Donald Dutton

He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Toronto in 1970, and is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia.

Career

Dutton's research interests include the psychology of violence, social science epistemology, criminal justice, social psychological explanations for clinical syndromes, and personality disorders.

In a famous experiment on misattribution of arousal, Dutton and Arthur Aron found that subjects were more sexually attracted to an experimenter when crossing a rickety bridge.

Along with his co-author Susan Painter, Dutton coined the term "traumatic bonding", referring to emotional attachments which "develop from two specific features of abusive relationships: power imbalances and intermittent good-bad treatment".

Dutton is known for his research on intimate partner violence and the psychology of abusive behavior. In 1979, he co-founded the Assaultive Husbands Project, a court-mandated treatment program for men convicted of spousal assault in Vancouver. Dutton has been outspoken about the reality of domestic violence, that despite stereotypes it is actually perpetrated by both men and women.

In 1999, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal found Dutton responsible for sexual harassment towards a student of his in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. The tribunal found that Dutton created a "sexualized environment" while meeting with the student at his home, although the tribunal also found the student lied. There was no evidence of any sexual contact taking place; however, the tribunal disapproved of certain aspects of a dinner meeting, such as a comment made by Dutton to the student that he missed physical contact with his wife. Dutton has maintained that he did nothing wrong.