Research attention on men who batter their female partners has focused on psychological and personality characteristics of the men. However, occupational status, educational attainment, and abuse history may have been confounded with the personality variables studied. This study made within-group and between-group comparisons of batterers and nonbatterers selected for "good" or "poor" psychosocial and demographic characteristics such as employment history, educational attainment, alcohol abuse status, and history of direct and witnessed abuse victimization. Subjects were 99 male batterers referred for spouse abuse abatement counseling (clinic-identified), 32 self-reported batterers (community-identified), and 71 nonviolent men. Within-group analyses for clinic- and community-identified batterers showed that subjects with unfavorable background characteristics had higher Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) scores on aggression and negativism and lower scores on submissiveness and conformity. Comparing nonviolent subjects with either good or poor psychosocial histories revealed no significant differences. Between-group analyses suggest that when identified batterers with favorable premorbid psychosocial histories are compared with community-identified batterers and nonviolent controls, there is evidence of greater difficulty among batterers, particularly in areas related to mood regulation and sensitivity to rejection. However, compared to previous studies, it also appears that controlling for other variables including employment status, alcohol abuse, and family-of-origin victimization experiences attenuates the differences observed between batterers and nonviolent controls. (NB)