Stranger Danger? Women's Self-Protection Intent and the Continuing Stigma of Online Dating

The present study examines the stigma associated with online relationship initiation and its relation to women's self-protective behavior. Self-protective behaviors are those an individual engages in to avoid becoming a victim of dating violence. Female participants from a Midwestern university (N=82) were asked to read scenarios describing a hypothetical date. In one scenario, the prospective date was only previously known through an online social networking site, while in the other scenario, the date was previously known through brief face-to-face interaction. After reading the scenario, participants rated the importance of engaging in self-protection behaviors if they were in the date situation being described. As we predicted, participants assigned greater importance to self-protective behavior after reading the online meeting scenario than the face-to-face scenario. This tendency was especially strong among participants who had never been on a date with someone they had met online.