Intergenerational transmission of childhood interpersonal trauma in adults entering therapy for intimate partner violence: The role of identity diffusion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Childhood Interpersonal Trauma (CIT) is a major public health issue that increases the risk of perpetrating and sustaining intimate partner violence (IPV) in adulthood, perpetuating intergenerational cycles of violence. Yet, the explanatory mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of trauma warrant further exploration. OBJECTIVE: This study explored identity diffusion as an explanatory mechanism linking cumulative and individual CIT (sexual, physical and psychological abuse, physical and psychological neglect, witnessing parental physical or psychological IPV, bullying) to IPV (sexual, physical, psychological, coercive control) and to the next generation's exposure to family violence. Gender differences (men, women, gender diversity) in these links were examined. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: A sample of 846 adults (60.4 % men, 36.4 % women, 3.2 % gender diverse) entering therapy across 21 community IPV specialized organizations were recruited. METHODS: Participants completed brief validated questionnaires assessing CIT, identity diffusion, IPV perpetration and victimization, and new generation's exposure to family violence. RESULTS: Four path analysis models showed that cumulative CIT, psychological neglect, and bullying were indirectly associated with adult IPV perpetration and victimization, and new generation family violence exposure through higher identity diffusion (βs ranging 0.037-0.091). Cumulative CIT was not related to IPV perpetration for gender diverse individuals, nor was identity diffusion related to IPV victimization for this group. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the relevance of trauma-sensitive and identity-focused interventions that consider familial history and gender identity to effectively address the intergenerational transmission of trauma.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".