While a growing body of literature in the field of criminal justice documents the relationship between victimization and offending, only recently has this knowledge been applied to the study of intimate partner violence (IPV). Accordingly, questions remain with regard to the theoretical origins of mutual violence between intimates. In an effort to fill this void in the literature, the current study examines the etiology of moderate forms of mutual IPV, specifically assessing self-control theory's applicability to the victim-offender overlap in IPV. Data were obtained from Waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to investigate whether low self-control at Wave I predicts IPV victimization, IPV offending, or both IPV victimization and offending at Wave IV. The present study extends prior literature examining the role of self-control in IPV by (1) investigating the influence of self-control on the victim-offender overlap in IPV, (2) using longitudinal data, and (3) utilizing a sample of U.S. adults ages 24 to 33. While low self-control was found to significantly predict IPV offending and the overlap in IPV victimization and offending, low self-control failed to significantly predict IPV victimization. Policy implications, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore women's dual experiences of IPV to examine whether their motivations fit the current framework on four types of intimate partner violence (IPV) in light of Johnson's typology, which includes: violent resistance (VR), situational couple violence (SCV), mutual violent combat (MVC), and intimate terrorism (IT) (Kelly and Johnson 2008). I applied these types of IPV to describe women's physical aggression, control, and emotional responses experienced and performed during IPV. Johnson's typology classified six of 10 participant experiences; to describe the remaining four, I applied blended types of IPV. Findings in this study indicated that VR and SCV overlooked women's use of controlling physical aggression; this study identified alternative concepts and additional dimensions of control and resistance, and introduced tempered violence resistance (TVR), a new IPV type to describe women's use of controlling physical aggression during protective violence. Correspondingly, findings also indicated that interpretations of physical aggression and control in MVC and IT did not consider wide-ranging degrees of control such as self-control, situational control, and partner control. Hence, distinctions between SCV or MVC and MVC or IT were limited by vague interpretations of control. Furthermore, VR, MVC, and IT did not fully describe women's emotional responses. These types of violence focused solely on the context of physical aggression and control, which minimized perceptions of conflict and omitted reported samples of motivations. Forthcoming studies applying Johnson's typology should include external contexts of relationship conflict and consider multiple types control and dimensions of resistance. / Ph. D.