Interpersonal Conflict & Violence

NORC’s research and tools support a wide range of stakeholders in measuring, preventing, and mitigating interpersonal violence.

Personal interactions—whether between strangers, friends, family members, or intimate partners—often involve conflicts that create the potential for abuse and violence. While the rate of physical violence is generally consistent between strangers, friends, and intimate partners, other forms of aggression are more common as intimacy grows.

Disputes between current and former intimate partners that escalate into violence are usually called intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV, a form of gender-based violence, may intersect with various other forms of and experiences with violence within relationships, families, households, or communities, including domestic, interpersonal, and sexual violence and human trafficking.

IPV—including stalking, physical violence, and sexual violence—is common. IPV affects nearly half of women and 44 percent of men. Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) of bisexual women and over half (54 percent) of trans/non-binary individuals report experiences of IPV. IPV disproportionately impacts people with disabilities, those living in rural areas, racial and ethnically minoritized communities, young people (ages 12 to 18), individuals who use substances, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex communities. These, and other abusive interactions, lead not only to physical and psychological repercussions for the victim, but also potential economic consequences for them, their families, their communities, and beyond.

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Our Expertise

NORC’s history of examining interpersonal conflict and violence—including identifying risk factors and protective influences and evaluating the impact of violence prevention programs—is extensive.

We have collaborated on new measurement scales while drawing on existing ones to investigate different forms of conflicts, aggression, abuse, and violence on behalf of a variety of clients, including federal agencies.

Throughout our research, we investigate both victimization and perpetration, recognizing the critical need to modify the attitudes, behaviors, and coping mechanisms of those who use violence as well as the common overlap of these behaviors in dyadic conflicts.

Our innovations include:

New ways to measure the positive and negative dynamics in dating relationships
A validated measure of technology-facilitated abuse
Attention to young adult experiences outside of the easily studied institutions of higher education
Engaging Federal partners to develop and evaluate national and localized strategies to prevent and respond to IPV

Areas of Expertise

Campus sexual assaults
Dating abuse including teen dating
Human trafficking
Intimate partner violence
Technology-facilitated abuse
Victim-offender overlap
Violence against women and children
Youth violence and resiliency
Organizational policies for the prevention of and response to aggressive and abusive behaviors
Community and health networks for the prevention of and response to aggressive and abusive behaviors

Methods

Experimental behavioral interventions
Integration of multi-sourced datasets
Longitudinal, nationally representative, epidemiological studies
Multi-mode data collection
Process and outcome evaluations
Saturated social network designs

Clients

Clients have included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Violence Against Women, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health, the Health Resources & Services Administration Office of Women’s Health, and others.