Typologies of men who perpetrate intimate partner violence: A 50-year systematic review

Since the 1970s, researchers have sought to classify perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) into typologies. This article presents the first systematic review of all studies of typologies of men who perpetrated IPV, including those that developed new typologies or classified perpetrators according to typologies derived from previous studies. The review aimed to synthesize the literature by examining how extensively different typologies have been studied, how frequently each perpetrator type appears across the literature, and what methods and measures have been used to identify and compare these types. The systematic review included empirical, rational/deductive, and theoretical typology studies. The review included 190 typologies from 186 unique studies reported in 215 articles published between 1974 and 2024. Typologies included in the systematic review were grouped according to nine types: 1) family-only and generally violent; 2) family-only, generally violent, and borderline/dysphoric; 3) family-only, generally violent, low-level antisocial, and borderline/dysphoric; 4) severity and frequency of violence; 5) reactive and instrumental, 6) situational couple violence and coercive control; 7) personality types; 8) other typologies; and 9) perpetrators of intimate partner femicide. This systematic review presents an overview of methods and measures that have been used to derive typologies and compare types; samples used in typology research; the number of studies published for each kind of typology; characteristics of types; and the proportion of each perpetrator type in the extant literature. Similarities and potential overlap between types identified in the systematic review are discussed. Future directions for IPV typology research are also discussed. Tables summarizing empirical, rational/deductive, and theoretical typologies for the nine types are available in Supplemental Material.