The Role of Individual Differences in Cyber Dating Abuse Perpetration.

Elizabeth Clancy,Alina S Hernandez Bark,Rachel Grieve,Evita March,Rolf Van Dick,Bianca Klettke

doi:10.1089/cyber.2020.0687

Abstract

There is a growing research interest in cyber dating abuse (CDA). CDA includes abusive online behavior toward a current or former intimate partner, such as aggression, control, harassment, and humiliation. Despite the potential overlap and reciprocal relationship of CDA and intimate partner violence, there remains considerable paucity in research exploring predictors of this abusive online behavior. In the current study, we adopt the General Aggression Model framework and explore the role of gender, hegemonic masculinity, vulnerable narcissism, and sexual aggression myths to predict perpetration of CDA. Participants (N = 415, 51 percent women; Mage = 32.68 years) were recruited via social media advertisements and completed an anonymous, confidential online questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised the Conformity to Masculine Roles Norms Inventory, the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, the Acceptance of Modern Myths About Sexual Aggression Scale, and a modified Cyber Aggression in Relationships Scale. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that hegemonic masculinity, vulnerable narcissism, and sexual aggression myths were all significant positive predictors of perpetrating CDA. As gender was a significant predictor until the inclusion of these variables, a multiple mediation analysis was performed, indicating that both hegemonic masculinity and sexual aggression myths fully mediated the relationship between gender and perpetrating CDA. These results add to the growing body of research exploring how CDA emerges as a behavior and highlight possible implications for management and intervention.

Highlights

There is recent growing research interest in cyber dating abuse (CDA), which includes the use of technology to aggress toward and/or control current or former intimate partners.[1]
An exploratory hypothesis (H1) was proposed, that gender would be a significant predictor of CDA, no specific direction was predicted
Vulnerable narcissism, and sexual aggression myths were entered at step 2 and explained a significant additional 44.7 percent of variance

Summary

Introduction

There is recent growing research interest in cyber dating abuse (CDA), which includes the use of technology to aggress toward and/or control current or former intimate partners.[1] Examples of CDA include cyberstalking and monitoring a partner online, sexually harassing a partner via technology, and publicly humiliating a partner online.[2] Research has highlighted a shared nomological network between CDA behaviors and intimate partner violence (IPV)[3] with CDA co-occurring with offline dating violence.[4] CDA and IPV may share a reciprocal relationship; for example, traditional psychological and physical dating abuse predicts CDA,[5] but there is evidence that CDA behaviors in turn predict domestic violence.[6] it is well established that technology can readily be used to generate offline intimidation.[7] Given this reciprocal nature of the CDA-IPV relationship, modern violence prevention programs should ideally target both CDA and IPV behaviors.[8] understanding individual differences that predict online IPV-

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