42% of Australians still have low awareness of coercive control, according to new research released this week.

The study, published in Wiley Australian Journal of Social Issues, revealed that nearly half of respondents were unfamiliar with the term or its meaning.

Lead researcher, Dr Kelli MacMillan, Clinical Psychologist and Senior Lecturer in Murdoch University’s School of Psychology said the knowledge gap is concerning, particularly in her home state of Western Australia where there is currently no coercive control specific legislation, and at the time of this research there was also no public awareness campaign.

“Coercive control is a form of abuse that often goes unrecognised," Dr MacMillan said.

“It involves ongoing and repetitious patterns of behaviour aimed at establishing and maintaining control.

“Coercive control is almost always the underlying dynamic in intimate partner and family domestic violence, with long lasting, cumulative and pervasive effects for both the victim survivor, as well as the family system in which that abuse can occur.

“Our recent findings highlight a critical need to increase awareness of coercive control, including in its less obvious forms, as it is that early identification that is necessary for us to even begin to address the escalating physical violence that can occur with coercive control, including the risk of intimate partner homicide.”

The study identified several demographic factors associated with lower awareness.

These included younger age (18–24 years), lower educational attainment and lower income. Notably, gender did not significantly influence awareness levels.

“Our results show that younger adults are less aware of coercive control, and this tells us that we need to be targeting adolescents and young people about what healthy relationship dynamics look like, during the time when our first experience of an intimate partner relationship generally occurs,” Dr MacMillan said.

”Our young people are exposed through digital communication to what can be a normalisation of controlling and problematic behaviours through features such as “find my phone” and social media monitoring.

“We cannot underestimate the impact of this when you are learning about and experiencing what it means to be in an intimate partner relationship for the first time.”  

All participants were more likely to recognise overt forms of coercive control, but had difficulty identifying subtler behaviours, particularly when male victims were involved.

“As a research group we now aim to inform policy and targeted educational initiatives – particularly those directed towards our younger population, to improve public understanding and recognition of coercive control and ultimately to facilitate identification of this abuse when it first occurs.

“We need to be talking about coercive control in our schools and thinking about how we can share information in our community about healthy relationships – change starts with a conversation,” she said.

“I recently worked with WA Health to develop a resource using the research findings from this study, as that is one of the next steps in the translation of these findings into our community to effect change.”

This study sits within an exciting international collaboration between Australia, Denmark, Northern Ireland and most recently Singapore, with the findings from each of these unique cultural contexts recently presented at the European Domestic Violence Conference in Barcelona. Another research paper was recently submitted comparing the findings from the original Northern Ireland study to Denmark, to begin to understand if there is a universality to beliefs and attitudes towards coercive control and its occurrence in intimate partner relationships.

The recent Australian research focused on a predominantly Western Australian sample of adults and was undertaken in collaboration with Curtin University, Macquarie University, WA Health, Ulster University UK, Northern Health and Social Care Trust UK and Als Research Denmark.

The full study Public Awareness in Australia About Coercive Control in the Context of Intimate Partner Relationships is available in the Australian Journal of Social Issues from Thursday 16 October, 2025.