Abstract

This study examines the roles of rejection sensitivity and gender sensitivity in the relationship between the exposure to domestic violence and date violence, in an attempt to prevent and intervene in the recent surge in date violence. To this end, an online survey was conducted on 400 college students at nine universities located in Seoul, Daejeon, Gyeongbuk, Daegu, and Ulsan; 390 data were used for the final analysis. The SPSS Statistics 22.0 and PROCESS macro v3.4 were utilized for analysis. First, the results showed that rejection sensitivity significantly mediated the relationship between the exposure to domestic violence and date violence. The more exposed to domestic violence, the higher the rejection sensitivity and the higher the date violence. Also, it was found that the moderating effect of gender sensitivity was significant in the relationship between the exposure to domestic violence and date violence. The more domestic violence exposure experiences, the higher the date violence, but the higher the gender sensitivity, the weaker the positive effect of the exposure to domestic violence on date violence. These findings that identified the factors affecting date violence can serve as basic data to prevent date violence, while suggesting effective interventions through rejection sensitivity and gender sensitivity.