Coercive Control Field Check / REG
Category 04
Micro-Regulation of Everyday Life
Extends control into the minute details of daily existence: appearance, food, sleep, bodily care, housework, medication, and invented private standards. A 2025 review found survivors commonly live under an unpredictable and shifting rule book.
Stark 2007; Hamberger, Larsen & Lehrner 2017; Crossman & Hardesty 2018; Choudhury, Martland & Luzon 2025; Walker, Hester & McCarthy 2023.
REG-1
Rules About Appearance, Dress, and Presentation
Explicit or implied rules about clothing, hair, makeup, or overall presentation, with consequences for noncompliance.
REG-2
Rules About Food, Sleep, and Bodily Care
Control over eating, sleeping, medication, hygiene, or other forms of bodily care.
REG-3
Rules About Housework and Domestic Labor
Assignment, inspection, or punishment related to cleaning, cooking, childcare, or other domestic tasks that go beyond ordinary household negotiation.
REG-4
Rule Enforcement and Punishment Rituals
The abuser invents a private rule, not actually found in any law, custom, order, or agreement, and presents it as binding, attaching a real or implied penalty for noncompliance. The defining element is the punishment mechanism, not the mere existence of a rule; a rule with no consequence attached is not REG-4.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Stark, E., & Hester, M. (2019). Coercive control: Update and review. Violence Against Women, 25(1), 81-104.
- Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education groups for men who batter: The Duluth model. Springer.
- Fontes, L. A. (2015). Invisible chains: Overcoming coercive control in your intimate relationship. Guilford Press.
- Dutton, M. A., & Goodman, L. A. (2005). Coercion in intimate partner violence: Toward a new conceptualization. Sex Roles, 52(11-12), 743-756.
- Crossman, K. A., Hardesty, J. L., & Raffaelli, M. (2016). “He could scare me without laying a hand on me”: Mothers’ experiences of nonviolent coercive control during marriage and after separation. Violence Against Women, 22(4), 454-473.
- Serious Crime Act 2015, s. 76 (England and Wales) (controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship).
- Cal. Fam. Code § 6320(c), as amended by 2020 Cal. Stat. ch. 248 (SB 1141).
Forums that enumerate this family
A statute that lists a tactic is not a finding that the tactic is present.
Carlton, C. (2026). Coercive Control Field Check: REG Micro-Regulation of Everyday Life. Coercive Control Observatory. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.