Bad Romance: Exploring the Factors That Influence Revenge Porn Sharing Amongst Romantic Partners

Joseph M. Sirianni 1, Arun Vishwanath 2 *
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1 Niagara University, USA
2 University at Buffalo SUNY, USA
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 6, Issue 4, pp. 42-73. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/2569
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ABSTRACT

The study of revenge in a romantic context has steadily gained traction in the social sciences. Researchers have been interested in exploring what influences romantic revenge, but most studies have failed to specify the type of romantic revenge individuals carry out and also ignored the impact of technology on the enactment of revenge. The current study addressed these issues using social cognitive theory by examining a specific type of romantic revenge enabled by technology– revenge porn. Revenge porn is the nonconsensual sharing of a romantic partner’s sexual images through the Internet or mobile phones. Although this behavior has been widely covered by the mainstream media, it has been largely ignored by the scientific community. Two provocation conditions (high severity and low severity) were designed to act as a stimulus to elicit responses from participants. Following exposure to one of the provocation stimuli, participants (N = 200) answered questions designed to examine the motivations that were most likely to lead them to participate in disseminating revenge porn. Results reveal that dispositional vengefulness, vicarious experience, and expected outcomes played a role in predicting the likelihood for sharing revenge porn. Implications for future research on revenge porn are discussed.
Keywords: revenge porn, romantic revenge, revenge, social cognitive theory

CITATION

Sirianni, J. M., & Vishwanath, A. (2016). Bad Romance: Exploring the Factors That Influence Revenge Porn Sharing Amongst Romantic Partners. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 6(4), 42-73. https://doi.org/10.29333/ojcmt/2569

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