Elsevier

Aggression and Violent Behavior

Volume 17, Issue 5, September–October 2012, Pages 463-474
Aggression and Violent Behavior

Reliability, validity, and prevalence of partner violence measured by the conflict tactics scales in male-dominant nations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2012.06.004Get rights and content

Abstract

This article evaluates whether use of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) with women in male-dominant nations results in reliable and valid data. Tabulation of ten published studies in male-dominant nations found a median alpha coefficient of reliability of .86. For university students in the 32 nation International Dating Violence Study, the median alpha for women is .82 and .78 for males. Similar alpha coefficients were found regardless of the national level of male-dominance. Validity was measured by estimating the sensitivity of the CTS in eliciting data on perpetration of physical assault, by evaluating the degree to which assaults reported by the women were acts of self-defense, and by construct validity analyses to test the hypothesis that being a victim of physical assault as measured by the CTS is associated with physical injury, depressive symptoms, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. The hypothesized relationships were found regardless of the degree of male dominance in a nation. The results support continued use of the CTS to investigate PV in the lives of women worldwide. The discussion suggests that the effort to combat violence against women could be enhanced by using the full CTS to provide data on perpetration by women as well as victimization of women.

Highlights

► The CTS is reliable and valid in male-dominant nations. ► Many women in male-dominant nations physically assault a partner. ► In over half of violent relationships, both partners assaulted. ► Self-defense characterizes only a small percent of partner violence by women. ► Male-only violence is the least frequent and both-violent is the most frequent.

Section snippets

Research objectives

The Conflict Tactics Scales or CTS (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996) is the most widely used instrument for obtaining data on victimization and perpetration of partner violence (PV). For example, in the period 2000 to 2011, about five articles using CTS data were published every month. There is a large amount of evidence of the reliability and validity of the CTS when used in Western nations. Factor analyses, such as Connelly, Newton, and Aarons (2005) have confirmed the

Development and use of the CTS

Development of the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS) began in the early 1970s using data from questionnaires by university students who provided data on assaults between their parents when they were high school seniors (Straus, 1974). It was further developed using data from the first National Family Violence Survey (Straus, 1979, Straus et al., 2006), and was substantially revised to create the Revised CTS or CTS2 (Straus et al., 1996), including a short form (Straus & Douglas, 2004). In the past

Method

Two types of data were used to examine these questions: (1) Data on partner violence (PV) in the dating relationships of 14,252 university students in the 32 nations studied by the International Dating Violence Study. The IDVS includes both male-dominant nations such as Iran and relatively equalitarian nations such as Sweden. The IDVS provides macro-level data on the rate of PV of students in each of the 32 nations. (2) There is always the possibility that data from a single study is biased.

Reliability in previous studies in male-dominant nations

Of the 14 published studies that used the CTS in male-dominant nations, ten reported alpha coefficients (Cronbach, 1990) of internal consistency reliability. Table 2 gives the nature of the sample and the alpha coefficients are in the right hand column. Few of the studies indicated the form of the data used for the reliability analysis; for example, whether it was the percent reporting each item or the frequency with which each item occurred. Some studies reported coefficients separately for

Validity: sensitivity of the CTS in detecting partner violence

Data on four aspects of validity were investigated: sensitivity, self-defense, confounding with socially desirable reporting, and construct validity.

Validity: self-defense

What can explain the paradox of high rates of assault by women in male-dominant societies? The explanation that first comes to mind is that these women are reacting to being attacked by their partners, i.e. that it is either self-defense or retaliation. If it is self-defense, the rates estimated by the CTS are not a valid measure of what is usually or legally thought of as an assault. The published studies in Table 2 did not provide data to investigate that issue. However, the data available

Validity: confounding with socially desirable reporting

The IDVS included a Limited Disclosure scale to measure the degree to which respondents are reluctant to disclose socially undesirable behavior. As noted in the Method section, the validity of the Limited Disclosure scale is suggested by finding that the higher the Limited Disclosure score, the lower the score on many socially undesirable variables such as depressive symptoms and post traumatic stress symptoms. However, consistent with the results of a review of research on the relationship

Construct validity

Construct validity refers to the association between the measure in question with other variables for which prior research or theory predicts a relationship. It follows that the construct validity of the CTS can be assessed by the degree to which the CTS produces findings that are consistent with theoretically and empirically based propositions about the etiology and effects of PV. Construct validity is a judgment that becomes more solid when multiple studies using a variety of methods find

Discussion

This study analyzed two sets of results from use of the CTS in male-dominant nations: statistical analyses of 14 published studies and new data from a 32-nation study of university students. The results show that the CTS has adequate to high internal consistency reliability, high sensitivity, and good construct validity in male-dominant nations as well as in relatively gender-equal nations. Other studies have found good test–retest reliability (Vega & O'Leary, 2007). The “sensitivity” of the

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to express appreciation to members of the 2011–2012 Family Research Laboratory Seminar for valuable comments and suggestions. Papers on this and related topics can be downloaded from http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2. The work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant T32MH15161 and the University of New Hampshire.

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