The influence of Gender Role Attitudes on Intimate Partner Violence

Introduction: Intimate partner violence is a daily occurrence for a significant number of people globally (WHO, 2021). The negative effects of the issue on the health of individuals, couples and families can be extremely dire. Attempts to investigate its causes uncovered many influences, and among these are psychological and sociocultural factors (CDC, 2021), including gender role attitudes. Methodology: Scientific search engines were consulted to obtain papers regarding the direct and indirect influence of gender role attitudes in intimate partner violence. Results: The presence of traditionalist or rigid gender role attitudes in individuals, communities and their culture seems to exert a moderate wide-ranging influence on several aspects; in particular, the presence of traditionalist or rigid gender role attitudes seems to influence the likelihood of perpetration (Reidy, Berke, Gentile & Zeichner, 2014; Reyes, Foshee, Niolon, Reidy & Hall, 2015; Herrer, Torres, Rodriguez & Juarros-Basterretxea, 2017; Mulawa et al., 2017; Zuo, Lou, Gao, Lian & Shain, 2018; Gonzàlez & Rodrìguez-Planas, 2020; Sikweyiya, Addo-Lartey & Alangea, 2020), decrease the level of awareness of the issue (Lin, Sun, Wu & Liu, 2016), narrow its definitions (Jiao, Sun, Farmer & Lin, 2014; Lin, et al., 2016), increase the level of tolerance of abusive behaviors (McCloskey, Boonzaier, Steinbrenner & Hunter, 2016; Herrero, Rodriguez & Torres, 2016; Li, Sun, & Button, 2017; Zuo et al., 2018) and inhibit victims’ response as well as institutional reactions (Sun et al., 2012). Conclusions: These findings suggest that the promotion of more egalitarian and less rigid gender role attitudes might create a significant protective factor from intimate partner violence. Clinical and research implications highlighted by the literature include the necessity for more studies and the potential for interventions based on gender role attitudes (e. g. focusing on masculinity). International attempts to work on gender role attitudes seem promising in their results (Dworkin, Treves-Kagan & Lippmann, 2013; Abramsky et al., 2016; Boduszek et al., 2019) and the implementation of similar programs might prove fruitful in preventing IPV.