Associations Between Sadistic Tendencies and Psychological, Physical, and Sexual Aggressions Within Relationship Conflict

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a growing public health concern that impacts nearly 50% of men and women in the United States. Research has indicated that individuals with sadistic personality traits are more likely to perpetuate IPV. However, less work has explored how self-reported everyday sadism tendencies are related to an individual's self-reported experiences with relationship conflicts. Thus, we uniquely investigated associations between everyday sadism and experiences of psychological, physical, and sexual aggressions in relationship conflict. Data was collected from 163 individuals recruited from MTurk (42.9% female; 58.3% White; <i>M</i>_age = 32.83 ± 8.60) who had been in a relationship for 6 months or longer in the past year. Participants completed self-report measures on their demographics, everyday sadism, and relationship conflicts. Path analysis was conducted to assess whether everyday sadism was associated with psychological, physical, and sexual aggression. Additionally, we tested if there were gender differences in the above associations. Everyday sadism was associated with psychological aggression (<i>β</i> = .72, <i>p</i> < .001), physical aggression (<i>β</i> = .75, <i>p</i> < .001), and sexual aggression (<i>β</i> = .72, <i>p</i> < .001) in relationship conflicts above the influence of gender, relationship status, and the interrelationships between the three types of aggressions. There were no observed gender differences. Results indicate a strong association between everyday sadism tendencies and self-reported experiences of psychological, physical, and sexual aggressions. Findings substantiate associations between everyday sadism and IPV, and support community programs that detect and intervene on sadistic behaviors as a practice to reduce IPV.