Sexist attitudes, romantic myths, and offline dating violence as predictors of cyber dating violence perpetration in adolescents

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to analyze the prevalence of cyber dating violence perpetration (cyber-control and cyber-aggression) in adolescent boys and girls, and to explore the relations between adolescents’ involvement in cyber dating violence perpetration (never, occasional, and frequent) and their sexist attitudes (hostile and benevolent), romantic myths, and offline dating violence perpetration (relational, physical, and verbal-emotional). The predictive weight of these variables in relation to cyber dating violence perpetration (cyber-control and cyber-aggression) was also analyzed. Of an initial sample of 919 adolescents, who had or had had a dating relationship in the past 12 months, 492 adolescents were included in this study (M age = 15.10, SD = 1.59). The results revealed a higher prevalence of cyber-control behaviors and a different predictive weight of the analyzed variables in relation to cyber-control and cyber-aggression for boys and girls. Physical and relational offline dating violence were significant predictors of cyber-aggression for boys, while sexist attitudes and romantic myths were the main predictors for girls. Hostile sexism and relational offline dating violence were positive predictors of cyber-control for boys, while romantic myths and verbal-emotional offline dating violence were the main predictors of cyber-control for girls. These results highlight the need for gender analyses in cyber dating violence research.