Cyber Partner Abuse: A Systematic Review

Abstract

With recent technological advances, cyber partner abuse has become increasingly problematic. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the existing literature on cyber partner abuse. This systematic review examines the characteristics and conceptualizations in the cyber partner abuse literature as well as the major topics the research has explored. Literature searches used keywords related to cyber partner abuse. In total, 37 articles were included in this review. Inductive qualitative content analysis methods were used to generate codes and themes from the identified articles. Results detail the study characteristics and conceptualizations in the cyber partner abuse research. Additionally, common thematic patterns reported by researchers in the literature are discussed. Specific recommendations for future research and practice stem from this review and are provided.

Youth cyber dating abuse: A meta-analysis of risk and protective factors

“…Our results were also contrary to what has been found with regard to offline DV: parental and family variables are key risk factors of physical and psychological DV perpetration and victimization (cf. Taylor & Xia, 2018). Gracia-Leiva et al (2019), in their metaanalysis on DV, found that the social and community environment was more closely related to DV as opposed to individual factors.…”

“…In Deans and Bhogal's (2017) study, gender was significantly associated with CDA, with women reporting less perpetration of CDA than men, contrary to other previous studies (e.g., Bennett et al, 2011;Burke et al, 2011) were women were more likely than men to perpetrate controlling online behaviors. These inconsistent findings have been attributed to the fact that men and women perpetrated CDA differently: men tend to perpetrate more direct acts of aggression (Perry & Pauletti 2011;Taylor & Xia, 2018) while women more indirect acts (Hyde, 2005), such as monitoring behaviors (Taylor & Xia, 2018). Studies (e.g., Sánchez et al, 2015;Smith et al, 2018) examining the relation between age and CDA victimization have also reached discrepant results: Smith et al (2018) concluded that age was not associated with cyber victimization, cyber perpetration, or mutual cyber violence; in turn, Sánchez et al (2015) reveled a positive association between age and CDA victimization, although the size of these associations varied according to the different abusive typologies.…”

“…In addition, we found that individual sociodemographic factors, such as sex, age, and ethnicity, were unrelated to youth CDA and that sex and age were not significant moderators, which strongly indicates that prevention programs should not be directed to individuals with particular demographic characteristics. Another recent systematic review (Taylor & Xia, 2018) concluded that men and women perpetrate CDA at equal rates, also suggesting the importance of not overlooking certain demographic characteristics in prevention efforts.…”

Cyber Dating Abuse and Masculine Gender Norms in a Sample of Male Adults

“…In line with former research, ICT like smartphones (text messages, messenger services), websites of social networks (Facebook, Twitter), and telephone applications (Instagram, Snapchat), facilitate constant communication between partners [4], but can also be used as a means to directly exercise aggression and to control partners or former partners [5]. Although various terms can be used to name this phenomenon, such as "electronic dating violence" [6], "digital forms of dating violence" [7], "intimate partner cyber harassment" [8], "cyber partner abuse" [9], "cyber psychological abuse" [10], the term most widely used by the scientific community is "cyber dating abuse" [11,12].…”

“…Cyber dating abuse includes direct aggression conducts that intend to deliberately harm one's partner (e.g., sharing private information and posting it on technological platforms, and insulting or threatening using these platforms), but also includes control behaviors that invade people's privacy or are related to monitoring someone (e.g., controlling access to social networks or using one's partner's password without his/her permission) [9]. These strategies often work as a power and control mechanism within relations, and are frequently motivated by jealousy and mistrust [13].…”