Exploring Social Norms and Control Coercive on Intimate Partner Violence in the Young. Implications for Prevention

Abstract

This empirical work focuses on social norms as a way of transmitting psychological violence in young people, which could be affecting the effectiveness of preventive programs in dating violence. These programs are effective in changing beliefs, but new intervention approaches are in demand due to the former’s limitations in achieving behavioral changes. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate that some dimensions of psychological violence are transmitted as a descriptive social norm, without any need of victimization. In a sample of 1,265 people (18–25 years old) and through two different studies, we explored the perception of prescriptive and descriptive social norms in situations of coercive control applied to three contexts (Study 1), isolation and domination (Study 2), under the hypothesis that coercive control is passed on as a descriptive social norm between peers. Characteristics describing diversity are taken into account. The results in frequency and Structural Equation Model analysis confirm the main hypothesis, because both perceptions are not correlated. Social norms no covariate with social characteristics. Same cannot be said of isolation and domination, leading to three conclusions for prevention. (1) Not all psychological violence works the same. Coercive control starts from a primary cognitive process that requires complementary actions, based for example on the cognitive hierarchy among social norms; (2) Preventive programs are often based on “prescribed” behaviors, related to the consequences they have on victims, whereas the descriptive social norm found in this study does not correlate with victimization, unless control is applied to specific contexts. Therefore, an additional effort in prevention could go deeper with more specific behaviors that show both the different types of psychological violence and the contexts of application; (3) Finally, at the policy level, results found call for the need for preventive efforts on psychological violence in the 18 to 25 age group and specific awareness campaigns.