Does the Digital Environment Evoke Anxiety Cycles in Romantic Relationships? The Roles of Social–Interpersonal and Individual Factors in Cyberdating Abuse Perpetration

Abstract

Cyberdating abuse (CDA) is a complex phenomenon with detrimental consequences for well-being. Previous literature has shown that romantic anxious attachment schemes lead to perpetration of CDA behaviors. However, less attention has been paid to examining factors moderating and mediating the effect of anxious attachment on CDA perpetration. Our research is pioneering in examining (a) the moderating role of gender and the heterosexual script (HS; i.e., gender roles in heterosexual relationships) in the positive association between anxious attachment and CDA perpetration and (b) whether romantic anxious attachment indirectly influences CDA perpetration via electronic partner surveillance (EPS) and online jealousy. Across two cross-sectional studies (N = 698 young adults), we observed that high levels of anxious attachment predicted more frequent perpetration of direct cyberaggression against a partner in men with high HS adherence (vs. low HS), whereas this effect was not found among women. Additionally, we found that the positive association between anxious attachment and cybercontrol perpetration can be mediated through increases in EPS use and frequency of online jealousy. Our research contributes to a better understanding of some factors leading to CDA perpetration and may favor the development of CDA intervention programs based on the violence’s characteristics and gender norms.

Keywords:

• Anxious attachment
• gender
• digital media
• jealousy
• cybercontrol
• direct cyberaggression

Ethics approval

The study received ethical approval from the University of Granada (approval number: 3328/CEIH/2021).

Patient consent statement

Informed consent was obtained from all participants at the start of the survey.

Author contributions

M. Dolores Sánchez-Hernández: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Validation; Visualization; Writing – original draft. M. Carmen Herrera: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Supervision; Writing – review & editing. Francisca Expósito: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Supervision; Writing – review & editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Data availability statement

These studies’ design and their analysis were not pre-registered. Supplementary materials, data, and scripts are publicly available and can be accessed at https://osf.io/9kwqu/.

Notes

1 EPS through SNSs and cybercontrol are technological behaviors that have been observed to be positively related in the literature (e.g., Frampton & Fox, 2018; van Ouytsel et al., 2019). Although there is some similarity between the two concepts, they have relevant nuances that differentiate them. On the one hand, EPS captures the behaviors of checking the partner’s activity exclusively in the SNS context, whereas cybercontrol captures all behaviors via various digital media (e.g., SNSs, email, phone calls, instant messenger applications) that are exercised to control the partner. On the other hand, it is worth noting that the information posted on SNSs is made public and does not involve a clear violation of the partner’s privacy or trust (Utz & Beukeboom, 2011). People may engage in EPS with other purposes besides controlling the partner (e.g., getting to know the partner, sharing experiences and interests, and providing support to the partner). Thus, our EPS measure assesses several behaviors relted to checking the partner’s activity in SNSs without paying attention to the underlying motivations (e.g., “I often spend time looking through my partner’s SNS pictures” or “I notice when my partner updates his/her SNS page”). In contrast, the cybercontrol measure includes EPS behaviors but with an explicit intention of exercising control over the partner (see Borrajo et al., 2015; e.g., “I have controlled my partner’s or ex-partner’s SNS wall status updates” or “I have controlled my partner’s or ex-partner’s friendships on SNSs”).

2 In order to delimit the age range of young adults, we used the term “emerging adulthood” coined by Arnett (2000). Arnett’s term refers to the new developmental stage that has emerged as a result of environmental factors (i.e., sociocultural and economic factors) that seem to be delaying the acquisition of traditional markers of adulthood (e.g., marriage, parenthood, financial independence, home ownership). Likewise, previous studies have used the same standard (e.g., Lowe et al., 2013; Oleszkowicz & Misztela, 2015; Sánchez Hernández et al., 2020).

3 We performed a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for all measures using the AMOS 26 program. All information about the CFA results in Study 1 and Study 2 is available in the Supplementary Material (see SM1.1 and SM2.1, respectively).

4 Previous literature has observed that CDA victimization strongly predicts CDA perpetration (e.g., Felmlee & Faris, 2016; Smith et al., 2018). That is, having previously suffered CDA increases the risk of perpetrating such violence (Fernández-González et al., 2020). In line with Smith et al. (2018), in the virtual context, victims of CDA may easily engage in online reactive violence and take on the role of perpetrators. Likewise, Villorra et al. (2021) found that CDA perpetration and victimization were highly and positively associated in both dimensions, direct cyberaggression and cybercontrol. Therefore, we controlled in our analyses for both direct cyberaggression victimization and cybercontrol victimization.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities with the FPU18/00756 grant and by the MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER with the PID2021-123125OB-I00 project.

Notes on contributors

M. Dolores Sánchez-Hernández

M. Dolores Sánchez-Hernández is a Doctoral Student in Social Psychology at the University of Granada (UGR), a member of the “Psychology of Social Problems” research group, and a member of the “Gender Violence, Intervention, and Counselling (VIGIA)” Association. Her research interests address digital media, cyberdating abuse, gender, and sexism.

M. Carmen Herrera

M. Carmen Herrera is a Senior Lecturer of Social Psychology at the UGR, PhD in Social Psychology, and an Expert in Criminology. She is a member of the “Psychology of Social Problems” research group. Her research interests address gender violence, sexism, sexual harassment, digital media, and cyberdating abuse.

Francisca Expósito

Francisca Expósito is a Professor of Social Psychology at the UGR. She founded the VIGIA Association and the “Psychosocial Intervention for Minors (and their Mothers) Victims of Gender Violence” UGR Program. Her research interests address discrimination, sexism, gender violence, sexual harassment, digital media, and cyberdating abuse.