(PS8-81) Expected Reactions to Cyber Dating Abuse Methods

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health issue (Anderson et al., 2020). Technological advances have shaped the forms of IPV as emotional abuse, sexual coercion, and intrusion/monitoring behaviors can be perpetrated through technologies like cell phones and computers (Leisring, 2019). Like face-to-face abuse, cyber abuse is common in teen, college, and adult samples (Leisring & Giumetti, 2014; Watkins et al., 2018; Hinduja & Patchin, 2021) and it is associated with depression and trauma symptoms in victims (Wood et al., 2020). Examining reactions to cyber abuse can illuminate the degree to which it is seen as acceptable. Teen girls report more distress in response to some types of cyber abuse than boys (Reed et al., 2017), adult women report more negative reactions to cyber abuse than men (Leisring, 2020), and college women view cyber abuse as more harmful than college men (Phillips & Klest, 2024) but unanswered questions remain. Previous research examined general reactions (e.g. harmful or not) and/or has not looked at the intensity of reactions to cyber abuse. The purpose of the present study was to examine the intensity of negative and positive expected reactions to five different types of cyber dating abuse in college students. The types of cyber abuse were private emotional abuse (partner swears at you during an argument through a text message), public emotional abuse (partner posts inappropriate pictures or information about you online to humiliate you), sexual cyber abuse (partner pressures you to take and send sexually explicit images), monitoring (partner makes you text a picture to verify your current location), and ignoring (partner purposely ignores your communications through technological devices). The sample included 319 college students (231 women, 88 men) who were currently in romantic relationships. Most participants described their relationship as “dating steadily” and had dated their partner on average for 14 months. Questions about the intensity of reactions were presented after each type of cyber abuse. Intensity was measured on a five-point scale ranging from Not at All (1) to Extremely (5). Women reported more negative hypothetical reactions to private and public emotional abuse, sexual cyber abuse, cyber monitoring, and ignoring than men. Women reported being more scared, angry, upset, anxious, and uncomfortable than men in response to cyber abuse behaviors. Women also reported being less amused, excited, happy, turned on, and loved than men in response to cyber abuse. Public cyber abuse and sexual cyber abuse were the forms of abuse that students were the most uncomfortable with and women and men reported that they would have the most intense negative reactions to public cyber abuse. In contrast, women and men were least uncomfortable with cyber monitoring. In fact, 33% percent of women and 39% of men reported being not at all uncomfortable with a partner making them text a picture to verify their location. Expected reactions to abuse scenarios provide context for collaboration between researchers and community partners like university staff and student groups to partner in efforts to prevent dating abuse, promote healthy relationships, and improve student well-being.