Digital dating abuse (DDA), the use of technology to coerce, control, harass, threaten, monitor, or pressure a romantic partner, is a widespread form of dating violence among adolescents that is associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Previous research shows that adolescents misinterpret some DDA behaviors as normative relationship behaviors, increasing the risk for more severe DDA. These misinterpretations may stem from DDA occurring within positive (e.g., affection and joking) contexts, and who is experiencing and/or engaging in DDA. Yet, it remains unclear how the context in which DDA occurs (DDA only, DDA with affection, or no DDA) and roles (perpetrator, victim, or mutual) influence adolescents' recognition of and emotional responses to DDA. Two between-subjects experiments using hypothetical text messages examined how DDA context and role influenced DDA recognition and anticipation of feeling upset among Hispanic and Latino high school adolescents (Study 1: N = 422, Mage = 15.76, SD = 1.02, 54.7% female; Study 2: N = 384, Mage = 16.52, SD = 0.98, 51.8% female). Across experiments, adolescents' recognition of DDA behaviors and anticipation of feeling upset were significantly higher in both the DDA-with-affection and DDA-only contexts compared to the no-DDA context. Findings suggest that even when affectionate behaviors are present, DDA behaviors were still recognized by adolescents. There were no significant main effects of role on DDA recognition or anticipation of feeling upset. The findings of this work highlight the importance of addressing both overt and mixed-message forms of DDA in future adolescent prevention and intervention efforts.
Figueroa et al. (Sun,) studied this question.