Exploring Interpersonal Risk Factors for Teen Dating Violence Longitudinally across Adolescence

Dating violence can manifest as sexual, emotional, or physical violence. Alarmingly, the National Institute of Justice reports that about 73% of adolescent females and about 66% of adolescent males who have begun to date have experienced at least one instance of emotional TDV (NIJ, 2016).

Given the prevalence and consequences of this behavior, empirically informed prevention is critical. Though there is substantial research on TDV victimization, less work has been done to examine perpetration directly (Dardis, Dixon, Edwards, & Turchik, 2015). Further, evidence suggests that there is no one risk factor that strongly predicts perpetration behavior, but rather a confluence of factors (Malamuth, 1981; Dardis et al., 2015). One theoretical frame for understanding risk of perpetration is through social learning theories of violence: individuals who observe or are victims of interpersonal violence are thereby subject to learning to perpetrate (Bandura, 1977; Curtis, 1963). This phenomenon has been studied robustly with attention to the proliferation of forms interpersonal violence across power dynamics (e.g., the pathway between witnessing violence at home to school bullying (Baldry, 2003); the bully to sexual violence pathway (Espelage, Basile, Hamburger, 2012)). Based on a recent literature review (Dardis et al., 2015), relevant personal (anxiety, depression, impulsivity, justification of violence, conflictual relationship style) and interpersonal (bullying, sexual harassment, and homophobic teasing perpetration and victimization) risk markers are analyzed in a series of multilevel growth curve models predicting physical and verbal TDV.

We sought to explore two levels of analysis (e.g., within and between-person) among 3,064 students from six high schools. Our models were largely supported and we found remarkably consistent findings in our final model at the between-person level. Two specific notable findings are discussed below: (1) attitudes justifying interpersonal violence were significant in both forms of TDV, confirming that such attitudes are a risk for violent behavior. (2) homophobic teasing perpetration (physical: ) was significant across forms of TDV, though traditional bullying perpetration ( was only significantly predictive of verbal TDV. This indicates that there may be different behavioral risk markers between forms of TDV. Full models will be presented and discussed during the symposium. Overall, data highlight the importance of examining behavioral markers associated with future perpetration of forms of TDV longitudinally and between and within individuals.