Citation

Jouriles EN, McDonald R, Garrido EF, Rosenfield D, Brown AS. Psychol. Assess. 2005; 17(4): 469-475.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275-0442, USA. ejourile@smu.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/1040-3590.17.4.469

PMID

16393013

Abstract

Almost all research on aggression in adolescent romantic relationships makes use of 1-time, retrospective assessment methods. In the present research, the authors compared data on the experience of adolescent relationship aggression (physical aggression and threatening behavior) collected from 125 high school students via 2 methods: (a) a 1-time, 2-month retrospective assessment and (b) a cumulative method based on four 2-week retrospective assessments, each spaced 2 weeks apart. For the cumulative method, data from the 4 assessments were aggregated to cover the same time period as the single, 2-month retrospective assessment. A greater proportion of the sample (48.0%) reported experiencing physical aggression using the cumulative method compared with the single, 2-month retrospective method (27.0%). The prevalence of threatening behavior was also higher using the cumulative method (48.8% vs. 24.8%). Adolescent trauma and anxiety symptoms correlated more strongly with physical aggression data derived from the cumulative method than from the 1-time assessment method.

Language: en