Stalking and Psychological Abuse

Two dimensions (pursuit and physical threat) of stalking behaviors as assessed by the Obsessive Relational Pursuit Inventory (Spitzberg & Cupach, 1999) and psychological abuse (dominance/isolation and emotional/verbal) and their predictors were examined in a sample of 164 college women and 119 men. Stalking and psychological abuse were strongly related for men but not for women. Women reported lower levels of stalking but not psychological abuse. For men, stalking and abuse were significantly correlated with anger-jealousy, lack of forgiveness, and lack of emotional intelligence, and high Macho scores. For women, anger-jealousy, forgiveness, and Macho were correlated with psychological abuse but not with stalking