Abstract:

This study aims at examining the relationship between university students' perceptions of dating violence, their exposure to dating violence and their early experiences and witnessing violence. The study group of the research consists of 2559 university students, 1651 of whom are female (64.6%) and 908 of whom are male (35.4%) at a university located in the Central Black Sea Region of Turkey. The ages of the students range from 17 to 32 (mean = 22.06, Sd =3.24). The data of the research were collected with Personal Information Form and Attitudes Towards Dating Violence Questionnaire (ATDVQ). While analyzing the data, descriptive statistics and chi-square independence analysis were used. In this study, it was revealed that university students' experiences of dating violence are generally at a high level. On the other hand, it was revealed that female participants have a higher awareness of dating violence. In addition, female participants evaluated the expressions of being forced into sexual intercourse and being treated as a sexual object as dating violence at a higher rate. Another striking result of the study is that university students who were exposed to and witnessed violence in their childhood have more experiences of dating violence. This result reveals that being exposed to ill-treatment or witnessing bad life events in childhood has a negative effect on their romantic relationships in their future lives.