Psychosocial modifiers of psychopathology for domestically violent and nonviolent men

Personality characteristics of 99 domestically violent and 71 nonviolent men were studied, using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory and controlling for premorbid history. Men with poor premorbid backgrounds from 3 groups (ns = 66, 12, and 23) showed more elevations on the Millon inventory than men with good premorbid backgrounds (ns = 33, 20, and 48). However, over-all, batterers showed more Millon elevations than nonviolent men. These findings point to the need to control psychosocial variables when studying personality characteristics of batterers.