This study sent out a survey to practising psychologists, asking them to look at a list of 100 behaviours and decide whether they count as psychologically abusive or not. One version of the survey indicated that the actions were done by a man to his wife, and the other version indicated that they were done by a woman to her husband.

For almost half behaviours on the list (43 of the 100), the gender of the abuser had a significant effect on how likely the behaviour was to be seen as abusive. Of these, all but one involved men being more likely to be seen as abusive.

Results indicated that psychologists, irrespective of demographics, rated the husband’s behaviour as more likely to be psychologically abusive and more severe in nature than the wife’s use of the same actions.

Some of the results (first percentage is how many said "yes" to abusive, second is "maybe", third is "no"):

Potentially abusive behaviour Husband→Wife (Y-M-N) Wife→Husband (Y-M-N)
Made decisions about spouse's appearance 63% - 32% - 5% 13% - 56% - 31%
Would not let spouse go anywhere without him/her 88% - 10% - 2% 66% - 27% - 7%
Decided what spouse could eat 78% - 18% - 4% 37% - 43% - 20%
Kept spouse from self-improvement activities 71% - 25% - 4% 49% - 40% - 11%
Monitored spouse to know where s/he was 66% - 27% - 7% 35% - 45% - 20%
Checked spouse's belongings to confirm suspicion 61% - 33% - 6% 31% - 53% - 16%
Chose spouse's friends 77% - 20% - 3% 42% - 42% - 16%

Here's a link to the study. It's called "Psychologists' judgments of psychologically aggressive actions when perpetrated by a husband versus a wife".

So my question for BPers, RPers, and everybody in between and on the outside: what do you make of these results? How do they compare with your own experiences and observations? What are the implications for relationships and attitudes to gender?