Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Her major research interests are in the etiology and prevention of adolescent health risk behaviors. Vangie A. She studies adolescent problem behaviors, including violence between adolescent dating couples, adolescent cigarette smoking and alcohol use, and adolescent sexual behavior.
Investigators have identified a number of factors that increase risk for physical and psychological dating abuse perpetration during adolescence, but as yet little is known about the etiology of sexual dating aggression during this critical developmental period. This is an important gap in the literature given that research suggests that patterns of sexual dating violence that are established during this period may carry over into young adulthood.
Risk for sexual dating aggression onset increased across early adolescence, peaked in the 10 th grade, and desisted thereafter. As predicted based on the Confluence Model of sexual aggression, associations between early physical aggression towards peers and dates and sexual aggression onset were stronger for teens reporting higher levels of rape myth acceptance. Contrary to predictions, inter-parental violence, prior victimization experiences, and parental monitoring knowledge did not predict sexual dating aggression onset.
Findings support the notion that risk factors may work synergistically to predict sexual dating aggression and highlight the importance of rape myth acceptance as a construct that should be addressed by violence prevention programs. Keywords: sexual dating aggression, dating violence, rape myth acceptance, survival analysis. Yet, while a growing body of research has examined the etiology and development of physical and psychological dating aggression during adolescence e.
Extant research on adolescent sexual dating aggression has focused primarily on victimization rather than perpetration and nearly all studies examining sexual dating aggression have used a cross-sectional design. As a result, we have a limited understanding of the etiology and course of sexual dating aggression during this critical developmental period.
