Passive, invasive, and duplicitous: Three forms of intimate partner cyberstalking

Abstract

Intimate partners are common targets of cyberstalking, yet despite the negative impact the behavior remains largely underexplored. In the present study, we explore behavioral methods adopted to cyberstalk intimate partners. Participants (N = 449, 50.1% men) recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk completed an online questionnaire and we assessed a range of intimate partner cyberstalking behaviors across mating contexts (i.e., short-term v long-term relationships) and goals (i.e., mate retention v mate attainment). These cyberstalking behaviors were factor analyzed (i.e., Exploratory Factor Analysis) and reduced to reveal three dimensions: Passive, invasive, and duplicitous. Both men and women largely engage in passive cyberstalking, though women perpetrated more overall, passive, and invasive intimate partner cyberstalking. Women were also likely to adopt invasive behaviors to retain a long-term mate and attain a short-term mate. We also examined associations between the Dark Tetrad traits, social motives, and cyberstalking. All Dark Tetrad traits were associated with more overall cyberstalking but demonstrated differential patterns across the three forms, substantiating a dimensional conceptualization of this online behavior. Results of the current study contribute to establishing a theoretical framework to understand perpetration of intimate partner cyberstalking, ultimately contributing to managing the potentially harmful online behavior.