ABSTRACT

Women’s use of physical violence within college dating relationships is common, yet we know far less about aggressive women than we do about aggressive men. The current study examined expected consequences of using physical aggression against dating partners among aggressive and nonaggressive college women. More than half of the women in the current study had used physical aggression against a romantic partner during an argument. Aggressive women were more likely than nonaggressive women to expect that using aggression would result in winning an argument/getting their way and were more likely to expect retaliation by a partner. Among the aggressive women, perpetrator guilt was negatively correlated with the frequency of using physical aggression. Clinical implications of this study are discussed.