Once bitten, twice shy: An exploratory study of victim impact from and adoption of self-protective behaviours against cyber abuse Zarina I. Vakhitova * , Rob I. Mawby † , Clair L. Alston-Knox ‡ September 6, 2019 Abstract Background and purpose of the research: The impact of crime on its victims is reflected in the expansion of victim services across the world since the 1970s. These policy developments have largely expanded alongside research on how crime affects victims. Most established research has focused on conventional crimes such as burglary, sexual and violent offences, with little of the published research examining the impact of online crime like cyber abuse. The current paper explores a relatively new subject, the impact of cyber-abuse on its victims and the factors associated with the adoption of self-protective behaviours following victimization from different types of cyber abuse. Methodology: To better understand the impact of cyber abuse on its victims, the data from a large nationwide (US) crowd-sourced sample (N =1, 463) of adult members of an online labour portal Mechanical Turk was collected using an online survey platform Qualtrics. Around half of the respondents reported experiencing at least one type of cyber abuse victimization (N = 746) and were included in the sample analyzed in this study. To identify the factors predictive of higher victim * zarina.vakhitova@monash.edu † ProfessorRobMawby@hotmail.com ‡ calston-knox@pa-group.com.au