School for Mass Communication Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45, 3000, Leuven, Belgium.
Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen), Brussels, Belgium.
Arch Sex Behav. 2020 May;49(4):1133-1145. doi: 10.1007/s10508-020-01671-5. Epub 2020 Mar 13.
Despite voiced concerns about sexual online risk behaviors related to mobile dating, little is known about the relation between mobile dating and sexting. The current cross-sectional study (N = 286) examined the relations between the use of geo-social dating apps and emerging adults' willingness to sext with a dating app match. By drawing on the prototype willingness model, both a reasoned path and a social reaction path are proposed to explain this link. As for the reasoned path, a structural equation model showed that more frequent dating app usage is positively related to norm beliefs about peers' sexting behaviors with unknown dating app matches (i.e., descriptive norms), norm beliefs about peers' approval of sexting with matches (i.e., subjective norms), and negatively related to perceptions of danger to sext with matches (i.e., risk attitude). In turn, descriptive norms were positively and risk attitudes were negatively associated with individuals' own willingness to sext with someone they had met through a dating app. As for the social reaction path, it was found that more frequent dating app usage was positively related to emerging adults' favorable evaluations of a prototype person who sexts with unknown dating app matches (i.e., prototype perceptions). The analyses further revealed that such prototype perceptions positively linked with emerging adults' own willingness to sext with a match. These results were similar among women and men and help explain why individuals may be willing to engage in sexting behavior with unknown others.
尽管人们对与移动约会相关的在线性行为风险表示担忧，但对于移动约会与发色情短信之间的关系却知之甚少。本横断面研究（N=286）考察了使用地理社交约会应用程序与成年早期人群与约会应用程序匹配对象发色情短信的意愿之间的关系。基于原型意愿模型，提出了理性路径和社会反应路径来解释这种联系。就理性路径而言，结构方程模型表明，更频繁地使用约会应用程序与关于同伴与未知约会应用程序匹配对象发色情短信行为的规范信念（即描述性规范）、关于同伴对与匹配对象发色情短信的认可的规范信念（即主观规范）呈正相关，与与匹配对象发色情短信的危险感知呈负相关（即风险态度）。反过来，描述性规范与个体与通过约会应用程序结识的人发色情短信的意愿呈正相关，而风险态度与个体与通过约会应用程序结识的人发色情短信的意愿呈负相关。至于社会反应路径，发现更频繁地使用约会应用程序与对与未知约会应用程序匹配对象发色情短信的原型人的有利评价（即原型感知）呈正相关。分析进一步表明，这种原型感知与成年早期人群与匹配对象发色情短信的意愿呈正相关。这些结果在女性和男性中相似，有助于解释为什么个体可能愿意与未知的他人发生发色情短信行为。
