Stalking Victimization and Emotional Consequences: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between American and Spanish University Students

• Author: Victoria Fernández Cruz,Fawn T. Ngo
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X21990816
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X21990816

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2022, Vol. 66(6-7) 694 –717

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X21990816

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Article

Stalking Victimization and

Emotional Consequences:

A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Between American and

Spanish University Students

Victoria Fernández Cruz2 and Fawn T. Ngo1

Abstract

This paper entails a comparative study between a country that has criminalized

stalking for almost three decades (the U.S.) and a nation that just recently outlawed

the phenomenon (Spain). Employing a sample of American and Spanish university

students, we examined the prevalence and types of stalking behaviors and victims’

emotional responses to their victimization. We also explored whether experiencing

a particular category of stalking behaviors (i.e., surveillance and approach stalking)

triggers specific emotional responses similarly among American and Spanish victims.

We found more than two-thirds (36%) of the Spanish students (n = 638) and almost

half (48%) of the American students (n = 411) reported that they have experienced

the unwanted or intrusive behaviors included in our study. We also found relative

to Spanish victims, American victims were significantly more likely to encounter

approach stalking and report feeling anxious, angry, depressed, sick, and suicidal as

a result of their victimization. Implications of our findings and directions for future

research are discussed.

Keywords

stalking victimization, unwanted and intrusive behaviors, cross-cultural study, negative

emotions, university students

1Department of Criminology, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, University of South

Florida, Tampa, USA

2Department of Legal and Political Sciences, University International of Catalonia, Barcelona, Catalunya,

Spain

Corresponding Author:

Fawn T. Ngo, Department of Criminology, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, University of

South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler, Tampa, FL 33620-9951, USA.

Email: fawnngo@usf.edu

990816IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X21990816International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyNgo and Cruz

research-article2021

Ngo and Cruz 695

Introduction

In 1990, the U.S. became the first industrialized country to criminalize stalking after

California enacted anti-stalking legislation (Tjaden, 2009). In the following decade,

other nations including Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Ireland, and several

European countries also passed legislation addressing the phenomenon (Chan &

Sheridan, 2020a; Spitzberg & Cupach, 2014; Villacampa & Pujols, 2019). Stalking

has been documented as a significant social and legal problem that is widespread and

universal (Chan & Sheridan, 2020a; 2020c; Chapman & Spitzberg, 2003; Sheridan

et al., 2016, 2017). The emotional and psychological impact of stalking on victims

are also dire with many victims having to resort to extreme actions such as moving to

another city, changing their appearance, avoiding social activities, or getting a gun to

cope with their victimization (Amar, 2006; Baum et al., 2009; Björklund et al., 2010;

Chan & Sheridan, 2020b; Spitzberg & Cupach, 2014; Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998).

Interests in the crime of stalking over the past three decades have culminated in a

sizable and growing scholarship. The number of cross-national and cross-cultural

studies on stalking has also increased in recent years, but the majority of the research

tend to be conducted in only a handful of countries, namely, the U.S., the U.K., and

Australia (Chan & Sheridan, 2020a). Cross-cultural and cross-national research gen-

erally involves the employment of data from different societies or countries to exam-

ine human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior (Stamatel, 2009).

The advantage of the cross-cultural approach, as compared with the single cultural

approach, is that the latter does not allow for the generalization of results to other

societies or cultures. Cross-cultural studies are also essential and valuable for iden-

tifying, analyzing, and explaining the impact of socio and cultural factors across

societies. Notably, cross-cultural studies help expand and advance researchers’ and

scholars’ knowledge beyond the confinements of their surrounding context and ulti-

mately, culminate in a universal perspective on human behavior (Annamoradnejad

et al., 2019).

To address the current gap and expand the scholarship on cross-national and cross-

cultural studies related to stalking, we employ a sample of American and Spanish

university students and explore similarities and differences in the types of unwanted

and intrusive behaviors experienced among the respondents and the emotional conse-

quences of these activities. We also examine whether specific categories of unwanted

and intrusive behaviors (i.e., surveillance and approach stalking) trigger specific types

of negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear, depression, etc.) for both groups of victims. We

believe this research is the first cross-national study that examines the linkage between

different categories of stalking behaviors and various emotional consequences. Also,

our sample includes individuals known to be most vulnerable to the crime of stalking:

university students (Amar & Alexy, 2010; Edwards & Gidycz, 2014; Ngo & Piquero,

2019; Sheridan et al., 2016).

Relatedly, our project entails a comparison between a country that has criminal-

ized stalking for almost three decades (the U.S.) and a nation that has just recently

outlawed the offense (Spain). Our study also involves a comparison between two