Psychopathic Traits and Cyber Dating Abuse: Mediating Effect of Internet Addiction in a University Student Sample

ABSTRACT

Young adults are highly involved on the Internet. However, an excessive involvement can lead to Internet addiction. The literature reveals that the presence of psychopathic traits is associated with a greater predisposition to develop an addiction. With technologies, a new form of dating abuse has emerged – cyber abuse. This cross-sectional study aimed to analyze the associations between the variables under study and to test the mediating effect of Internet addiction between psychopathy and cyber dating abuse. The sample consisted of 249 university students (M = 21.38; SD = 4.52), in Portugal. The Self-Report Psychopathy Scale – III (SRP-III), the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the Cyber Dating Abuse Questionnaire (CDAQ) and a sociodemographic questionnaire were used as instruments.

The main results suggest that Internet addiction partially mediated the relationship between psychopathy and victimization (β = .277; p = .007) and perpetration (β = .243; p = .015) of cyber dating abuse.

It is possible to emphasize the importance of the preponderance of psychopathy in the development of addiction and cyber abuse. The results also demonstrated that Internet addiction is influenced by psychopathic traits and that, consequently, it influences cyber dating abuse.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychopathy
• internet addiction
• cyber dating abuse
• university students

Acknowledgments

National funds support one of the author’s work through the FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the project the Scientific Employment Stimulus - Institutional Call – CEECINST/00127/2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).