Anger as a moderator of the relationships between attachment, dyadic adjustment, and childhood victimization in physically violent spouses

Abstract

The present study examines the moderating effects of the anger characteristics of violent husbands on the relationships between a set of predictors and both psychological and physical husband violence. Based on data from 76 married violent men recruited through community organizations that work with abusive males, a series of moderated multiple regression analyses showed that anger repression and felt intensity of anger does moderate the effects of attachment, dyadic adjustment, and childhood victimization on physical violence, but not on psychological violence. Considering that anger repression and felt intensity of anger are the more internally-related anger characteristics experienced in the couple relationship leads to the suggestion that the more covert characteristics of anger are more likely to play a moderating role than the overt characteristics, and reinforce the idea that it would be advantageous to consider anger as a multidimensional construct in studies of violence.