Gender roles depend on the attitudes and beliefs about them, which at the same time facilitate the formation of stereotypes that will foster violence in interpersonal relationships in couples. The assessment tools used tend to represent the sexist attitude towards women, without taking into account that men can also be recipients of the same behavior from their partner. The objective of the study is to provide an improved scale for the assessment of gender role attitudes, based on the theoretical perspective of gender equality. The sample comprises 2,136 young Spanish men and women, students in Vocational Training (Spanish acronym FP) and at university in the age range 15-26 years old. The results show the existence of a single bipolar factor - transcendent attitudes vs. sexist attitudes - fulfilling psychometric fit indices, and providing the basis for modifying attitudes depending on the difficulty of the items for such modification. The implications for intervention are oriented based on the perspective of prevention and changing sexist gender attitudes.

Many meta-analyses and systematic reviews have tried to assess the efficacy of animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), reaching inconsistent conclusions. The present work posits a critical exploration of the current literature, using some recent meta-analyses to exemplify the presence of unattended threats. The present comment illustrates that the field (1) comprehends inconsistencies regarding the terms and definitions of AAIs; (2) pays more attention to the characteristics of the animals than to the action mechanisms of AAIs; (3) does not provide a clear connection between anthrozoology (how humans and non-human animals interact in communities), benefits of the human–animal interaction (HAI), and the design of AAIs; and (4) implicitly reinforces these phenomena through research designs. Thus, some conclusions extracted from these meta-analyses need further discussion. Increasing the internal validity of AAIs in empirical studies is an urgent task, which can be addressed by (1) developing a better understanding of how anthrozoology, the HAI, and AAIs relate to each other; (2) highlighting the mechanisms that explain the results in an empirical and specific way; and (3) changing the design of interventions, adopting a component-centered approach, and focusing on the incremental efficacy and efficiency of AAI programs.

To describe the intimate partner violence suffered by youth and to identify the descriptions that best classify it according to gender. A cross-sectional study was carried out among a sample of 3,087 adult Spanish students. The CUVINO questionnaire was used, which measures 8 forms of intimate partner violence and uses 3 descriptions to classify it (abuse, fear and entrapment). Logistic regressions were carried out to identify differences by gender and associations between the subtypes of intimate partner violence and descriptions of the violent experience. Nearly half of the sample (44.6%) had some situation of unperceived violence, mainly of "detachment" (30.0%) and "coercion" (25.1%). All subtypes of intimate partner violence were more frequently perpetrated by women. The largest difference by gender was found in "emotional punishment" (experienced by 20.9% of men vs. 7.6% of women) and "physical violence" (6.6% vs. 2.3%). A total of 28.7% felt trapped, 11.8% felt fear and 6.3% felt mistreated. Men more frequently described themselves as trapped, but less often as afraid or abused. The subtype of intimate partner violence most associated with the feeling of entrapment was coercion in both men (OR=3.8) and women (OR=5.7). Men and women face intimate partner violence while dating differently; resources are needed to address them specifically. The inclusion of routine questions about the sense of entrapment may contribute to the early detection of intimate partner violence. Subtle forms of violence, such as coercion, should be taken into account in awareness campaigns.

This study provides psychometric information for the Dating Violence Questionnaire (DVQ), an instrument developed to assess intimate partner victimization among adolescents and youths. This instrument, an English version of Cuestionario de Violencia de Novios, assesses both frequency and discomfort associated with 8 types of abuse (detachment, humiliation, sexual, coercion, physical, gender-based, emotional punishment, and instrumental).Participant included 859 U.S. students enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses in a mid-Atlantic university (M = 19 years; SD = 1.5 years). One-third of the participants were males, and two-thirds were females. Regarding racial identity, around 55% of participants identified themselves as White, 22% as African American, 12% as Asian, whereas 11% selected other identities. Around 9% of participants identified themselves as Hispanic.Confirmatory factor analysis shows that the DVQ achieved adequate goodness-of-fit indexes for the original eight-factor model (χ²/df <5; root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] <.080), as well as higher parsimony when compared to simpler alternative models. The 8 scales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency indexes (α > .700), surpassing those found in the original Spanish validation. Descriptive analysis suggests higher victimization experience on subtle aggressions (detachment, coercion, and emotional punishment), with overt abuses (physical, instrumental) obtaining the smallest means; these findings were similar across gender, race identity, and ethnicity. Results of this validation study encourage the inclusion of DVQ in both research and applied contexts.

ResumenLa violencia de pareja representa un problema social de gran importancia en España que ha llevado a la creación de multitud de recursos para atender a las víctimas. Sin embargo, la literatura ha mostrado que la experimentación objetiva de conductas abusivas no siempre conduce a que el receptor (víctima) se clasifique como tal. Esta disociación entre la victimización y la autopercepción como víctima facilita que no se haga uso de los recursos disponibles de atención a víctimas. Este estudio analiza la relación entre la experiencia de victimización en las relaciones de noviazgo, medida a través de indicadores conductuales y la percepción de maltrato, miedo y sentirse atrapada para describir dichas relaciones. Participaron 6.731 estudiantes de entre 15 y 26años (M=18,2; DT=2,1), 39% varones y 61% mujeres. El 68,7% de los y las participantes informaron no haberse sentido maltratados, atemorizados ni atrapados en la relación de pareja. El 1,1% de los varones y el 3,1% de las mujeres respondieron afirmativamente a las 3 cuestiones, y un 25% respondieron afirmativamente a al menos una de ellas. En relación con la experiencia de victimización, se corroboró que la sensación de miedo y estar atrapado se asociaban a niveles de abuso inferiores a los encontrados en quienes se clasificaron como maltratados, pero estadísticamente superiores a quienes respondieron negativamente a las 3 preguntas (p<0,001). Además, distintos tipos de violencia de pareja se asociaron diferencialmente a las etiquetas de miedo y estar atrapado, encontrándose una tendencia lineal ascendente para las distintas formas de violencia reconocidas en el Cuestionario de Violencia entre Novios (CUVINO) en ambos sexos. El uso de etiquetas alternativas a maltrato, abuso, víctima, etc., puede facilitar la atención temprana a las víctimas.AbstractDating violence, as a widespread social problem in Spain, has given rise to the creation of several victims’ assistance services. Nonetheless, previous research has shown that experiencing violence does not necessary lead the subject to be self-labelled as a victim. This dissociation between victimization and self-labelling might be hindering their access to these resources. This study analyses the relationship between dating violence, measured behavioural indicators, and the use of various labels (i.e., abuse, fear, being trapped) to describe aforementioned relationships. The sample was composed by 6,731 students, aged between 15 and 26 years (M=18.2; SD=2.1), 39% males and 61% females. The majority of the sample (70%) reported not having felt abused, frightened or trapped. Only 1.1% of males and 3.1% of females responded positively to the three questions, and 25% answered affirmative, at least, one of the issues. Regarding the victimization experience, it was confirmed that fear and feeling trapped were associated with lower abuse levels than those found in subjects self-labelled as abused, but they were statistically higher than those participants who responded negatively to the three questions (p<0,001). Besides, different types of violence were differently associated to fear and being trapped, with a linear upward trend for the different forms of violence assessed by Dating Violence Questionnaire, in both males and females. Thus, results are discussed in respect to the ease that being properly labelled as a victim of dating violence may suppose in help seeking behaviour