About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 22. Social Relationships

Abstract

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Digital dating abuse (DDA) is a widespread form of dating violence among adolescents that uses digital platforms to control, harass, monitor, pressure, or threaten a romantic partner and is associated with adverse physical and mental health outcomes (Reed et al., 2017; Van Ouytsel et al., 2017). Adolescents often misinterpret DDA—such as controlling or monitoring behaviors—as normal relationship behaviors (Stonard et al., 2014), increasing their risk of experiencing DDA and decreasing their likelihood of seeking support. These misinterpretations may stem from the complexity of DDA, as it occurs in both negative (e.g., conflict) and positive (e.g., affection and joking) contexts and often involves bidirectional behaviors between partners (Ellyson et al., 2021; Reed et al., 2021). However, how DDA context and the roles of those involved influence adolescents’ recognition of DDA behaviors remains underexplored. We conducted a 3x3 between-subjects experiment using hypothetical text message conversations to examine how DDA context and role influence adolescents’ recognition of DDA behaviors and their anticipated emotional responses. DDA context was manipulated in three conditions: DDA-only (direct and obvious behaviors), DDA-with-affection (DDA behaviors with affection), and no-DDA (control). We also manipulated the perspective (role) of the text conversation: sender, receiver, or mutual. Participants (N = 475, Mage = 15.74 years, SD = 1.00) were randomly assigned to one of nine text-message conditions that varied by DDA contexts and roles and asked to indicate the presence of DDA behaviors (e.g., controlling, harassing, monitoring, threatening, manipulative) and how upset they’d feel if this was their relationship. We hypothesized adolescents would recognize DDA behaviors more and report feeling more upset in the DDA-only condition compared to the average of DDA-with-affection and no-DDA conditions and differences between DDA-with-affection and no-DDA. While we anticipated that role would influence recognition, we did not predict specific interaction effects between DDA context and role. Results showed that DDA context significantly influenced both DDA recognition and emotional responses. For DDA recognition, there was a significant main effect of DDA context, F(2, 453) = 97.71, p < .001, ηp² = .301, with adolescents recognizing DDA behaviors significantly more in the DDA-only condition compared to the average of the DDA with affection and no DDA conditions, t(453) = 1.14, p < .001. Those in the DDA-with-affection condition recognized DDA behaviors significantly less than those in the no-DDA condition, t(453) = 2.54, p < .001. For emotional responses, there was a significant main effect of DDA context, F(2, 453) = 53.57, p < .001, ηp² = .191, with adolescents reporting feeling more upset in the DDA-only condition compared to the average of the other two conditions, t(453) = -0.79, p < .001, and significantly less upset in the DDA-with-affection condition compared to the no-DDA condition, t(453) = 1.96, p < .001. DDA role and the interaction between DDA context and role were not significant. Our findings support that affection can obscure DDA recognition, a finding that offers new insights into the contextual subtleties of DDA and can inform future work and interventions aimed at reducing DDA.

Author information

Author	Role
Jennifer M. Figueroa, Arizona State University	Presenting author
Thao Ha, Arizona State University	Non-presenting author
Olivia Maras, Arizona State University	Non-presenting author
Samantha F. Anderson, Arizona State University	Non-presenting author

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