The proactive-reactive classification of intimate partner violence offenders: A multi-method approach to classification.

Background: Men who commit violence against an intimate partner differ in their motives. Classifying the proactivity of men's partner violence may reveal important differences that could be treatment targets.

Aims: To examine the differences between proactive and reactive partner violence based on coded descriptions of past violent events.

Method: Community cohabiting couples reporting intimate partner violence were recruited via advertisements. Men and women were independently interviewed about past male-to-female violent events. The narratives of a male perpetrator and a female victim were coded using a Proactive-Reactive coding system, yielding three categories of violence: reactive, mixed proactive/reactive and proactive. The three categories were compared for differences in personality disorder features, attachment, psychophysiological reactivity during a conflict discussion task, and a self- and partner report of men's proactive and reactive aggressive tendencies.

Results: The results revealed a 54% classification agreement between perpetrator and victim reports. No differences were found on personality or attachment measures between the groups regardless of gender of the reporter. Reactive violence was related to a tendency to self-report more reactive aggression and higher heart rate reactivity during a laboratory conflict discussion compared to the group reporting both proactive and reactive violent incidents.

Conclusion: This study suggests that a coding system for intimate partner violence can be applied to community volunteers, and it is a reliable report and valid. However, there are discrepancies when the coding is based on the perpetrator or victim reports.