Do Women's Coping Responses to Unwanted Pursuit Behaviors Reduce Future Victimization? A Prospective Exploration

While some studies have assessed perceptions of the effectiveness of coping responses to unwanted pursuit behavior (UPB) victimization, there is limited research assessing the prospective effectiveness of various coping responses in reducing victimization. The current study assessed the effectiveness of a range of coping responses in reducing UPB victimization over an 8-week timeframe. Undergraduate women who had reported experiencing two or more incidents of UPB following the break-up with a man within the past 3 years (N =181) completed measures on coping responses. Whereas Moving Against and Moving Toward responses were bivariately correlated with increases in UPB victimization across the 8-week interim, in a multivariate model, none of the coping responses were associated with Time 2 UPB victimization; rather, higher frequencies of both Time 1 UPB victimization and concurrent Time 2 intimate partner violence predicted Time 2 UPB victimization. More research and replication studies are needed since the results here suggest that current UPB response recommendations (e.g., changing social media accounts, maintaining a log of contact from the perpetrator) do not result in reductions in victimization; further research is needed to identify responses that do result in a reduction of unwanted pursuit.