Connections between moral psychology and intimate partner violence: Can IPV be read through moral psychology?

Connections between two traditionally separate fields, Moral Psychology and Intimate Partner Violence, are made in this paper with the ultimate goal of improving the psychological interventions dealing with this persistent and prevalent social problem. Three current research conclusions in the field ofmoral psychology lead us to posit thatmen who use violence against the partnermay be affected by moral paradoxes at the beginning of the psychological treatment that make themreluctant to change their behavior. These conclusions are the following: a) sacredmoral values can lead to violent actions, b) the certainty about one'smoral principles creates a license to behave immorally, and c) self-deceptionmechanisms allowpeople to claimto be actingmorallywhile acting selfishly. Following these ideas that allowpeople to live happily thinking that they are verymoral individuals regardless of their actual behavior, we posit that men who use violence against their partners may also be trapped in such paradoxicalmechanisms. Recent empirical results support these ideas and demonstrate thatmen convicted of domestic violence have an absolutist conception about what is right and wrong, a sacred vision of the five moral foundations, a high moral self-concept, and high levels of self-deceptionmediating between their extreme moral vision of the world and their high moral self-concept.