Abstract
The Perpetration in Dating Relationships scale (often operationalized in adolescent health literature as the dating violence perpetration assessment of the Safe Dates Project) is an established psychometric instrument designed to measure self-reported behavioral perpetration of physical, sexual, and severe interpersonal violence among adolescents and young adults. Originating from seminal research on adolescent dating violence conducted by Dr. Vangie A. Foshee and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and widely cataloged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in their compendium of violence-related assessment tools, the instrument quantifies the frequency of non-defensive violent acts committed against a dating partner. Comprising 18 target behavioral items, the scale evaluates actions ranging from moderate physical conflict (such as scratching, slapping, and pushing) to severe physical assault (such as beating up, choking, and using a weapon) and sexual coercion (forcing sexual acts). Respondents rate items on a 4-point categorical frequency metric (0 = Never, 1 = 1 to 3 times, 2 = 4 to 9 times, 3 = 10 or more times), specifically reporting acts initiated first rather than in self-defense. Across empirical studies in middle school, high school, and early college cohorts (notably grades 8–9 and older), the scale demonstrates robust psychometric properties, including high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from α = .78 to .91), clear factor structures differentiating moderate physical assault, severe physical assault, and sexual coercion, and sound convergent and predictive validity in relation to acceptance of dating violence, gender-role stereotyping, delinquency, and longitudinal relationship outcomes.
Keywords
Perpetration in Dating Relationships scale, adolescent dating violence, Safe Dates, interpersonal aggression, physical violence perpetration, sexual coercion, psychometrics, intimate partner violence, behavioral assessment, CDC violence compendium
Authors
The primary architectural and psychometric framework for this instrument was developed by Dr. Vangie A. Foshee and her research team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Health Behavior), in collaboration with Karl E. Bauman, G. Fletcher Linder, and colleagues during the initiation and nationwide clinical evaluation of the Safe Dates Project. Subsequent validation, public health surveillance applications, and programmatic cataloging were expanded through collaborations with public health researchers and federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Dahlberg, Toal, Swahn, & Behrens, 2005). Associated adaptations and empirical field tests have also engaged research teams across major academic institutions, including scholars at the University of Michigan evaluating adolescent relationship behaviors and community violence exposure.
Purpose
Adolescent dating violence (ADV) represents a profound public health concern characterized by long-term adverse developmental, psychological, and physiological consequences. The primary purpose of the Perpetration in Dating Relationships scale is to provide a behaviorally specific, objective, and developmentally sensitive measurement tool capable of quantifying the lifetime or past-year prevalence, chronicity, and severity of dating violence perpetration among youth. Unlike global, subjective attitude surveys, this instrument measures concrete behavioral acts, minimizing defensive posturing, ambiguous definitions of “abuse,” and subjective interpretations of relationship conflict.
A critical methodological design feature of the scale is its precise instruction directing respondents to report exclusively non-defensive perpetration. Participants are instructed: “Only include when you did it to him/her first. In other words, don’t count it if you did it in self-defense.” This instruction is foundational for separating aggressive initiation from retaliatory or self-protective violence, a distinction paramount in both epidemiological research and forensic/clinical risk stratification. In clinical settings, school counseling centers, and community interventions, the scale serves as an evaluative diagnostic to identify patterns of escalating interpersonal hostility, assess the effectiveness of primary prevention curricula (such as the CDC-endorsed Safe Dates program), and tailor psychoeducational interventions. In longitudinal public health research, the instrument allows researchers to chart behavioral trajectories from early adolescence into adulthood, evaluating how early aggressive conduct correlates with adult intimate partner violence (IPV), comorbid substance misuse, and antisocial behavioral patterns.
Psychological Construct
The psychological construct evaluated by the instrument is interpersonal dating aggression perpetration, specifically manifested across physical and sexual modalities within non-marital romantic dyads. Grounded in behavioral measurement traditions, the construct is conceptualized not as a unitary personality trait, but as an array of learned, context-dependent aggressive behaviors used to assert power, retaliate, coerce, or express dysregulated affect toward a romantic interest or dating partner.
The construct encompasses three primary operational dimensions:
- Minor/Moderate Physical Aggression: This dimension captures entry-level physical tactics commonly deployed during intense interpersonal conflict. Behaviors include scratching, slapping, twisting arms, kicking, bending fingers, and pushing, grabbing, or shoving. Although frequently categorized as less immediately lethal, these behaviors represent critical markers of affective dysregulation, loss of inhibitory control, and boundary dissolution within adolescent courtship.
- Severe/Life-Threatening Physical Aggression: This dimension comprises high-severity, felony-level violent assaults that carry substantial risk of serious somatic injury or fatality. Operationalized behaviors include slamming or holding a partner against a wall, trying to choke them, dumping a partner out of an automobile, striking them with a fist or a hard object, burning them, beating them up, and assaulting them with a lethal weapon (knife or firearm). Within psychological assessment, this dimension reflects severe behavioral disinhibition, predatory or high-intensity reactive aggression, and severe antisocial relationship dynamics.
- Sexual Aggression and Coercion: This dimension taps into violations of bodily autonomy through non-consensual sexual behaviors. It specifically measures forced sexual intercourse and forcing a dating partner to engage in other unwanted sexual acts. This facet captures dominance, sexual entitlement, complete disregard for partner consent, and sexually coercive strategies within adolescent romantic dynamics.
Theoretical Framework
The conceptual underpinning of the scale integrates several foundational theories in behavioral psychology, developmental psychopathology, and public health sociology:
Social Learning Theory
Rooted in Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (1977), the scale presumes that aggressive tactics within dating relationships are learned behavioral repertoires. Youth acquire these responses through direct conditioning, vicarious observation of parental conflict, domestic violence in the home of origin, and cultural reinforcement from peer groups or media. When adolescents encounter interpersonal frustration, perceived betrayal, or boundary negotiations in dating scenarios, modeled violent scripts are activated as viable conflict-resolution mechanisms.
Feminist and Power-Control Models
Drawing from feminist frameworks of intimate partner violence (e.g., Dobash & Dobash; Pence & Paymar), dating violence is understood as a manifestation of systemic control, dominance, and adherence to rigid patriarchal norms. The inclusion of sexual coercion, physical containment (holding against a wall), and intimidation reflects structural dynamics where physical violence operates as a tool to subjugate partner autonomy and enforce relationship hierarchy.
Problem Behavior Theory and Social-Ecological Model
Richard Jessor’s Problem Behavior Theory (1987) posits that adolescent risk behaviors do not occur in isolation but cluster together as part of an organized behavioral syndrome. Dating violence perpetration operates within a network of peer delinquency, substance use, academic alienation, and low self-control. Concurrently, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Social-Ecological Model, championed by the CDC, underpins the scale by conceptualizing perpetration as the cumulative outcome of individual biological/developmental factors, close relationship/dyadic dynamics, peer norms, and broader community/structural environments.
Validity
The scale has undergone extensive empirical validation across large, socioeconomically and ethnically diverse adolescent and young adult cohorts:
Construct and Factorial Validity
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) validate the multi-tier construct of dating violence perpetration. Studies examining the factor structure indicate that while items load strongly on a general overarching factor of physical dating violence (λ > .45 to .85 across items), clear sub-dimensions emerge between moderate physical assault and severe physical/sexual aggression. Goodness-of-fit indices consistently meet conventional empirical standards (CFI > .93, TLI > .91, RMSEA ≤ .05), confirming that the items accurately measure the target construct across adolescent cohorts.
Convergent and Concurrent Validity
The Perpetration in Dating Relationships scale exhibits robust convergent validity when correlated with alternative standardized interpersonal aggression metrics, such as the Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS and CTS2; Straus et al.). In validation studies conducted during the Safe Dates evaluation (Foshee et al., 1996, 1998), self-reported perpetration correlated positively and significantly with:
- Acceptance of dating violence attitudes and norms (r = .30 to .45, p < .001).
- Belief in traditional, rigid gender-role stereotypes (r = .22 to .38, p < .01).
- Engagement in general non-violent and violent peer delinquency (r = .40 to .55, p < .001).
- Alcohol and illicit substance consumption prior to or during social dates (r = .28 to .42, p < .001).
Discriminant and Predictive Validity
Discriminant validity is evidenced by weak or non-significant correlations with unrelated developmental constructs, such as academic achievement orientation and non-interpersonal anxiety. Predictively, baseline perpetration scores on this scale prospectively forecast chronic physical assault perpetration at 1-year, 2-year, and 4-year follow-ups, demonstrating high sensitivity in tracking long-term relationship dysregulation among adolescents entering young adulthood.
Reliability
The scale displays exemplary reliability estimates in adolescent and clinical samples:
- Internal Consistency: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the overall physical perpetration scale consistently range from α = .78 to .89 across heterogeneous populations of 8th and 9th graders. In studies assessing broader samples including high school upperclassmen and college freshmen, composite reliability coefficients have approached α = .91. Subscale analyses indicate alphas of .75 to .84 for moderate physical aggression, and .70 to .82 for severe physical violence, reflecting high item homogeneity despite low base rates for extreme acts (e.g., weapon assault).
- Test-Retest Stability: In short-term stability trials (2- to 4-week test-retest intervals with control groups receiving no intervention), Pearson correlation coefficients and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) range from r = .72 to .85, confirming that the scale captures stable behavioral tendencies rather than transient episodic noise.
- Inter-Item Correlations: Mean inter-item correlations reside within the optimal .25 to .50 range recommended by psychometric theorists, ensuring broad coverage of the behavioral domain without redundant item overlap.
Factor Analysis
Psychometric investigations utilizing exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal axis factoring and oblique (promax/oblimin) rotations, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), have mapped the structural topography of the 18 items:
In baseline psychometric trials, an initial single-factor model accounts for approximately 38% to 48% of the total variance, confirming a strong general perpetration factor. However, a hierarchical or three-factor oblique model offers superior empirical fit to the data:
- Factor 1: Moderate Physical Aggression: Items such as slapping, pushing/grabbing/shoving, kicking, scratching, and throwing an object load primarily on this factor (factor loadings ranging from .52 to .78).
- Factor 2: Severe and Injurious Assault: Items such as beating up, hitting with a hard object, choking, burning, slamming against a wall, dumping out of a car, and assaulting with a weapon load robustly on this dimension (factor loadings ranging from .46 to .84).
- Factor 3: Sexual Coercion: Items measuring forced intercourse and forced sexual activities form a distinct, highly correlated latent factor (loadings > .70).
Model fit statistics reported in structural equation modeling (SEM) investigations typically yield a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) between .038 and .048, a Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of .94 to .97, and a Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ .045, verifying the structural robustness of the measurement model.
Instrument / Measurement Tool
- Instrument Name: Perpetration in Dating Relationships scale (Safe Dates Dating Violence Perpetration Scale)
- Construct Assessed: Frequency of non-defensive physical, sexual, and severe interpersonal violence perpetration toward a dating partner
- Target Population: Adolescents and youth (typically Grades 8–12, ages 12–19; validated also in young adult/college populations)
- Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil self-report questionnaire or secure digital/computer-assisted survey (CASI)
- Completion Time: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes
- Item Count: 18 items
- Response Format: 4-point categorical frequency scale:
- 0 = Never
- 1 = 1 to 3 times
- 2 = 4 to 9 times
- 3 = 10 or more times
- Scoring Procedures:
- Additive Composite Score: Calculated by summing the point values across all 18 items (theoretical range: 0 to 54). Higher scores indicate greater chronicity and severity of dating violence perpetration.
- Mean Index Score: Calculated by dividing the sum of point values by the total number of items completed (theoretical range: 0.00 to 3.00).
- Dichotomous Prevalence Classification: Frequently recoded in epidemiological contexts into binary prevalence indicators (0 = No perpetration reported [all items 0]; 1 = Any perpetration reported [≥ 1 on any item]).
- Subscale Scoring: Independent sum scores can be derived for Moderate Physical Perpetration, Severe Physical Perpetration, and Sexual Aggression.
Permissions & Fee and Test Year
The scale was developed and operationalized by Dr. Vangie A. Foshee and associates in 1996 as part of the federally funded Safe Dates evaluation project (published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 1996). The complete measurement protocol was subsequently placed into the public domain through the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools (Dahlberg, Toal, Swahn, & Behrens, 2005, pp. 202–203).
The instrument is freely accessible and free of charge for non-commercial research, institutional evaluation, and clinical public health surveillance purposes. Researchers and practitioners are expected to cite the original Safe Dates publications and the CDC Compendium when utilizing or adapting the instrument. Commercial republishing or proprietary integration into copyrighted commercial software requires explicit permissions from the primary investigator and institutional copyright holders.
References
- Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice-Hall.
- Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., Swahn, M., & Behrens, C. B. (2005). Measuring violence-related attitudes, behaviors, and influences among youths: A compendium of assessment tools (2nd ed., pp. 202–203). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf
- Foshee, V. A., Bauman, K. E., Arriaga, X. B., Helms, R. W., Koch, G. G., & Linder, G. F. (1998). An evaluation of Safe Dates, an adolescent dating violence prevention program. American Journal of Public Health, 88(1), 45–50. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.88.1.45
- Foshee, V. A., Linder, F., Bauman, K. E., Langwick, S. A., Arriaga, X. B., Heath, J. L., McMahon, P. M., & Bangdiwala, S. (1996). The Safe Dates Project: Theoretical basis, evaluation design, and selected baseline findings. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 12(5 Suppl), 39–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(18)30233-X
- Foshee, V. A., Reyes, H. L. M., Vivolo-Kantor, A. M., Basile, K. C., Chang, L. X., Faris, R., & Ennett, S. T. (2014). Bullying as a longitudinal risk factor for adolescent dating violence: A growth curve analysis. Journal of Adolescent Health, 55(3), 439–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.03.003
- Jessor, R. (1987). Problem-behavior theory, psychosocial development, and adolescent problem drinking. British Journal of Addiction, 82(4), 331–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1987.tb01490.x
- Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996). The revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and preliminary psychometric data. Journal of Family Issues, 17(3), 283–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251396017003001