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Violence against women, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and stalking, is a serious issue in Korea. Studies have found that most stalking perpetrators are current or former intimate partners, and there is a significant association between stalking behaviors and IPV. Using data from the Violence Against Women, Focused on Intimate Partner Violence (VAW-IPV) study, collected by the Korean Institute of Criminology (KIC), this study aims to identify patterns of IPV perpetration and examine how those patterns predict post-breakup stalking among 847 Korean men who were in a romantic relationship, but are not currently in that relationship. In addition, as various factors might predict different IPV patterns, this study examines these nuanced patterns. We identified three distinct IPV perpetration patterns among Korean men, and found that those patterns predict post-breakup stalking differently. We also found that there were distinct factors such as self-control and child abuse history that differentiated each subgroup. Based on the findings of this study, we suggest policy implications, including developing educational programs and risk assessment tools that can prevent further perpetration of IPV and stalking behaviors among Korean men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that in the United States we live in a stalking culture— a culture in which stalking is normalized, minimized, and romanticized through various cultural institutions. We also live in an era when romantic interactions and dating are increasingly taking place online. Bringing together these ideas, the present study examines perceptions of lay observers of the cyberstalking of women with a focus on gender and stalking context. Drawing on data from an original vignette study via an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) survey (n = 727), we examine whether (a) observer's gender, (b) four types of stalking contexts (ex-boyfriend, coworker, one-time date, and stranger), and (c) individual differences in observers' attitudes regarding gender and sexuality beliefs (sexual double standards, benevolent sexism, and hostile sexism) impact lay perceptions of cyberstalking. We found that compared to men, women are more likely to label cyberstalking and to deem cyberstalking as less socially acceptable. Compared to the stranger stalking scenario, participants were less likely to label the other three scenarios as stalking; additionally, participants rated ex-boyfriend stalking, relative to stranger stalking, as more acceptable. We also found that attitudinal measures predict higher acceptability ratings across stalking contexts, and hostile sexist beliefs mediate the relationship between observers' gender and likelihood of labeling the situation as stalking. Our results suggest that the minimization and normalization of cyberstalking may be driven not only by one's gender, but also by a culturally accepted hierarchy of stalking narratives as well as gender attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the extent of cyber and in-person unwanted pursuit behaviors (UPBs) reported by undergraduate men and women who pursued former partners and the pursuer's perceptions of the impact of their pursuit on their targets. Among a sample of 1167 undergraduates (66.8 % women; 95.4 % heterosexual) approximately 80 % of men and women reported engaging in UPBs toward former partners, with cyber pursuit endorsed by a subset of those who engaged in in-person UPBs. Despite few gender differences in overall pursuit, men endorsed engaging in a number of specific behaviors more than did women. Most UPBs did receive responses from targets, and pursuers generally did not perceive their behaviors as annoying, threatening, or frightening. Women perceived that targets had more negative responses to UPBs, particularly to threatening or violent pursuit, and men perceived more positive or neutral responses overall. Minor UPBs were associated with relationship reconciliation among women and men, whereas severe UPBs were associated with reconciliation among men only. Results suggest that pursuers likely underestimate the impact of their behaviors on targets and that pursuers' efforts, even severe and threatening, are often reinforced, particularly for men who pursue. Universities must be aware of UPBs and provide prevention programs specific to healthy relationship dissolution and pursuit. Provision of corrective information regarding the impact of severe and threatening pursuit may assist in reducing these behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that stalking tactics have been shaped by evolutionary processes to help solve mating problems. These include: (1) acquiring new mates, (2) guarding existing mates to prevent defection, (3) fending off mate poachers, (4) poaching someone else's mate, (5) interfering with intrasexual competitors, (6) reacquiring ex-mates, (7) sexual exploitation and predation, and (8) guarding kin from sexual exploitation. We hypothesize several, gender-differentiated design features of psychological adaptations, including sensitivity to adaptive problems for which stalking was an ancestral solution and cognitive biases that function to motivate and perpetuate stalking behaviors. Although often abhorrent, cost-inflicting, and illegal, stalking sometimes enables successful adaptive solutions to problems of mating and within-gender competition faced by both men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduates from a large southeastern university in the U.S. ( n = 258) read a scenario describing an unwanted heterosexual pursuit that manipulated story perspective (pursuer's vs. rejecter's) and pursuer/rejecter gender. Measures of 1) external attributions for pursuer behavior, 2) negative internal attributions to rejecters, and 3) Stalking Myths endorsement followed. Individuals adopting the pursuer's perspective showed higher rates of external attributions for pursuer behavior than those in the rejecter perspective condition. They also endorsed more negative internal attributions for rejecters than those in the rejecter perspective condition, especially when the rejecter was male. Participant gender also mattered. Men exhibited more victim blaming tendencies than women when the rejecter was female. However, stalking myth endorsement was the strongest predictor of attributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this research was to examine the influence of gender on college students' stalking scripts. One hundred fifty-four participants from a university located in the southern United States generated a narrative account of what occurs during stalking. Women were expected to generate more examples of ambiguous, non-aggressive, behaviors than were men, as well as to generate more coping strategies on the part of the target. Results overall revealed a high degree of similarity in content of generated stalking behaviors as a function of gender. However, women generated hyper-intimacy behaviors and mediated contact as part of their scripts significantly more often than did men. Women were also significantly more likely to generate a coping strategy than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An integrative review of three theories that explain why some individuals engage in persistent pursuit-coercive control theory, relational goal pursuit, and attachment theory-is presented. The meta-analytic evidence pointing to persistent pursuit as a gendered behavior is reviewed, and coercive control theory is used to explain gender differences. The strong conceptual and empirical overlap between coercive control as a form of intimate partner violence and persistent pursuit is examined. It is suggested that persistent pursuit measures do not adequately assess behaviors that may be used more commonly by women, such as use of physical attractiveness or gossip to damage one's reputation. Given the promising empirical support for the theories, longitudinal and comparative evaluations, with new methods are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the findings concerning whether victim gender is associated with greater stalking consequences are equivocal, the literature is consistent that a prior victim-stalker relationship increases the severity of stalking victimization. The current study hypothesised that 1) this relationship would predict the psychological, physical, social, and economic consequences to victims, and that 2) fear may serve as a mediator of the impact of victim gender and prior relationship on the consequences of stalking. An international survey of 1,214 valid self-defined stalking victims reveals victim gender contributed to the psychological and physical consequences of stalking beyond the contribution of victim-perpetrator relationship. A more important predictor of these consequences and of social and economic consequences was fear, with women reporting greater levels than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated gender differences in the perpetration of stalking violence and how sociocultural beliefs may account for these differences/similarities. A sample of 293 Australian undergraduate and postgraduate students classified as relational stalkers completed a self-report questionnaire assessing violence perpetration (no/moderate/severe violence) and sociocultural beliefs (justifications for relational violence; assessments of target fear). Female relational stalkers perpetrated elevated rates of moderate violence; however, there were no gender differences for severe violence. Both male and female relational stalkers were more supportive of justifications for female-perpetrated relational violence than male-perpetrated relational violence. Violent male relational stalkers were more likely to believe they caused fear/harm than their female counterparts. These findings are interpreted in the context of sociocultural beliefs that view male-to-female violence as more unacceptable and harmful than female-to-male violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, a survey was administered to 513 U.S. undergraduate college students from a large east coast university to examine whether extra-legal factors influenced their personal judgments of criminal justice system responsiveness to stalking. MANOVA results indicated that students believed police and prosecutors would not treat analogous cases similarly (this bias was not apparent with judges). College students perceived that prior relationship and target/offender gender would impact arrest decisions, and that target/offender gender would also impact police investigations and the filing of criminal charges. Potential explanations and practical implications of these findings are discussed, as well as directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within this concluding commentary, three important gender-stalking intersections that emerge across the papers included in this special issue are explicated. First, we consider the degree to which existing measures and definitions of stalking are gender sensitive toward both men and women. Second, gender roles and gender socialization scripts are shown to impact our understanding of, perceptions about, and the impacts associated with stalking-like behaviors for both genders. Third, the intersection of gender and developing theories of stalking is considered. Finally, it is argued that future stalking researchers will need to be sensitive to changing cultural norms about gender, relationships, technology, and privacy as these are likely to alter the prevalence, perceptions, and prosecution of stalking within the United States and across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stalking research has increased substantially in the past 20 years. This special issue is intended to contribute to this literature by using gender as a focus point in 1) applying new theoretical perspectives that incorporate the role of gender to the study of stalking perpetration (Davis et al. ; Duntley and Buss ), 2) addressing divergent findings regarding gender in experiences of victims (Sheridan and Lyndon ) and perpetrators (Thompson et al. ), and 3) furthering the study of how gender influences perceptions of stalking (Cass and Rosay ; Dunlap et al. ; Sinclair ; Yanowitz and Yanowitz ). To place this special issue in context of the current state of knowledge on gender and stalking, we review the state of the existing research as it relates to the domains covered by articles present in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments investigated mock-juror perceptions of intimate stalking using Kentucky's (United States) anti-stalking legislation. Experiment 1 used a mock-juror methodology in which 177 undergraduates (87 men and 90 women) from a large southeastern US university read a stalking trial summary and rendered individual judgments as mock jurors. The main research question of Experiment 1 was how participant gender impacted trial judgments (e.g., verdict) when the gender of both the defendant and victim were manipulated. Overall, the results showed that men rendered significantly fewer guilty verdicts than women, particularly in conditions that included the prototypical type of intimate stalking (female victim/male defendant). In Experiment 2, also using a mock-juror methodology, 129 undergraduates (51 men and 78 women) from a large southeastern U.S. university read a stalking trial summary (involving a female victim and male defendant) and rendered individual judgments as mock jurors. The main research question of Experiment 2 focused on whether victim fear (high or low) impacted trial judgments (e.g., verdict). The results yielded an interaction of participant gender and victim fear. Specifically, whereas different levels of fear did not impact women, men yielded fewer guilty verdicts in the low victim fear condition compared to the high victim fear condition. The results of the present experiments are discussed in terms of the implications of stalking allegations brought to trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two hundred forty-one undergraduates described their experiences with unrequited love, both as pursuers (actors) and love interests (targets). As expected, targets and actors perspectives differed. As targets, participants reported being on the receiving end of more unwanted courtship tactics, violent and nonviolent, than they reported using as pursuers. Further, participants in the actor role—particularly men—tended to overreport receiving signals that their love interest was reciprocating, and to underreport receiving rejections. Meanwhile, targets—particularly women—claimed numerous attempts to reject, including explicitly stating “I am definitely not interested in you,” and indicated minimal positive reactions to the unwanted pursuit. Implications of these differences, and others, in perspectives for understanding difficulties in differentiating persistence from stalking are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]