Wording Effect in the Measurement of Attitudes towards Dating Violence

Abstract

Dating violence is considered as a type of intimate partner violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019) affecting adolescents and young people in relationships with different degree of formality (Vagi et al., 2013). Whereas the most classical definitions restricted the term to physical violence (Sugarman & Hotaling, 1989), the most widely accepted definitions today considered any act of psychological, sexual, or physical abuse as part of the violence in the courtship (Anderson & Danis, 2007; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019; Chen, Foshee, & McNaughton Reyes, 2016). In addition, some scholars restrict the term to current relationships (Anderson & Danis, 2007), while others extend it to appointments (Lavoie, Robitaille, & Hebert, 2000) or even terminated relationships (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). In this paper we adopt a broad view of this term, considering that any behaviour that damages the physical, psychological, or sexual integrity of a current or former partner in adolescence or youth is part of it. Lack of consensus of an operational definition of dating violence has made it difficult to provide data of the extent of the problem. Systematic reviews on the prevalence of dating violence revealed the extraordinary variability in the data provided by the studies, ranging from 0.4 to 95% h t t p s : / / j o u r n a l s. c o p m a d r i d. o rg / p i

Psychosocial Implications of Supportive Attitudes towards Intimate Partner Violence against Women throughout the Lifecycle

“…Of these studies, 45.2% involved students (19.4% high school students and 28.8% college students), and 48.4% were carried out in Spain, a country heavily involved in the fight against IPVAW. However, this is not a one-time event and other studies not included in this systematic review (because they were published subsequently or in the Spanish language and therefore did not meet the inclusion criteria) were also mostly conducted with young or university students [ 34 , 38 , 39 ].…”

Development and validation of the acceptance of dating violence questionnaire

“…These correlations were low or moderate, as expected since having attitudes toward violence are a risk factor of developing dating violence, but there are several other factors that contribute to the development of dating violence (Lara & Providell, 2020). All the items in this instrument were worded positively, avoiding the potential distortions and biases introduced by mixing positively and negatively worded statements (Suárez-Alvarez et al, 2018;Pastor et al, 2020). Regarding differences by sex, mean comparisons for independent samples showed that, although accepting attitudes toward dating violence were not characteristic for the majority of youngsters in this study-the scores are generally low-boys/men presented higher scores than girls/women in the three dimensions of the victimization perspective and in control from the perspective of the perpetration.…”

“…Giving attention to possible differences by age groups is also relevant because earlier experiences in dating may be considered as a "training ground" for romantic relationships later in life, so it is important to know what current adolescents and young adults deem acceptable in terms of conflict within their romantic relationships, and to what extent they accept violence as part of "normal" in these relationships. According to Pastor et al (2020), the belief that it is acceptable to use violence in courtship would be one of the most consistent and strongest factors associated to perpetrating violence in dating relationships.…”

“…Although the use of both regular and reversed items in tests is often recommended in order to reduce response bias, recent studies have pointed out that when studying attitudes the combination of positive and reversed items on the same scale might affect reliability and validity, increasing respondents’ likelihood to disagree with attitude questions worded in negative and to agree with equivalent positive ones (Suárez-Alvarez et al, 2018; Pastor et al, 2020). Pastor et al (2020) provided empirical support for this claim, arguing that the IPVAS wording—with a scale with only positive-worded items (abuse), another scale with only negative-worded items (violence), and another with mixed-worded items (control)—causes an overestimation of its reliability and construct validity and creates a confusing frame of reference for respondents. Therefore, they advised to re-write the instrument using only positive-worded items, which would allow a more accurate measurement.…”

On the Relationship Between Item Stem Formulation and Criterion Validity of Multiple-Component Measuring Instruments

“…As an example in point, we would like to mention the Big Five Personality scales by Hahn et al (2012); other examples can be found in the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Trait version by Bieling et al (1998), or in the modification of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale by Zimprich et al (2005). In addition, while further issues of question wording, such as negative formulation and reverse-keying, have been empirically investigated (e.g., Cole et al, 2019;Gu et al, 2017;Miller & Cleary, 1993;Pastor et al, 2020), the impact of DBQs on the validity of measurement has rarely been addressed in past empirical research.…”