Males who bullied other children during their childhood are much more likely to be violent towards their intimates partners later on in life, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, reported in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine today. The authors informed that previous research suggested that approximately one-quarter of females will experience violence from their intimate partner, and perhaps up to 40% of males have been violent to their partners.
Kathryn L. Falb, M.H.S., and team wanted to find out whether a history of bullying at school was associated with a higher chance of subsequently being involved in intimate-partner violence (IPV).
The authors wrote:
“Recent evidence strongly indicates that bullying peers in school may share common prior causes with IPV perpetration.”
They carried out a survey at three urban community health centers involving 1,491 males aged 18 to 35 years. They were questioned about IPV perpetration over the last twelve months, whether they had been bullies at school or were bullied, their exposure to parental IPV and to community violence, childhood sexual or physical abuse experience, and participation in violent or non-violent delinquency.
Below are some highlighted details from their findings:
- 241 (over 40%) of those questioned said they had either rarely or often bullied other kids when they were at school.
- 92 of those above (38.2%) said they had frequently bullied other kids when they were children
- 63 of them (26.1%) said they had rarely bullied others as children
- Frequent childhood bullies were found to be 3.82 times as likely be involved in IPV compared to those who never bullied as children, while infrequent bullies were 1.53 times as likely.
The authors wrote:
“Critically, this analysis demonstrates that those reporting school bullying are significantly more likely to perpetrate physical or sexual IPV. Potential programs that may seek to reduce bullying peers during school may also be effective avenues to reduce future violence perpetration within intimate partner relationships by focusing on the reduction of abusive behaviors and the promotion of equitable attitudes across settings, life stages, and relationships.”
Written by Christian Nordqvist