Joking Violence Among Highly Committed Individuals

Abstract

Adopting a cognitive consistency framework, this study explores whether targets of physical violence reinterpret severely violent behaviors to be relatively benign. It was suggested that relationship commitment figures prominently in reinterpreting violence. Fifty-four participants who indicated on a measure of partner violence that their current relationship partner had engaged in at least one act of physical violence during a conflict also completed an almost identical measure that assessed the same acts of physical violence in a different context: when playing or joking around with a partner. Participants also completed a measure of relationship commitment. Consistent with hypotheses, only highly committed individuals who experienced substantial violence during a conflict reported severely violent behaviors as comprising mere instances of “joking around.”