Is Adolescents’ Cyber Dating Violence Perpetration Related to Problematic Pornography Use? The Moderating Role of Hostile Sexism

ABSTRACT

Intimate partner violence is an important public health problem. Cyber dating violence (CDV) is a form of intimate partner violence perpetrated within a dating relationship via new communication technologies. This study investigated the moderating roles of hostile and benevolent sexism in the relationship between problematic pornography use and CDV perpetration. The Cyber Pornography Use Inventory, the Cyber Dating Violence Inventory, and the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory were completed by 421 Italian adolescents (M = 16.53; females = 63.7%). Results indicated that problematic pornography use was positively related to CDV perpetration. In addition, the relationship between problematic pornography use and CDV perpetration was found to be moderated by hostile sexism. In participants with low levels of hostile sexism, the relationship between problematic pornography use and CDV perpetration was not significant. Conversely, in those with high levels of hostile sexism, this relationship was stronger and significant. Benevolent sexism was not found to be a moderator in the relationship between problematic pornography use and CDV perpetration. Thus, hostile sexism could be a risk factor for the relationship between adolescents’ problematic pornography use and their engagement in CDV. Conversely, low levels of hostile sexism could be a protective factor.

Disclosure statement

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

Authors contribution

All the authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. All the authors but Paul J. Wright participated in the material preparation and data collection. Methodology, formal analyses, and investigation: Mara Morelli, Maria Rosaria Nappa, Antonio Chirumbolo; Writing – original draft preparation: Mara Morelli, Maria Rosaria Nappa, Paul J. Wright, Sara Pabian; Writing – review and editing: All the authors reviewed the manuscript. Supervision: Elena Cattelino, Emiddia Longobardi, Angela Costabile, and Roberto Baiocco. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and material

Data are available under request to the corresponding author.

Consent to participate

Each participant gave his/her consent to participate in the study.

Ethics approval

The study was approved by the ethic committee of Sapienza University of Rome.

Notes

1. According to the Inclusive Language Guide (American Psychological Association, 2023), “the term ‘minority’ may be considered pejorative in the context of race and ethnicity; however, it is seen as acceptable in the context of sex and gender” (p. 33).

2. Although these correlations are somewhat redundant with the MANOVA results, they are important to report to ease the burden for researchers interested in meta-analyzing this literature (Tokunaga et al., 2020).

3. Potential three-way interactions were also probed in order to investigate if the moderating effect of hostile sexism in the relation between problematic pornography use and CDV was further affected by biological sex (0 = female; 1 = male) and age group (0 = early adolescents; 1 = late adolescents), the following two interaction effects, i.e., hostile sexism * problematic pornography use * biological sex, hostile sexism * problematic pornography use * age, were also tested but no significant interaction effects were found. Similarly, to analyze if the moderating effect of benevolent sexism in the relationship between problematic pornography use and CDV was further affected by biological sex, and age the following two interaction terms (i.e., benevolent sexism * problematic pornography use * biological sex, benevolent sexism * problematic pornography use * age) were tested. Again, the multiple regression analysis did not detect any significant interaction effects.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.