Domestically violent and nonviolent male inmates' responses to their partners' requests for condom use: Testing a social-information processing model.

Abstract

This study used a model derived from social-information processing theory to investigate how men with a history of domestic violence would react to a condom request. The study used path analysis to examine men's attributional and evaluative responses as potential predictors of coercion and condom use compliance. Men responded to a hypothetical situation in which their main partner requested that they use a condom. Among 100 county jail inmates, men who used severe forms of domestic violence differed from moderately violent and nonviolent men in their tendency to react negatively to condom requests. Condom-specific attributions were significant predictors of condom use and coercive actions but were not consistently different across abuse groups. Attributions that increased the likelihood of negative responding were infidelity, selfishness, competition for dominance, or suspicion of the man's fidelity.