Two new measures of attitudes about the acceptability of teen dating aggression

Aggression in dating relationships is associated with attitudes that justif y its use. Attitudes about dating aggression are targeted by prevention eff orts, contributing to a need to measure these attitudes sensitively, accura tely, and multidimensionally. We describe two new measures of attitudes abo ut aggression, each tapping different attitudinal components, and compare t heir psychometric properties with an existing scale. The I st assesses atti tudes about physical aggression in provocative situations. The 2nd taps att itudes about verbally aggressive, controlling, and jealous tactics against a dating partner. Data from 2,313 high school students were factor analyzed and cross-validated for each new scale. Compared with an existing measure, the scales had comparable levels of reliability and validity and improved response distributions. A 2nd-order factor analysis lends support to a mult idimensional view of attitudes about dating aggression.