Victims and Perpetrators of Cyber Harassment: The Role of Power and Control and the Use of Techniques of Neutralization

ABSTRACT

Cyber harassment is a common problem among younger populations and women. While scholars have noted that cyber harassment may be an attempt to demonstrate power and control, it remains unclear if that is the case from the victim’s and perpetrator’s perspective. Relying on open-ended responses from a sample of college students, we use a validated instrument to qualitatively examine if victims of cyber harassment (N = 170) perceived their victimization to center on aspects of power and control. Additionally, we examine if students who engaged in cyber harassment (N = 33) minimize their behaviors by employing techniques of neutralization and identify how these efforts may overlap with power and control (i.e., threats, checking movements). Findings reveal that one out of three victims reported controlling behaviors, which were commonly experienced by women and perpetrated by men, and regularly included severe controlling techniques. We additionally found that perpetrators of cyber harassment frequently engaged in techniques of neutralization. The most common technique was denial of injury. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The authors reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes

¹ We recognize that individuals can also identify as non-binary and that gender dualism informs all aspects of our daily lives (Miller et al. 2015). Unfortunately, the survey instrument did not include a response category for respondents who identified as non-binary or whose perpetrator was non-binary.

² Although stalking in the context of IPV frequently occurs to control the victim after separation, stalking can additionally occur during the relationship and before the relationship has ended (Melton 2007; Woodlock 2017).

³ While not an exhaustive list of behaviors, the included items were informed by prior research (Mullen, Pathé, and Purcell 2009), including the Supplemental Victimization Survey of the National Crime Victimization Survey (Baum et al. 2009).

⁴ An example of this overlap between questions includes “Stalking by someone who raped me, through texts, snapchat, facebook and Instagram; Spying on facebook, snapchat, and instagram.”

⁵ One respondent who was excluded because their description did not include detail also did not report their gender. In the final sample, there were two respondents who did not report their gender. For this reason, the percentages do not add up to 100%.

⁶ Though the CBI has primarily been applied to examine controlling behaviors in abusive relationships (Dobash et al. 1998; Mahalik et al. 2005), the index is not limited to abusive relationships.

⁷ Two victims of cyber harassment who experienced controlling behavior did not report their gender.

⁸ The open-ended responses revealed that respondents who reported being harassed by both a man and a woman, had often experienced multiple cyber harassment situations that were perpetrated by men and women separately and not by the combination of them. Two female victims did not report the perpetrator’s gender.

⁹ One male victim did not report the perpetrator’s gender.

¹⁰ The CBI (Dobash et al. 1998) originally used pronouns ‘she/her’ for all 21 items. Since the survey was administered to both men and women – and there were also male victims of cyber harassment in the sample – we use the gender-inclusive pronouns ‘them/their’ instead.

¹¹ Chi-square tests could not be conducted because one of the assumptions was violated (i.e. expected values were not greater than 5 in each cell), which is why we opted to use Fisher’s exact tests instead.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlijn van Baak

Carlijn van Baak is a Ph.D. candidate at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) and the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include intimate partner violence, victimization, and bystander behavior. Prior work has appeared in Violence Against Women and Violence and Victims.

Cooper A. Maher

Cooper A. Maher is a Ph.D. student at the University of Cincinnati. His research interests center on victimization and cybercrime, and particularly focus upon decision-making processes of victims and offenders in online contexts.

Michelle E. Protas

Michelle E. Protas is a Ph.D. student in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include victimization, cybercrime, and crime prevention.

Brittany E. Hayes

Brittany E. Hayes (Ph.D., John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Her research centers on victimization as well as how the broader social context influences individuals’ perceptions and behaviors. Her work has been published in the American Sociological Review, Justice Quarterly, and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.