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Abstract
A substantial amount of research has been conducted to understand the personality characteristics of domestically violent men. Although traditionally viewed as a homogeneous subset of the population, when psychopathy, frequency/severity, and generality of violence are taken into consideration, three distinct batterer types emerge. Previous studies have used a wide variety of assessment measures to determine typology, which is inefficient and unwieldy in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to create an easily administered questionnaire that differentiated batterer typology.
It was hypothesized that three types of batterers would be present: family only, generally violent-antisocial, and borderline-dysphoric. It was also hypothesized that the EZ-Batterer Typology Questionnaire (EZ-BTQ), a theoretically derived questionnaire, would accurately differentiate batterer typology.
In order to test these hypotheses, men who had been court ordered to domestic violence treatment completed the EZ-BTQ, the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III), and the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2). Arrest records were also obtained. Previous studies led to the formulation of decision rules that were used to place participants into one of the three types based on their arrest record, MCMI-III profile, and CTS2 data. A discriminant function analysis was used to evaluate the utility of the EZ-BTQ.
As expected, using modified decision rules, the majority of the participants could be classified as one of the three types. The EZ-BTQ did not significantly differentiate batterer typology. It appears that the tripartite classification system needs further refinement prior to application in clinical practice.