From sexting to dating violence through ambivalent sexism: the perpetrator’s perspective

Most of literature on sexting underlined the relationship between sexting misuse and risk for dating violence victimization. On the contrary, this research aimed to shed light on the perpetrator’s perspective. The study investigated how a risky sexting behavior (the sharing of someone else’s sexually suggestive pictures without her/his permission) could lead to dating violence perpetration, taking into account the moderating role of ambivalent sexism. A survey that assessed sexting, dating violence and ambivalent sexism was administered to 715 adolescents and young adults from 13 to 30 years old (Mage = 22.01; SDage = 4.01; 513 female participants, 71.7%). Two moderation regression analyses were run in order to test the moderating role of both benevolent and hostile sexism, in the relationship between sexting and dating violence perpetration, controlling for age, gender and sexual orientation. Then, in order to interpret the direction of the interactions, two full simple slope analyses were conducted. At low levels of benevolent sexism, there was a significant positive relationship between sexting and dating violence perpetration, β = .30, t = 4.74, p < .001, whereas at high levels of benevolent sexism, this relationship vanished to a non-significant effect, β = .06, t = .05, n.s. On the contrary, at high levels of hostile sexism, there was a significant positive relationship between sexting and dating violence perpetration, β = .19, t = 4.25, p < .001, whereas at low levels of hostile sexism, this relationship was reduced to a non-significant effect, β = - .07, t = 1.56, n.s. Results suggested that in the relationship between sexting and dating violence perpetration, hostile sexism could be a risk factor while benevolent sexism could be a protective factor. This findings can have relevant implications for prevention programs that should be focused on decreasing and deconstructing gender stereotypes, in order to promote more healthy and safer dating relationships since adolescence.