From childhood abuse and lack of social support to intimate partner violence: The mediating role of impulsivity and attentional functioning

BACKGROUND: Childhood maltreatment and limited social support are established risk factors for intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW), yet the self-regulatory mechanisms linking them to perpetration remain unclear. We tested whether impulsivity and sustained attention mediate the associations between childhood abuse, perceived social support, and IPVAW perpetration and recidivism. METHODS: 211 convicted male perpetrators (M = 40.7 years) completed validated self-report and performance measures: Revised Conflict Tactics Scales-Parent-Child (childhood physical/psychological abuse), Functional Social Support Questionnaire, Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (current psychological, physical, sexual aggression, injury), Spousal Assault Risk Assessment, Plutchik Impulsivity Scale, and Conners CPT-3 (attention variability). Simple mediation models were estimated with PROCESS (10,000 bootstrap resamples), controlling for sociodemographic variables. To address multiple testing, we adjusted using Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate (BH-FDR). RESULTS: Childhood physical and psychological abuse were positively associated with adult physical aggression and with recidivism risk toward others. Across outcomes, impulsivity showed robust indirect effects (β_indirect = .035-.078; q < .05) and consistent with full mediation. Lower perceived social support predicted higher partner-directed recidivism risk; the indirect effect via attentional variability was nominally significant (β_indirect = -.244, 95% CI excludes 0) but did not survive BH-FDR correction (q = .078) and is therefore considered exploratory. Models explained 5-13% of outcome variance. CONCLUSIONS: Impulsivity represents a key cognitive control pathway linking childhood maltreatment to IPVAW-related outcomes in convicted perpetrators, supporting intervention targets focused on self-regulatory control. Attention-related mechanisms may contribute to the association between social support and recidivism risk, but this pathway requires confirmatory replication.