Domestic violence is more prevalent than most people realize. For example, studies have shown that 25 per cent of women have suffered violence at the hands of their partners, and almost 40 percent of men have been violent towards their partner.
A recent study published online yesterday (June 6) in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine sheds light on an association between childhood bullying and adult violence.
Researchers believed that bullying other children, and later in life, other adults, stems from the desire for power and control over others. To test this theory, Harvard School of Public Health researchers studied 1,491 men, aged 18 to 35, who sought services at Boston community health centers.
They discovered that 40 percent of the men reported frequent bullying behavior as children, also happened to be four times more likely to have perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) in the past year. Men who reported occasional bullying behavior in childhood were 1.53 times more likely to have perpetrated IPV in the past year.
The team concluded that bullying peers in school as a child is associated with increased risk for perpetration of IPV as an adult. They recommended additional research to determine underlying root causes of abusive behavior as a means to prevent violence over an adult male’s lifetime.