Ideological and threat-based predictors of cyber violence against women and girls

Approximately 11% of women have received some form of unwanted or offensive sexually explicit e-mails, text messages or advances on social networking sites – examples of the many gendered forms of cyber-aggression that constitute cyber violence against women and girls (cyber VAWG). The present thesis developed a cyber VAWG scale and examined sociopolitical ideologies, perceived threats, and ambivalent sexist attitudes as predictors of endorsement of and engagement in cyber VAWG. Study 1 was administered to a university sample of male gamers (n=46), and Study 2 (n=276) and Study 3 (n=6381) recruited participants from online video gaming communities. In all three studies, exploratory factor analyses suggested cyber VAWG is a unidimensional psychological construct. Further, path analysis consistently showed that greater hostile sexism predicted greater endorsement, endorsement predicted greater engagement, and greater SDO predicted greater endorsement and engagement. Implications for future research are discussed.