Acceptability of dating violence among late adolescents: the role of sports participation, competitive attitudes, and selected dynamics of relationship violence

This study uses a vignette-based survey design to examine the relationship between both respondent-level and case-level characteristics and the acceptability of violence in dating relationships. Measures of sports participation, competitiveness, and the need to win (respondent characteristics) were administered to 661 male and female late adolescents. Participants also rated the acceptability of violence portrayed in a series of couple interaction vignettes varying along three dimensions: initiator act, recipient reaction, and initator-recipient gender combinations (case characteristics). Results from a multilevel analysis show that with regard to respondent characteristics, only the need to win is related (positively) to the acceptability of dating violence, not sports participation or competitiveness. With regard to case characteristics, recipient reaction has the strongest relationship, suggesting that how a victim of violence reacts may be a more important predictor (negative relationship) of the acceptability of dating violence than the initial act of violence. Overall, case characteristics explain three times more variation in the acceptability of dating violence than respondent characteristics (30% vs. 10%).