Paranoia predicts the perpetration of psychological and relational cyber dating abuse

Cyber dating abuse involves intrusive electronic behaviors towards a romantic partner. While past research has treated cyber dating abuse as a single phenomenon, we examined cyber dating abuse as multifaceted, distinguishing between psychological and relational cyber dating abuse. This paper explored the roles of paranoia and digital jealousy in the perpetration of cyber dating abuse (N = 517 men and women in a non-clinical population). Data were collated via Qualtrics on social media platforms and the departmental research participation scheme. Persecution (paranoia, β = .321, p<.001) and digital jealousy (β = .350, p<.001) significantly predicted psychological cyber dating abuse, with persecution (β = .369, p<.001) and sex (β = -.106, p=.013) predicting relational cyber dating abuse. These findings are the first to highlight the roles of digital jealousy, paranoia and sex in cyber dating abuse, with implications for clinical and public health interventions aimed at reducing cyber dating abuse.

Citation

Bhogal, M.S., Rhead, C., Jones, C. and Kennedy, G. (2025) Paranoia predicts the perpetration of psychological and relational cyber dating abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. DOI: 10.1177/08862605251372571

Type

Journal article

Language

en

Description

© 2025 The Authors. Published by SAGE. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605251372571

ISSN

0886-2605

EISSN

1552-6518

Collections

Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing