Dating Violence Myths Scale (DaVi-M)

1. Abstract

The Dating Violence Myths Scale (DaVi-M) is an empirically validated psychometric instrument developed by Toplu-Demirtaş, Soysal, Aracı-İyiaydın, and Mesut (2023) designed to capture, quantify, and evaluate cognitive misperceptions, stereotypes, victim-blaming attributions, and sociocultural rationalizations surrounding relationship abuse during emerging adulthood. Dating violence (DV) represents an alarming public health crisis and psychological concern among college students and young adults internationally, yet its perpetuation is frequently maintained by insidious cognitive myths that normalize abusive interactions, invalidate victim suffering, and reframe coercive control as authentic passion or romantic devotion.

The DaVi-M consists of 9 self-report items evaluated on a standard 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Methodologically, the scale’s psychometric architecture was established across three rigorous empirical phases leveraging both cross-sectional cohorts and longitudinal designs across samples of emerging adult university students, encompassing individuals with active dating experience as well as non-dating peers. Factor analytic investigations revealed robust structural validity, resolving into complementary dimensions: Myths on Victims/Survivors (reflecting victim-blaming, denial of harm, and trivialization of survivor agency) and Myths on Dating Violence (capturing the normalization of aggression, relational conflict escalation, and misinterpretations of jealousy as romantic passion). The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated exemplary model fit statistics (χ²/df = 1.270, p = .169, RMSEA = .029, SRMR = .037, CFI = .989), affirming construct validity alongside significant concurrent and predictive validity with psychological violence perpetration, irrational romantic beliefs, and the normalization of relational aggression.

2. Keywords

Dating Violence Myths, Intimate Partner Violence, Emerging Adulthood, Victim Blaming, Psychological Aggression, Romantic Beliefs, Psychometrics, Factor Analysis, Relational Aggression, Scale Validation

3. Authors

The Dating Violence Myths Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by a collaborative research team in developmental psychology, clinical mental health counseling, and relational aggression studies:

• Ezgi Toplu-Demirtaş, Ph.D. — Department of Guidance and Psychological Counseling, Faculty of Education, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey. Correspondence: MEF University, Ayazağa Cad. No: 4, Maslak, Sarıyer, Istanbul, Turkey, 34396. Email: [email protected] / [email protected].
• Demet Esra Soysal, M.S. — Department of Guidance and Psychological Counseling, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Ayşegül Aracı-İyiaydın, Ph.D. — Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, TED University, Ankara, Turkey.
• Cansel Mesut, B.A. — Department of Guidance and Psychological Counseling, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey.

4. Purpose

The overarching purpose of the Dating Violence Myths Scale (DaVi-M) is to provide researchers, counseling psychologists, higher education administrators, and social policy planners with a concise, theoretically grounded, and psychometrically robust measurement tool to assess cognitive distortions and cultural scripts that justify, obscure, or perpetuate dating violence among young and emerging adults. Emerging adulthood, typically spanning ages 18 through 29, constitutes a critical developmental epoch marked by identity exploration, the establishment of serious romantic relationships, and the renegotiation of interpersonal autonomy. Unfortunately, it is concurrently characterized by the highest epidemiological incidence rates of intimate partner aggression, spanning psychological degradation, digital coercive surveillance, physical victimization, and sexual assault.

Despite the prevalence of these behaviors, interpersonal aggression in dating contexts often goes unrecognized or unreported because it is mediated through cultural myths. Dating violence myths operate as generalized, culturally ingrained, and functionally protective cognitive shields that shift moral culpability away from perpetrators onto victims, reframe coercive behaviors as signs of deep romantic commitment, or dismiss relational volatility as an inevitable byproduct of passionate engagement. Prior instruments measuring domestic abuse myths frequently concentrated on marital cohorts, cohabitating partners, or severe physical and sexual assaults, often failing to capture the nuanced, informal, and psychosocial dynamics endemic to contemporary university dating contexts.

In clinical, preventive, and educational applications, the DaVi-M serves as a diagnostic screening instrument to evaluate baseline relational attitudes in psychoeducational workshops, premarital counseling, campus-wide consent campaigns, and therapeutic interventions. In developmental and empirical research, the instrument facilitates testing structural equation models, longitudinal mediation trajectories, and intervention effectiveness metrics by operationalizing how cognitive endorsements of dating myths prospectively predict relational conflict, psychological abuse perpetration, and victim silence.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying the DaVi-M encompasses cognitive schemas, cultural scripts, and attributional biases that mischaracterize the etiology, culpability, nature, and consequences of interpersonal violence within dating relationships. Rather than reflecting isolated, idiosyncratic misconceptions, dating violence myths function as systematized socio-cognitive frameworks that normalize aggression, distort interpersonal empathy, and sustain power imbalances. Drawing from multidimensional psychometric evaluation, the construct is conceptualized across two primary operational dimensions:

Myths on Victims/Survivors (Items 1–5)

This dimension assesses attitudes and attributions that direct accountability toward individuals subjected to dating violence, diminish the severity of their trauma, or invalidate the barriers they face when attempting to terminate an abusive union. Grounded in defensive attribution mechanisms and the psychological need to preserve belief in an orderly social world, this subscale captures:

• Deservingness and Derogation: The cognitive assumption that individuals who experience violence must have engaged in provocative, improper, or culpable behaviors that directly precipitated or justified the violent response (e.g., believing that staying in an abusive dynamic indicates the victim deserved the outcome).
• Masochistic Attribution: The pathological misconstruction that victims remain in abusive partnerships out of covert enjoyment, psychological weakness, or unconscious gratification derived from mistreatment.
• Shared and Culpable Responsibility: Dispersing moral culpability by maintaining that victims share direct responsibility for their partner’s aggressive choices.
• Trivialization of Exit Barriers: Minimizing the complex structural, emotional, psychological, and physical hazards of leaving an abusive relationship by asserting that any authentic desire to leave allows one to easily walk away.
• Minimization and Exaggeration Claims: Accusing survivors of fabricating, embellishing, or dramatically exaggerating the physical, psychological, or emotional harm they experienced.

Myths on Dating Violence (Items 6–9)

This subscale assesses cognitive schemas that mischaracterize dating aggression as normal romantic interaction, uncontrollable emotional escalation, or isolated pathology. It focuses on the relational dynamics of intimate abuse:

• Romanticization of Jealousy and Aggression: Conflating pathological possessiveness, jealousy, and coercive control with authentic romantic passion, thereby treating aggressive outbursts as understandable expressions of deep affection.
• Normalization of Relational Conflict: Normalizing episodic physical or verbal altercations as common, healthy, and inevitable elements of intense romantic bonds.
• Inevitable Escalation: Conceptualizing arguments as possessing an organic, autonomous trajectory that naturally spirals into physical violence beyond the conscious agency or intentionality of the partners involved.
• Marginalization and Othering: Framing dating abuse exclusively as an anomaly confined to severely dysfunctional partnerships or psychologically disturbed individuals, thereby obscuring its prevalence across typical social contexts.

6. Theoretical Framework

The construction and validation of the Dating Violence Myths Scale rests upon several complementary psychological theories explaining how individuals organize relational information, attribute moral causality, and internalize cultural standards regarding gender, intimacy, and aggression.

Just World Theory and Defensive Attribution

Melvin Lerner’s Just World Hypothesis posited that individuals maintain an overarching cognitive need to believe that the world is inherently fair, predictable, and moral, where people receive what they deserve and deserve what they receive. When confronted with intimate partner violence among peers, individuals experience acute cognitive dissonance and existential vulnerability: if an innocent peer can be arbitrarily abused by an intimate partner, the observer is similarly at risk. To preserve the illusion of personal safety and systemic justice, individuals employ defensive attribution by derogating the victim. The DaVi-M systematically operationalizes these defensive rationalizations, capturing how young adults blame victims’ personalities or behaviors to insulate themselves from perceived relational vulnerability.

Social Cognitive Theory and Script Theory

According to Social Cognitive Theory (Albert Bandura) and Relational Script Theory (Gagnon & Simon), human social behavior is mediated through observational learning, cognitive schemas, and cultural scripts that dictate normative responses within specific relationship paradigms. Mass media, peer cultures, and familial socialization often disseminate romanticized scripts that equate jealousy with devotion, emotional turbulence with authenticity, and dominance with romantic commitment. When individuals internalize these scripts, aggressive acts within dating relationships cease to be categorized as violent violations; instead, they are perceived as scripted elements of passionate romance. The DaVi-M indexes the degree to which an individual has internalized these dysfunctional relational scripts.

Cognitive Distortion and Rationalization Models

From a cognitive-behavioral perspective, myths function as automated cognitive distortions and cognitive rationalizations. Perpetrators employ these myths as preparatory justifications or post-hoc neutralization techniques (Sykes & Matza) to mitigate feelings of guilt, evade moral responsibility, and disengage internal self-regulatory sanctions. For victims, these cultural myths encourage self-blame and foster learned helplessness, reinforcing silence and hindering help-seeking behaviors.

7. Validity

The Dating Violence Myths Scale has undergone extensive empirical psychometric testing, demonstrating robust construct, concurrent, convergent, and longitudinal predictive validity across multiple student cohorts:

Construct Validity

Construct validity was established through sequential exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The underlying factor structure demonstrated that items mapped onto coherent, theoretically expected dimensions reflecting victim-blaming attributions and the normalization of relational aggression. The structural model displayed goodness-of-fit indices that met or exceeded rigorous psychometric benchmarks, demonstrating structural construct stability across distinct developmental samples.

Concurrent and Convergent Validity

Concurrent validity was examined by correlating DaVi-M scores with established psychological, behavioral, and relational constructs:

• Psychological Dating Violence Perpetration: DaVi-M scores correlated positively and significantly with self-reported psychological dating violence perpetration, r(160) = .301, p < .05. Emerging adults who endorsed dating violence myths were significantly more prone to engaging in manipulative, degrading, and coercive psychological behaviors toward dating partners.
• Irrational Romantic Beliefs: Total myth endorsement exhibited a significant positive correlation with irrational romantic beliefs (e.g., romantic perfectionism, absolute idealization of passion), r(160) = .250, p < .05. This supports the theoretical premise that dating myths are anchored within dysfunctional romantic ideologies.
• Acceptance of Relational Aggression: Emerging adults who exhibited higher endorsement of dating violence myths demonstrated marked tolerance and acceptance of psychological aggression within romantic relationships, r(160) = .399, p < .05.

Predictive and Longitudinal Validity

A notable strength of the DaVi-M validation methodology is its reliance on longitudinal tracking alongside cross-sectional sampling. The scale demonstrated predictive validity across time among both currently dating and non-dating emerging adults. Baseline scores on the DaVi-M prospectively predicted relational tolerance of conflict and subsequent engagement in aggressive relational patterns, confirming that the instrument captures enduring cognitive schemas rather than transient affective states.

8. Reliability

The internal consistency of the DaVi-M has been thoroughly evaluated across multiple samples. Classical test theory indices demonstrate acceptable psychometric performance, considering the brief item count across dimensions:

Internal Consistency Coefficients

In the primary psychometric validation study by Toplu-Demirtaş et al. (2023), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated for the individual subscales and the overall instrument:

• Factor 1: α = .647
• Factor 2: α = .610
• Factor 3: α = .604
• Overall 9-Item Composite Scale: α = .680

While these subscale coefficients fall slightly below the traditional .70 threshold recommended by Nunnally (1978), psychometricians recognize that Cronbach’s alpha is directly influenced by scale length. For compact subscales containing only 3 to 5 items, alphas in the .60 to .70 range are typical and considered acceptable for research purposes, provided the structural model shows strong fit. Item-deletion analyses revealed that removing individual items did not improve internal consistency coefficients, indicating that each item contributes unique construct variance without unnecessary collinearity.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent structural integrity of the DaVi-M was analyzed using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across independent samples of emerging adults.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial exploration of the item correlation matrix yielded clear evidence supporting a multi-factor structural solution. The scree plot demonstrated a distinct elbow following the third factor. Three primary factors yielded eigenvalues greater than 1.0, collectively accounting for 57.53% of the total variance across the item pool. Every item demonstrated robust primary factor loadings exceeding .30, showing clear structural partitioning without problematic cross-loadings.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on an independent sample (N = 330) to test structural integrity. The empirical data demonstrated an exceptional fit to the structural model:

• Chi-Square Metric: χ²(24, N = 330) = 30.476, p = .169 (a non-significant chi-square confirms the empirical model does not differ significantly from the hypothesized structure).
• Normed Chi-Square: χ²/df = 1.270, well within the conservative ≤ 3.0 threshold for good fit (Kline, 2005).
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .029 (90% Confidence Interval: [.000, .056]), well below the standard .05 cutoff for close fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .037, well below the .08 ceiling recommended by Hu & Bentler (1999).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .989, exceeding the .95 benchmark for superior model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Collectively, these indices confirmed that the DaVi-M possesses an exceptionally robust structural foundation.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Name: Dating Violence Myths Scale (DaVi-M)
• Test Type: Self-report psychological scale / inventory
• Author Group: Ezgi Toplu-Demirtaş, Demet Esra Soysal, Ayşegül Aracı-İyiaydın, and Cansel Mesut (2023)
• Number of Items: 9 items
• Factor Structure / Subscales:
  • Myths on Victims/Survivors (Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
  • Myths on Dating Violence (Items 6, 7, 8, 9)
• Target Population: Emerging adults, college students, and young adults (ages 18–30+), suitable for both dating and non-dating individuals regardless of gender identity.
• Response Format: 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral / Undecided, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree)
• Reverse-Scored Items: None. All items are positively keyed toward myth endorsement.
• Scoring Procedure: Items are summed or averaged across the entire scale or within respective subscales. Total scores range from 9 to 45 (or 1.0 to 5.0 when using mean scores). Higher scores indicate greater endorsement of dating violence myths, higher victim-blaming attributions, and elevated cognitive rationalization of relationship aggression.
• Administration Modality: Available in paper-and-pencil format or secure electronic survey platforms. Administration time is approximately 3 to 5 minutes.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Dating Violence Myths Scale (DaVi-M) was published in 2023 by Toplu-Demirtaş and colleagues in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. In alignment with academic psychometric conventions, the instrument is available free of charge for non-commercial scientific research, academic inquiry, university coursework, and educational prevention programs. Researchers, clinicians, and practitioners seeking to employ the scale in scholarly investigations, epidemiological studies, or institutional program assessments are encouraged to consult the original peer-reviewed publication and maintain standard academic attribution by citing the development article. Commercial deployment, proprietary monetization, or integration into commercial diagnostic platforms requires explicit written permission from the corresponding author, Dr. Ezgi Toplu-Demirtaş.

12. References

Browne, M. W., & Cudeck, R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K. A. Bollen & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models (pp. 136–162). SAGE Publications.

Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118

Kline, R. B. (2005). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. Plenum Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0448-5

Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Toplu-Demirtaş, E., Soysal, D. E., Aracı-İyiaydın, A., & Mesut, C. (2023). Making the myths of dating violence visible: Developing a new scale and testing its psychometrics through cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 38(13-14), 8136–8161. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605231153890

13. Items of the Scale