Male-Female and Aggressor-Victim Differences in the Factor Structure of the Modified Conflict Tactics Scale

Abstract

Factor analytic procedures were used to examine the internal structure of a modified version of Straus's Conflict Tactics Scale, an instrument given routinely to measure marital aggression. A large sample of military personnel (7,504 men and 896 women) reported on the tactics they employed against their spouses during conflict in the past year. These subjects (6,917 men and 779 women) also reported on what their spouses did against them. The data provide new empirical evidence that physical aggression should be conceptualized separately as mild and severe when appraising self-reports of physical aggression by both men and women and when assessing reports of victimization by men. For both men and women, psychological aggression was moderately correlated with mild physical aggression, which was moderately correlated with severe physical aggression. However, for women reporting on their husbands' behavior, all physically aggressive acts clustered as one factor except for the two items involving the use of weapons. These results were cross-validated in a different sample of military personnel (3,596 men and 425 women).