Relations among Romantic Myths, Offline Dating Violence Victimization and Cyber Dating Violence Victimization in Adolescents

Abstract

Cyber dating violence is an increasing problem with serious negative consequences for adolescents. Further knowledge about related variables is necessary to develop preventive strategies. The aim of this study was to analyze the correlations among cyber dating violence victimization (cyber-control and cyber-aggression), offline dating violence victimization (physical, verbal-emotional, and relational) and adolescents' beliefs in myths of romantic love; and to examine possible differences in cyber-control victimization, cyber-aggression victimization and offline dating violence victimization (relational, physical and verbal-emotional) according to adolescents' levels of belief (low vs. high) in myths of romantic love. The role of offline dating violence victimization (physical, verbal-emotional and relational) and romantic myths as predictor variables of cyber-control and cyber-aggression victimization was also explored. All these analyses were carried out separately with boys and girls. Of an initial sample of 919 adolescents, those who have had a dating relationship in the past year (492 adolescents, M = 15.10, SD = 1.59) were included. The regression analyses revealed that offline dating violence victimization and romantic myths were significant predictors of cyber-control and cyber-aggression victimization for both boys and girls, but explained variance was higher for girls. Verbal-emotional offline dating violence victimization was the main predictor of cyber-control victimization, and physical and relational offline dating violence victimizations were the main predictors of cyber-aggression victimization. These results can be useful for developing more effective offline and cyber dating violence prevention programs.

Cyber and Offline Dating Abuse in a Portuguese Sample: Prevalence and Context of Abuse

“…These results confirm that adolescents and young adults have access to different forms to search and share information, also corroborating the extent and importance that the digital practices have in their daily routines [ 1 ]. The results also highlight the benefits of maintaining a healthy relationship in terms of connection, which, in turn, may also be translated into a higher risk of experiencing and/or perpetrating some forms of online abuse, including CDA [ 16 ].…”

“…International research has documented that many abusive behaviours in traditional dating relationships [ 26 ] involving ICT use [ 27 , 28 ] are attributed to a context of “play” or “joking”. The studies that document a higher prevalence of control CDA [ 16 , 17 ] have also reported that the belief in romantic dating myths among adolescents is behind this type of abuse. Jealousy, commonly perceived as a sign of love in affective relationships, is an example of that.…”

“…CDA could be considered as an extension of Offline Dating Abuse (ODA), something that has motivated several empirical studies to investigate the relationship between these types of abuse, e.g., [ 7 , 12 , 16 , 17 ]. The main focus of this study is the CDA and ODA relationship in the Portuguese context, contextualized at an international level.…”

“…In this same study, 58% of the young people studied admitted having suffered at least one form of violence and 67% of the total of young people inquired legitimized at least one behaviour of violence. Although there are other abusive behaviours in intimate interactions, such as relational, verbal–emotional [ 16 ], controlling and fear/intimidation behaviours [ 43 ], it may be stated that physical, psychological and sexual violence are the three types of abuse that are most commonly reported in the studied research, e.g., [ 32 , 35 , 36 ]. In the context of dating relationships, adolescents and young adults tend to experience and perpetrate more than one type of violence (e.g., psychological and sexual violence) in the same or different situations [ 44 ].…”

“…ODA victimization by verbal and emotional violence emerged as the main risk factor of victimization by control CDA. On the other hand, CDA victimization by physical and relational violence emerged as the main explanatory variables of victimization by CDA direct aggression [ 16 ].…”