Gaslighting, coercive control and stalking in intimate relationships: considering abuse association and personality

Purpose The study aims to examine the relationship between the gaslighting of intimate partners and other forms of emotional abuse, considering a potential role for personality. Design/methodology/approach In all, 246 community participants completed online questionnaires examining gaslighting and other forms of abuse. Of these, 73% identified as women. Participants completed the Gaslighting Behaviour Questionnaire (GBQ), Revised Controlling Behaviours Scale (CBS-R), Stalking and Obsessive Relational Intrusions Questionnaire (SORI-Q), Mini International Personality Item Pool (Mini IPIP) and the Psychopathic Processing and Personality Assessment (PAPA-2). Findings Gaslighting perpetration predicted other forms of aggressive perpetration (i.e. coercive control and stalking), with being a victim of gaslighting predicting other forms of victimisation. Psychopathy predicted all forms of aggression perpetration with other forms of personality presenting with a more mixed picture. A network analysis verified associations between aggression forms and a clustering of personality traits, confirming a mixed picture in relation to personality but highlighting a role for psychopathy. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to include consideration of gaslighting as part of a broader array of emotional aggression and to consider adaptive and maladaptive personality as potential predictors. Gaslighting presents as an important element of interpersonal abuse to consider. The association between gaslighting, coercive control and stalking is notable, suggesting evidence for poly-victim and poly-aggressors.