Noel Scott, Brent Moyle, Ana Cláudia Campos, Liubov Skavronskaya and Biqiang Liu
Erica R. Fissel and Jin R. Lee
The purpose of this paper is to understand the self-protective behaviors of young adult cyberstalking victims and the factors that impact adoption of such behaviors.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the self-protective behaviors of young adult cyberstalking victims and the factors that impact adoption of such behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a sample of 880 young adults (18–25 years of age) who had experienced cyberstalking victimization within the previous 12 months. Data were collected through an online self-report survey hosted on Qualtrics from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk workers.
Findings
Results revealed that three-quarters of cyberstalking victims engaged in at least one form of self-protective behavior. The most commonly adopted self-protective behavior was blocking unwanted communications only (29%), while 40% of cyberstalking victims noted engaging in multiple forms of self-protective behaviors. While results varied across models, findings revealed that incident characteristics and respondent characteristics impacted the likelihood of engaging in self-protective behaviors after a cyberstalking victimization experience.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature examining the self-protective behaviors adopted by cyberstalking victims, which can shed light on other forms of cyber abuse and help explain victims’ low reporting rates to official sources (e.g. law enforcement).