Duocentric Social Networks and Alcohol-Related Intimate Partner Aggression among Couples from Low-Income Communities

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Intimate partner aggression (IPA) is a prevalent public health concern that has been tied to numerous negative consequences. Alcohol use is a well-established contributing cause of IPA. Traditionally conceptualized as a private form of aggression, most IPA research has focused on risk factors lying within individuals (e.g., personality) or within couples (e.g., communication). However, more recently, the need to look at couples' social contexts has been emphasized, suggesting that alcohol use may interact with couples' contexts to increase risk for IPA. The proposed project builds directly upon this foundation to test the possibility that aggression in intimate relationships is governed by the social connections that partners create and maintain. Specifically, we aim to examine how social isolation and social norm perceptions in in-person versus virtual social networks moderate the association between alcohol use and IPA. To do so, we will make use of a validated approach that assesses social networks at the dyadic level, thereby allowing us to capture both partners' individual social networks as well as the specific ways in which partners' networks overlap or fail to overlap. We locate our study among couples from low-income communities who do not only represent an understudied segment of the population, but who also have fewer resources and thus tend to rely more heavily on their social networks for support. Two-hundred couples (N = 400 individuals) will complete an online survey on alcohol use and IPA (along with other demographic measures). In addition, each partner will provide the names of 20 people in their in-person and virtual social networks (network “alters”), information about each alter, and information about the relationships between each unique pair of alters. These raw data will allow us to calculate measures of social isolation and social norm perceptions related to alcohol use and IPA. Aims of the current project are to examine whether associations between alcohol use and IPA will be stronger when couples are in networks that are more socially isolated (H1a) and when couples hold greater social norm perceptions for alcohol-related IPA (H1b). Moreover, we will examine whether the effect of social norm perceptions on the association between alcohol use and IPA depends on social isolation such that couples in high-density networks with social norms supportive of alcohol-related IPA will report more frequent/severe alcohol-related IPA (H2a) and couples in high-density networks with social norms NOT supportive of alcohol- related IPA will report less frequent/severe alcohol-related IPA (H2b). Finally, we aim to explore whether associations among social isolation, social norm perceptions, alcohol use, and IPA differ as a function of the proportion of alters who belong to in-person vs virtual social networks. Understanding alcohol-related IPA within the context of couples' social networks has the potential to make a significant public health impact by developing an evidence base for interventions that address social networks themselves as a target of change.