Partner emotional abuse

Information regarding partner emotional abuse experienced since the age of 15 was obtained from men and women aged 18 years and over in the 2021-22 PSS.

The term 'partner' in the PSS is used to describe a person the respondent lives with, or lived with at some point, in a married or de facto relationship.

Current partner refers to a person the respondent currently lives with in a married or de facto relationship, at the time of the survey.

Previous partner refers to a person the respondent lived with at some point in a married or de facto relationship from whom they are now separated (but may or may not still be living with them). This includes a partner the respondent was:

• living with at the time of experiencing emotional abuse
• no longer living with at the time of experiencing emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse occurs when a person is subjected to certain behaviours or actions that are aimed at preventing or controlling their behaviour, causing them emotional harm or fear. These behaviours are characterised in nature by their intent to manipulate, control, isolate or intimidate the person they are aimed at. They are generally repeated behaviours and include psychological, social, economic, and verbal abuse. Further details about the emotional abuse behaviours asked about in the PSS are provided in the Methodology section below.

Where a person had experienced emotional abuse by more than one previous partner, they were asked to focus on the most recent emotionally abusive previous partner when answering the more detailed questions. If the respondent had also experienced previous partner violence, this may or may not have been the same emotionally abusive previous partner.

The Partner Emotional Abuse topic was designed to establish whether the respondent had experienced any manipulative or controlling behaviours from their current partner and/or from a previous partner since the age of 15. If the respondent had both a current partner and previous partner(s), the set of questions was asked separately for each type of partner.

In the PSS, a person was considered to have experienced emotional abuse if they reported they had experienced or been subjected to one or more of the following behaviours causing them emotional harm or fear:

• controlled or tried to control them from contacting family, friends or community
• controlled or tried to control them from using the telephone, internet or family car
• controlled or tried to control where they went or who they saw
• kept track of where they were and who they were with (e.g. monitoring social media, etc.)
• controlled or tried to control them from knowing, accessing, or deciding about household money
• controlled or tried to control them from working or earning money
• controlled or tried to control their income or assets
• controlled or tried to control them from studying
• deprived them of basic needs such as food, shelter, sleep, or assistive aids
• damaged, destroyed or stole any of their property
• constantly insulted them to make them feel ashamed, belittled or humiliated (e.g. put-downs)
• shouted, yelled or verbally abused them to intimidate them
• lied to their child/ren with the intent of turning them against them
• lied to other family members or friends with the intent of turning them against them
• threatened to take their child/ren away from them
• threatened to harm their child/ren
• threatened to harm their other family members or friends
• threatened to harm any of their pets
• harmed any of their pets
• threatened or tried to commit suicide (Note: this category has been changed for output to ‘Threatened or attempted suicide’).

The definition of emotional abuse excludes:

• cases of nagging, unless this nagging causes emotional harm or fear
• cases where a spouse has restricted the respondent’s access to money, the car, or the internet because of the respondent’s substance abuse, gambling, or compulsive shopping issues, unless the respondent perceives that these restrictions cause them emotional harm or fear.

The data items and related output categories for this topic are contained within the Partner Emotional Abuse tab in the data item list available under Downloads. In addition, aggregate data items relating to this topic are contained within the SPS Level – PV & EMAB Aggregates tab.

Partner emotional abuse data can be used to examine:

• the prevalence of partner emotional abuse
• the characteristics of emotional abuse by a current and previous partner, such as the types of emotionally abusive behaviours experienced, how often the emotional abuse was experienced, and whether anxiety or fear was experienced as a result.

Partner emotional abuse data cannot be used to examine:

• the prevalence of emotional abuse by persons other than a partner the respondent lives or lived with. For example, information about emotional abuse by a family member or an intimate partner that the respondent never lived with (boyfriend or girlfriend) is not collected in the PSS.
• the characteristics of all previous partner emotional abuse, as detailed information is only collected for the most recent emotionally abusive previous partner. Respondents were, however, asked whether they experienced emotional abuse by more than one previous partner.

Points to be considered when using and interpreting data for this topic include the following:

• Whether or not the emotional abuse amounted to a criminal offence cannot be determined from the information collected.
• The PSS only asked respondents about selected emotional abuse behaviours, and therefore may not capture all forms of emotional abuse that exist.
• The recognition and identification of any behaviour as emotionally abusive was based on the respondent’s subjective beliefs. Individual differences in thresholds for what constitutes manipulative/controlling/isolating/intimidating behaviour resulting in fear or emotional harm will affect how respondents answer the questions.
• Conceptually it is invalid to add together data about the characteristics for current and previous partner emotional abuse, as the characteristics of partner emotional abuse could differ depending on the type of partner. This would also double count all persons who have experienced emotional abuse by both a current and previous partner.
• Emotional abuse by a previous partner may have occurred during and/or after the relationship ended.
• Previous partner emotional abuse data relates to the most recent emotionally abusive previous partner and is therefore not necessarily representative of all previous partner emotional abuse. Care should be taken in the way this data is interpreted and reported.
• In circumstances where respondents had difficulty answering questions about the frequency of behaviours, which may have varied over time, they were instructed to determine how often the behaviours occurred on average.

Comparisons between the 1996 WSS and 2005 PSS, and subsequent PSS cycles are limited to only current partner emotional abuse (and for 1996 WSS, only male current partner), as the earlier survey editions did not collect information about experiences of previous partner emotional abuse. Users should also take into consideration:

• The expanded definition of partner emotional abuse when comparing data over time, as new behaviours were added in each new edition of the survey.
• Analysis of changes over time are not recommended for timeframes that overlap.

There were some minor changes to the question wording from the 2016 PSS onwards, however these do not impact on the overall comparability of 2016 and 2021-22 data with previous surveys. The changes include:

• Removing the word ‘intent’ from the initial question about whether the partner had caused the respondent emotional harm or fear (i.e. the respondent was asked whether they were caused emotional harm or fear, regardless of the intent of the partner).
• The words ‘stopped or tried to stop’ in the behaviour descriptions were replaced with ‘controlled or tried to control’.
• The words ‘monitored your whereabouts’ in the behaviour descriptions were replaced with ‘kept track of where you were and who you were with’.
• Social media was added as an example of monitoring behaviour that can occur online.

In the 2012 PSS, if a respondent experienced emotional abuse by both a male and female previous partner, information was collected separately for both the most recent emotionally abusive male previous partner and the most recent emotionally abusive female previous partner. This was changed in the 2016 PSS onwards, where information was collected only in relation to the most recent emotionally abusive previous partner overall. This has a negligible impact on comparability, as the number of respondents experiencing emotional abuse by both a male and female previous partner is very small.

New data items were added to the 2021-22 questionnaire that are not available in previous editions of the survey for historical comparison, including:

• whether emotional abuse occurred for the first time while living with previous partner
• whether emotional abuse experienced while living together with previous partner
• total length of relationship with emotionally abusive partner
• length of relationship with partner before first incident of emotional abuse occurred.