IAT implicit association test
evaluations of female names in comparison to their counterparts (Table 3).
Gender–Violence IAT
There was no significant difference in responses to trials in
which females and violence were paired (M = 1,097.61,
SD = 494.00) relative to trials when female and non-violent terms were paired (M = 1,158.83, SD = 608.52),
t(48) = .35, p = .73. Eleven participants (44.0 %) demonstrated a greater association between females and violence than females and non-violence. Participants in the
current study did not associate women with violence more
than nonviolence, D = -.04, SD = .40. Hypothesis 2 was
disconfirmed as implicit associations between gender and
violence did not share a significant relationship with any
pretreatment IPV perpetration or victimization variables.
There was no statistically significant difference on the
gender–violence IAT between those who reoffended
(M = .10, SD = .40) and those who did not (M = -.13,
SD = .38) at the 6 month follow-up, t(23) = -1.48,
p = .15, d = -.06. There was a significant difference in
implicit associations between those in compliance with
treatment (M = -.25, SD = .34) and those not in compliance (M = .11, SD = .37), t(22) = 2.50, p = .02,
d = 1.02. The large effect size indicates that males who
were not in compliance with treatment associated women
with non-violence more so than violence.
Explicit Measures
Associations among measures of explicit attitudes, treatment outcomes, pre-treatment IPV, and implicit attitudes
were also evaluated. Participants who reported greater
negative expectancies associated with IPV were more
likely to be in compliance with treatment at the 6-month
follow-up, t(23) = -1.95, p = .06. No other compliance
or recidivism group differences approached significance
on explicit measures of positive expectancy, negative
expectancy, or readiness to change. There were no significant associations among explicit measures and selfreported IPV perpetration or victimization. Additionally,
no relationships were detected between measures of
explicit and implicit attitudes.
Discussion
The present study sought to examine the relative contributions of implicit versus explicit attitudes as measured by
the IAT in predicting treatment outcomes among a sample
justice-involved male IPV offenders. As hypothesized, the
study found that implicit attitudes towards violence predicted higher attrition and increased criminal recidivism,
whereas explicit attitudes were inconsistently related to
treatment outcomes. In keeping with existing research
comparing implicit attitudes among IPV offenders to nonoffenders (e.g., Eckhardt et al. 2012), this forensic sample
of partner violent offenders demonstrated general disapproval of violence, egalitarian attitudes toward gender, and
no significant implicit associations between women and
violence. Despite participants’ general congruence with
societal norms favoring nonviolence (i.e., Felson et al.
2003), males in this study who exhibited IAT responses
biased towards violence-related constructs were more
likely to be noncompliant with court-mandated interventions and more likely to be criminally involved at followup. These findings are reviewed in more detail below.
Results supported hypothesis 1, but not 2, as implicit
attitudes toward violence, rather than implicit attitudes
toward women or associations between women and violence, were the only implicit measure associated with
pretreatment IPV perpetration and victimization. This
relationship was in the expected direction and indicated
that greater reports of violence perpetration or victimization in one’s relationship were associated with implicit
approval of violence. There is some evidence to suggest
that elements of cognitive dissonance may alter one’s
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perception of violence while involved in a violent relationship (Williams and Frieze 2005; Johnson 1995).
Alternatively, males who approve of the use of violence
may select into and maintain relationships in which violent
behavior is accepted. Further longitudinal study would be
required for a greater understanding of the dynamic nature
of implicit attitudes toward violence and how they may be
influenced by or exert influence over acts of IPV. Future
treatment outcome studies of intervention programs for
IPV perpetrators may benefit from the inclusion of implicit
measures that assess attitudes toward violence. This is
particularly important given the ease with which an
offender can intuitively falsify explicit measures to produce the appearance of non-violent cognitive and behavioral change.
Similarly, implicit attitudes toward violence were
associated with treatment outcomes such that more positive implicit attitudes toward non-violence predicted
treatment compliance and reduced recidivism, offering
support for our hypotheses. Participants with more
favorable attitudes toward violence may be both more
prone to engage in violent and aggressive criminal
activities that result in frequent legal involvement, and
more resistant to behavior change than individuals with
stronger implicit preferences for non-violence. Certainly,
reoffending and treatment non-compliance can be viewed
as interdependent outcomes, as prior research has clearly
established an important link between attrition from IPV
treatment and subsequent rates of criminal recidivism
(e.g., Bennett et al. 2007).
Analyses involving the gender–violence IAT revealed
stronger associations between women and violence among
treatment non-compliant, relative to treatment compliant,
males. This finding may be interpreted through feminist
and social learning theories of IPV. These models suggest
that males, and partner violent males in particular, have
learned via ongoing socialization processes of the legitimacy of coercive control tactics in close relationships as
means to assert power and dominance. Such traditional
gender stereotypes have been associated with partner violence using explicit measures, and these attitudes may hold
true for implicit assessment as well (Ehrensaft and Vivian
1999; Mihalic and Elliott 1997; O’Neil 1981). While pretreatment IPV was independent of scores on the gender–
violence IAT, the association between gender and violence
shared a strong relationship with treatment outcome such
that males who held more traditional gender attitudes were
less likely to comply with treatment. Possessing traditional
gender-role attitudes may have interfered with the ability to
remain motivated and compliant with treatment, as many
intervention programs tend to discourage traditional or
misogynistic views through the promotion of egalitarian
values (Murphy and Eckhardt 2005).
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Explicit attitudes toward IPV-related constructs were
inconsistently associated with study outcomes. On the
expectancies measure, participants who reported negative
expectancies toward IPV perpetration were more treatment
compliant during the follow-up assessment than individuals
scoring low on this measure. However, higher positive
expectancies toward IPV were not associated with IPV
perpetration or outcomes related to IPV treatment. For the
SAH readiness to change measure, we found no significant
associations between participants’ attitudes toward IPV and
IPV-related change and outcomes of IPV treatment. These
data suggest the importance of combining explicit and
implicit measures to develop theoretically and practically
comprehensive tools to aid in treatment planning and risk
assessment.
Models of cognitive change exist for both implicit and
explicit attitudes, focusing on associative and propositional
processes, respectively. Methods of changing both implicit
and explicit attitudes are described in many dual processes
models, including the Associative-Propositional Evaluation
Model (APR; Gawronski and Bodenhausen 2006). Explicit
attitudes are susceptible to changes in conscious evaluations, generated propositions or options, and behavioral
consistency that are among the cornerstones of skills and
change techniques utilized in current BIPs. Implicit attitude
change has been linked to changing evaluative pairings
through repeatedly pairing a stimulus with something that
is negative or positive in a number of paradigms that
resemble classical conditioning (e.g. Hermans et al. 2005).
Changes in automatic pattern activation has also been
shown to modify implicit attitudes toward stimuli that are
associated with both positive and negative evaluations by
relying upon context cues evoke the more desirable association with the stimulus (e.g. Mitchell et al. 2003).
Changes in one process are likely to have a corresponding
effect on the parallel process. More comprehensive study is
required to provide IPV intervention programs with specific, empirically supported methods to modify implicit
attitudes. Intervention programs are advised to consider
supplementing their current curriculum with methods that
promote implicit in addition to explicit cognitive change
once such data become available.
Limitations
The current study was limited by a small sample size and
constricted inclusion criteria, both of which limit our ability
to generalize the current results to the larger population of
IPV perpetrators. With an increased likelihood of Type II
error, the power of our statistical tests to detect effects
between outcomes of interest and either implicit or explicit
measures was similarly limited. The small sample size further limited our ability to conduct more sophisticated
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Cogn Ther Res (2014) 38:291–301
analyses, such as controlling for prior violence in multivariate analyses or examining potential demographic moderators. While the IATs used in this study have been previously
shown to differentiate between males with and without a
history of IPV (Eckhardt et al. 2012), more data are needed to
adequately establish the validity of the IPV-related IATs
used in the present study. Finally, it is important to note that
the recidivism outcome used in this study referenced general
criminal recidivism and not IPV-specific reoffending. As this
study represented a preliminary investigation of the role of
implicit attitudes in the prediction of relevant treatment
outcomes, it was first important to empirically establish the
utility of such research. The results suggest that these associations may indeed be clinically relevant, and additional
research should be conducted with a larger sample of IPV
offenders and with more specific indicators of IPV-related
outcomes.
Further, the current investigation collected only objective
outcome data reported to the probation department by justice
and treatment personnel within 6-months of study enrollment.
Implicit and explicit measures may perform differently with
more sensitive indicators of partner violent behavior. Future
study designs should consider diverse types of treatment
outcome data and collateral reports of IPV frequency and
severity should be collected over a longer follow-up period.
The examination of clusters of implicit attitudes may
provide further information about IPV protective and risk
factors (e.g., alcohol use, psychopathy, history of antisocial
behavior, etc.). Indeed, social control theories associate
criminal offending with weak normative standards or
societal behavioral constraints. Thus, those with a higher
‘‘stake in conformity’’ (e.g., employed or married) have
more to lose from persistent legal involvement and are,
therefore, less likely to recidivate and more likely to
comply with legal mandates (Sherman et al. 1992). Implicit
attitudes may detect a broader pattern of deviance or
general failure to conform to societal standards rather than
specific tendencies to recidivate or drop out of treatment.
Conclusions
In conclusion, the current investigation supports the importance of assessing implicit attitudes in IPV research and
intervention. Implicit violence and gender–violence attitudes were significantly associated with recidivism and
treatment compliance. Further research is required to
determine the influence of implicit associations on IPV
prediction and to adapt methods of implicit cognitive change
to best serve the goals of intervention and prevention.
Acknowledgments This research was supported in part by a grant
from the Clifford B. Kinley Trust, Purdue University, awarded to
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Christopher Eckhardt. We would like to thank the personnel of the
Marion County Probation Department for their assistance in this
research.
Conflict of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
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