Existing literature indicates that parenting styles affect the development of cyber aggression in offspring differently, depending on children gender. The present study investigates whether mothers’ and fathers’ parenting styles show similar gender differences in their associations with a new form of dating violence: cyber dating abuse (CDA). The limited evidence on the issue focuses on the relation that each parenting style has with CDA perpetration, without considering CDA victimization nor the joint effects of fathers and mothers’ parenting styles. The present study contributes to the research on gender differences in parenting by examining whether young adults’ perceptions of maternal and paternal parenting styles during childhood were independently and/or jointly related to their perpetrated and suffered CDA and whether these relations differed across young adults’ gender. 351 young adults (50.7% males), aging between 18 and 35 years and having a romantic relationship, c
21 as well as lower empathy than shown by the victims.
22 Often adolescents who inflict violence on others do so because they themselves are suffering or have suffered from abuse or early abandonment, or whose behavior is derived from living in a conflictive setting within the family, or where peers negatively influence their behavior.
Youths who develop in a violent setting show more stable aggressive traits and belief in the use of aggression. This, along with patterns of upbringing marked by rejection, severity or overprotection can cause moral disconnection from their acts and lead them to stronger justification of the use of violence, or to attribute the reason for such behavior to factors outside themselves.