The impact of intimate partner violence on decisions to leave dating relationships: a test of the investment model.

This study explored the impact of violence exposure on investment-model constructs within a sample of college women involved in heterosexual dating relationships. Results generally supported the "common sense" hypothesis, suggesting that violence negatively impacts satisfaction for and commitment to one's relationship and is positively associated with intentions to leave. Exposure to psychological abuse uniquely impacted intentions to leave relationships above and beyond other model factors, suggesting that this may be a particularly important factor in determining college women's decisions. In a series of analyses examining the investment model within each of two groups (e.g., those exposed or not exposed to physical violence), results showed that the model predicted victimized women's decisions to leave as well as it predicted nonvictimized women's decisions. Taken together, results of this study suggest that victimized women base their relationship termination decisions on the same information as nonvictimized women do.