Open Collections

Baitz, Rachel

University of British Columbia

Background: Young adulthood is often characterized as a time of rapid individuation away from family relationships toward more adult romantic partner relationships. In the current technological climate, young adult relationships begin, grow, and develop both in-person and online in a seamless fashion. Unfortunately, problems that have always plagued young adult relationships, such as dating violence, also occur via electronic mediums. Given that technological factors that relate to relationships are still emerging, little is known about how a variety of experiences across the childhood and adolescent trajectory relate to the emergence of cyber dating violence in young adulthood. Objectives: The current research seeks to understand how early childhood traumatic experiences predict cyber dating violence, and whether this relationship is mediated by insecure attachment, and moderated by problematic internet use, internalizing symptoms, limerence, cyberbullying perpetration and victimization, and limerence. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, 1354 adults aged 18 to 51 were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to answer a questionnaire about their experiences with cyber dating violence victimization and perpetration, as well as their experiences with cyberbullying and victimization, internalizing symptoms, problematic internet use, attachment styles, and limerence. Results: Results indicated partial mediations for higher scores on measures of insecure attachment (anxious, avoidant) on the relationship between traumatic experiences recalled from early in life and cyber dating violence victimization and perpetration in young adulthood. Moderation results indicated that cyberbullying, cyber victimization, and problematic internet use moderated the influence of traumatic experiences recalled from early life on cyber dating violence experiences in young adulthood. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated several predictors of limerence, such as anxious attachment, internalizing symptoms, and vulnerable experiences. Discussion: Findings from the current work move the body of literature forward by illustrating important links between early experiences, attachment styles, cyberbullying, cybervictimization, internalizing symptoms, problematic internet use, limerence, and cyber dating violence perpetration and victimization.

Text

2023-07-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85230

Human Development, Learning, and Culture

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/