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Is It Stalking? Perceptions of Stalking Among College Undergraduates

NCJ Number
203929
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 31 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2004 Pages: 73-96
Author(s)
Lorraine Phillips; Ryan Quirk; Barry Rosenfeld; Maureen O'Connor
Date Published
February 2004
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the perceptions of stalking among college students.
Abstract
With a growing number of antistalking laws defining stalking in terms of whether the individual had a reasonable fear of harm, the need to understand how individuals perceive stalking behaviors has become increasingly evident. These studies addressed several important aspects related to perceptions of stalking in complementary ways. The first study used a vignette in which the determination of whether stalking had actually occurred was ambiguous. In this context, the relationship between target and perpetrator and the gender of the actors significantly influenced responses to the stalking vignettes. Participants were less likely to characterize the vignette as stalking when the actors were described as having previously been involved in an intimate relationship compared to the vignette describing the two characters as having been merely acquaintances or having had no prior relationship (strangers). Although gender of the vignette characters did not influence determinations of whether stalking had occurred, it did influence perceptions of safety for the target of the behaviors. The perception of male stalkers as more dangerous than female stalkers is not consistent with the existing empirical data. The second study used a similar methodology, but instead of comparing responses to an ambiguous vignette, vignettes were systematically varied in terms of the severity of stalking behavior. In these analyses, in which gender of the perpetrator and target were varied in a similar manner to the first study, severity of stalking clearly influenced determinations of whether stalking had occurred. Participants were more likely to consider the behaviors described to be criminal (stalking) in the vignettes describing third- and fourth-degree stalking (felony and misdemeanor, respectively) compared to the no-stalking vignette. There were no differences between the third- and fourth-degree stalking regarding criminality. Participants that reported personal prior experience of having been stalked did not differ from those that reported no such experience in relation to perceptions of stalking or risk of harm in any of the vignettes used in the first study. These data were not available in the second study. 25 references