Session: Developmental Etiology of Youth Dating Violence in a National Sample (Society for Prevention Research 25th Annual Meeting)

Literature showed that adolescent relationship abuse (ARA, also known as teen dating violence, or TDV) is a widespread public health problem with significant negative consequences. Beyond the immediate negative consequences, ARA experiences have been found to be associated with multiple undesirable outcomes such as substance use, suicidal behavior, mental health disorders, and violence in adult intimate partnerships. Thus, early prevention of youth ARA is a critical social challenge in enhancing adolescent and adult relationship safety.

While data collected from convenience samples sometimes examines ARA in great details, detailed data in a national representative sample is scarce. This symposium brings together three research papers exploring risk factors of youth ARA victimization and perpetration in the context of family, friends and individual decision-making, using the national Survey of Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV) study, a large prospective study of a national reprehensive sample of youths aged 10 to 18 and their parents/caregivers recruited from the GfK/Knowledge Panel in 2013.

The first paper, “The relationship between parent’s IPV victimization and youths’ ARA victimization and perpetration: A dual latent class analysis” explored how profiles of co-occurring parents’ IPV victimization are differentially related to profiles of their offspring’s ARA experiences, using the third wave of STRiV data. It was found that youths faced an elevated risk of ARA victimization and perpetration when their parents experienced multiple types of IPV victimization, and the influence of parents’ behavior on their offspring is salient beyond early childhood.

The second paper, “Perpetration of Adolescent Dating Relationship Abuse: The Role of Conditional Tolerance for Violence and Friendship Factors” investigate how the context of friendship, e.g., connectedness with friends, is associated with subsequent ARA perpetration, using two waves of STRiV data. In addition to friend connectedness, ARA perpetration may also be prevented by targeting conditional tolerance for violence.

The third paper, “Early Money Lending Practices, Financial Resentment, Economic Control and Subsequent Adolescent Dating Relationship Abuse: Longitudinal Results from a National Sample” considers the role of financial decision-making in wave one and two in youth ARA in wave three. Findings suggest that adolescents are confronted with a number of financial considerations in the context of their dating relationships, and such considerations are associated with subsequent violence perpetration. Results emphasize the potential of directing attention to financial matters in adolescent ARA prevention efforts.