  Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health problem and
social issue that involves couples from all socioeconomic and cultural
contexts. IPV may affect women and men, but these latter are the most common
perpetrators of IPV. We developed stochastic Agent-Based models of IPV focused
on the couple dynamics, determined by the parallel, individual behaviour of
partners. Based on the psychological theory of the Cycle of Violence, we have
developed a model based on four discrete states: passivity, normal situation,
upset and physical assault. The individual transition probability depends on
the previous state of the subject and that of the partner, and on a control
parameter, the aggressiveness. We then let this parameter evolve depending on
the perceived violence from past experiences (polarisation) or from the support
received from the environment (social influence). From the analysis of the
phase diagrams we observe the emergence of characteristic patterns, in
agreement with the observations of IPV in the literature.
