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Prior empirical research on intimate partner violence (IPV) in adolescence and young adulthood often focuses on exposure to violence in the family-of-origin using retrospective and cross-sectional data. Yet individuals’ families matter beyond simply the presence or absence of abuse, and these effects may vary across time. To address these issues, the present study employed five waves of longitudinal data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) to investigate the trajectory of IPV from adolescence to young adulthood (N = 950 respondents, 4,750 person-periods) with a specific focus on how familial factors continue to matter across the life course. Results indicated that family-of-origin violence and parent-child relationship quality were independent predictors of IPV. The effect of parent-child relationship quality on IPV also became greater as individuals aged. These results have implications for policies targeted at reducing IPV.

A common theme in the literature is that intimate partner violence (IPV) is not about anger, but about power and control. While prior research has focused either on respondents' or partners' controlling behaviors, an interactionist perspective provides the basis for hypothesizing that both respondent and partner control will be significantly related to the odds of reporting perpetration, and that emotional processes are a component of IPV experiences. Analyses rely on interview data collected at waves 1 and 5 of a longitudinal study (Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study; n = 928) of adolescent and young adult relationships. Results indicate that after controlling for traditional predictors, both respondent and partner control attempts and measures of anger (including a measure of relationship-based anger) contributed significantly to the odds of reporting perpetration. Further, these patterns did not differ by gender, indicating some areas of similarity in the relationship and emotional processes associated with variations in men and women's IPV reports.