Intimate partner violence: Uncovering scientific and lay-person (mis)understandings
Name of applicant
Camilla S. Øverup
Title
Associate Professor
Institution
University of Copenhagen
Amount
DKK 4,963,380
Year
2023
Type of grant
Semper Ardens: Accelerate
What?
Data suggests that up to 28% of Danish women and 12% of Danish men experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at some point in their lives, and international data suggests that the numbers might be even higher. The project will take a comprehensive and innovative approach to the study of what IPV is, from both a layperson and expert perspective, and how we might reduce IPV.
Why?
The research and clinical practice literature is wrought with inconsistencies regarding definitions and measurement of IPV, and lay persons’ perceptions of what is IPV are even less clear. This has great implications for human suffering; people stay in abusive relationships, partly because they are not sure if certain behaviors ‘count’ as IPV, particularly when it is psychological violence.
How?
We will use varied methodologies (i.e., literature studies, qualitative methodologies and focus groups, survey studies, and cross-sectional and longitudinal experimental designs), and multiple (international) informant populations (i.e., lay persons, clinicians, and researchers) to examine consensus and inconsistencies in the definition of IPV and how to reduce IPV.