| Abstract [eng] |
Statkonytė, I. (2023). The links between university students’ perceptions of cyberstalking, dating violence, and the Dark Triad. Master thesis. Vilnius University. – 57pp. Technology is a convenient way to communicate and maintain relationships, nevertheless, individuals with certain personality traits may tend to use it as a tool to start stalking their partner, which in the long run can also lead to dating violence. The study aims to assess the links between university students' perceptions of cyberstalking, dating violence, and the Dark Triad. The participants were 152 Lithuanian higher education students (129 female, 19 male, and 4 "other") with a mean age of 23.07 years. Three instruments were used to conduct the study: the Cyberstalking Scale (CS) (Santos et al., 2021), the Multidimensional Scale of Dating Violence 2.0 (MSDV 2.0) (Garcia-Carpintero-Munoz et al., 2022), and the short version of the Dark Triad Questionnaire (SD3) (Jones & Paulhus, 2014). 105 subjects reported using dating apps and 36 had experienced cyberstalking from a previous or current dating partner. The results of the study showed that the more often students perceive stalking behavior as acceptable, the more likely they are to use cyberbullying, monitor and stalk their dating partner, and use more violence in general during dating. Similarly, the more pronounced the Dark Triad traits are, the more likely students are to tend to perceive cyberstalking as more acceptable. Finally, regression analysis revealed that dating violence is predicted by the use of dating apps and the perception of cyberstalking when gender, age, the experience of cyberstalking, and the dark triad are controlled. Keywords: cyberstalking, dating violence, Dark Triad, students. |
