Eugenia Frezza, a PhD Candidate in Economics at Trinity College Dublin, visited the NCID to give a seminar as part of the Job Market entitled "Accepting the unacceptable: Does intimate partner violence shape the tolerance of violence?".

She explained that her research analyse how the intimate partner violence has a causal effect on victims' tolerance towards it in a context where divorce is very costly.

It shows theoretically that tolerance to violence can serve as a coping mechanism, especially in the case of prolonged exposure to abuse. 

To study the effect of prolonged exposure to gender-based violence on attitudes, it compares couples living in states with different legal drinking ages.

The results reveal that the longer the exposure to violence, the more victims normalise and justify the violence inflicted on them as a coping mechanism.