Connections between moral psychology and intimate partner violence: Can IPV be read through moral psychology?

Abstract

Connections between two traditionally separate fields, Moral Psychology and Intimate Partner Violence, are made in this paper with the ultimate goal of improving the psychological interventions dealing with this persistent and prevalent social problem. Three current research conclusions in the field of moral psychology field lead us to posit that men who use violence against their partners may be affected by moral paradoxes at the beginning of the psychological treatment that make them reluctant to change their behavior. These conclusions are the following: a) sacred moral values can lead to violent actions, b) the certainty about one’s moral principles creates a license to behave immorally, and c) self-deception mechanisms allow people to claim to be acting morally while acting selfishly. Following these ideas that allow people to live happily thinking that they are very moral individuals regardless of their actual behavior, we posit that men who use violence against their partners may also be trapped in such paradoxical mechanisms. Recent empirical results support these ideas and demonstrate that men convicted of domestic violence have an absolutist conception about what is right and wrong, a sacred vision of the five moral foundations, a high moral self-concept, and high levels of self-deception mediating between their extreme moral vision of the world and high moral self-concept.