An assessment of appraisals of dating relationship conflicts and perceptions of appropriate coping strategies with psychologically abusive interactions.

Introduction: Stemming from a stress appraisal and coping perspective, the present investigation developed a methodology for assessing how individuals appraise abusive dating relationship conflicts (Study 1) and the implications of such appraisals for informing coping responses to abusive interactions (Study 2).

Methods: Participants ranging in age from 17 to 29 years (Study 1: 102 males, 339 females; Study 2: 88 males, 362 females) completed a survey in which they were presented with a series of 10 scenarios that conveyed relationship conflict cues that were ostensibly aligned with various forms of psychological abuse.

Results: Factor analyses indicated that blatant actions conducted in privacy were differentiated from more ambiguous public forms of psychological abuse, in that the latter were appraised by both males and females as abusive.