The Interpersonal Conflict and Resolution (iCOR) Study

• NCJ Number: 252953
• Author(s): Elizabeth A. Mumford; Bruce G. Taylor; Weiwei Liu; Mark Berg
• Date Published: August 2018
• Length: 16 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2015-VF-GX-0110
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description
• Award: A Nationally Representative Study of Conflicts, Dyadic Interactions, and the Victim-Offender Overlap

Annotation

This study sought to determine the nature, incidence, and coincidence of forms of interpersonal conflict and resulting conflict management styles, including physical violence, in an existing nationally representative cohort of 18-32 year old individuals.

Abstract

Respondent reports of conflicts that involved aggressive and violent behavior (offending and victimization) were distinguished for three relationship categories, i.e., intimate partner relationships, friends/acquaintances, and relatively unknown persons/strangers. Using a dyadic data collection design, the study assessed the nature of conflict and conflict-management behavior patterns within and outside intimate partner dyads, using information reported by both "Prime" respondents (members of the general population sample who referred an intimate partner to recruitment for an iCOR survey) and three types of counterpart relationships. Three waves of data collection were conducted. This research fills a number of significant gaps in criminology regarding the role of conflict that precedes violence and how conflict management strategies can escalate these conflicts into episodes of violence. Journal articles stemming from this research have included suggestions for program developers on how these results can inform the design of violence-prevention efforts. In addition, the research further documents the victim-offender overlap and builds on the literature on predicting this overlap by identifying new risk factors. 1 table and 36 references