Attitudes Towards Intimate Partner Violence against Women: from Neural Networks to Daily Life Experience

One in three women worldwide has been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

By understanding what the roots of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) are, and how it manifests as a pattern of behaviour, we might be able to prevent and counteract this violence.

Attitudes toward IPVAW significantly shape interpersonal behaviours and societal reactions, acting as a factor that contributes to the risk of committing violence.

Yet, despite first research, it remains unclear how these attitudes are instantiated on a neuronal level, and how they shape our daily emotional experience and behaviour.

The overall goal of the research program NEURO-IPVAW is to provide an explanatory theory of the neural underpinnings mediating attitudes towards IPVAW and a predictive quantitative model capturing this theory. Towards this goal, NEURO-IPVAW will introduce an innovative neuroscientific approach.

First, NEURO-IPVAW will reveal the neural foundations underlying IPVAW attitudes in relation to emotional processing in the mature brain. Second, it will unravel the link between the neural foundation and daily-life experience.

For maximal efficiency and power in unified theory formation and model building, NEURO-IPVAW will employ an integrated, interdisciplinary research strategy that combines a) large-scale non-invasive brain imaging to capture neural underpinnings of IPVAW attitudes, b) experience sampling assessing daily-life experience in an ecologically valid setting, c) advanced computational modelling using representational similarity analysis to build a predictive, quantitative model of daily-life emotional experience and behaviour.

Through this orchestrated effort NEURO-IPVAW will provide the empirical pieces of evidence for a new theory and model of the neural basis mediating IPVAW attitudes, thereby enhancing IPVAW prevention efforts, challenging our societal norms, and contributing to the progression of gender equality.