Manipulation which is a type of social influence occurs when a person influences and operates another person by changing their thoughts or behaviors. Manipulation differs from its purpose. Harmful manipulation has features such as suppressing the person by manipulating the person, restricting free will and showing implicit aggression. At the same time, the manipulator’s motives are hidden and the goal is to benefit the manipulator.
Dating violence is defined as being subjected to abuse by husband/ wife, date, girlfriend/boyfriend or ex-partner.
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between being affected by the manipulation in students’ close relationships and exposure to dating violence in their emotional relationships.
This research is descriptive. 200 students between the ages of 18-28 at Yeditepe University participated in the study. Three different questionnaire forms were used to collect data. They are respectively demographic form, being affected by the manipulation questionnaire which consists of 20 questions and the exposure to dating violence questionnaire which consists of 42 questions. The answer to each question has an equal coefficient effect. At the end of the exposure to dating violence questionnaire, there is a description of a forensic case and questions about whether the case was resolved or not. Exposure to dating violence questionnaire consists of 7 sub-categories; emotional, verbal, social, physical, economic, sexual and digital.
The mean age of the participants is 22,08±2,03. Participants consist of students who 48% (N=96) are men and 52% (N=204) are women.
According to Pearson Correlation analysis; there is a moderately significant positive correlation between exposure to dating violence and being affected by manipulation (r= .319, p <0.001).
The findings suggest that when the rate of being affected by the manipulation in the close relationships of participants increases, dating violence increases.